SpaceX has a $300 (£220) price target despite not having recovered from its peak since IPO #
SpaceX will spend $100B (£73B) to build the largest spaceport on Earth along the Louisiana coast, a launch base Elon Musk plans to use to fly his Starship rocket and, in time, to orbit up to 1 million satellites built to run artificial intelligence in space.
The 125,000-acre site sits on Pecan Island in Vermilion Parish, roughly 200 miles west of New Orleans, on land that once belonged to ExxonMobil. SpaceX has named it Starbase, Louisiana. State officials and the company set out the plan on 25 August.
Louisiana Economic Development said the project would create 3,000 direct jobs over the next decade at an average salary of $92,600 (£67,900), along with an estimated 8,100 indirect ones. Musk suggested in a video that the total could climb towards 10,000. Governor Jeff Landry said the deal carries the state beyond $250B (£183B) in new investment, and he likened it to the Louisiana Purchase.
Morgan Stanley told clients the day after the announcement that SpaceX looked 'attractively valued', with analyst Adam Jonas keeping an overweight rating and a $300 (£220) price target, more than double the level at which the shares had recently traded.
Jonas said the scale of the Louisiana plan showed that investors had yet to grasp how far SpaceX intends to push Starship's launch rate.
'We're preparing to build a spaceport that, until now, has only existed in science fiction,' Musk said. He pictured a future in which reaching orbit becomes as ordinary as boarding a plane.
The Plan to Orbit 1 Million AI Satellites #
The Louisiana base is central to a wider SpaceX plan to move data centres off the planet. In a filing lodged with the Federal Communications Commission in January, SpaceX asked to launch as many as 1 million satellites that would act as orbital data centres, drawing on near-constant sunlight to power AI models far above the ground.
The company called the constellation 'a first step towards becoming a Kardashev II-level civilization,' a term for a society able to harness the full energy output of its star. The satellites would sit between 500 and 2,000 kilometres up, angled to stay in sunlight for as long as possible.
SpaceX has framed the plan as a way around the power and water constraints that limit computing hubs on the ground.
Rival firms have questioned the economics. Amazon Web Services chief Matt Garman, whose company runs data centres and its own satellite network, said at a February technology summit there are 'not enough rockets to launch a million satellites yet.' SpaceX has also asked regulators to waive the usual rule that half of a large constellation be in orbit within six years.
Why SpaceX Chose Louisiana's Coast #
The location lets rockets lift off southward over the Gulf and settle into near-polar, sun-synchronous orbits, the tracks SpaceX wants for solar-powered craft. Abundant local natural gas, needed for fuel and power, added to the case.
At full build, the spaceport will hold five launch complexes, each with two pads, plus a propellant plant, power generation, vehicle processing, and homes for staff and their families. It becomes SpaceX's fourth and largest launch site, after Texas, Florida, and California.
Construction is due to begin in 2027, with the first Starship flight targeted for 2029. SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said the campus would eventually handle thousands of launches a year. Starship, the rocket the site is built around, is still in development at the company's Texas base.
The commitment follows SpaceX's stock market debut in June, one of the largest on record, which briefly pushed Musk's paper fortune above $1T (£733B). He has said money from the listing would help pay for the orbital data centre programme.
The agreement also brings direct payments to Vermilion Parish. SpaceX agreed to pay the parish $25M (£18M) a year for 25 years under a payment-in-lieu-of-taxes deal, on top of a $20M (£15M) upfront sum, an arrangement the state values at more than $820M (£601M) in local payments.
The company also pledged $25M (£18M) to the Community Foundation of Acadiana and a 50% discount on Starlink for residents, and it plans to hold town halls across the area in the coming months.
The site was part of a decade-long lawsuit that accused ExxonMobil of worsening coastal erosion. The state settled the case earlier this year before transferring the land to SpaceX.
'Too often, Louisiana was left with the scars, while others enjoyed the profit,' Landry said of the coast's oil history. SpaceX says it will work with state agencies on coastal restoration and, in its words, 'bring the marsh back.'
© Copyright IBTimes 2026. All rights reserved.