Elon Musk and the Rise of Space Capitalism

SpaceX promoter Elon Musk’s talk about building artificial intelligence data centers in space and colonizing Mars might look fanciful. His ideas about using SpaceX “to build the systems and technologies necessary to make life multiplanetary … and to extend the light of consciousness to the stars” are indeed surreal. But he has convinced investors that there is big money to be made in outer space. In doing so, Musk has heralded the rapid expansion of modern capitalism into orbit and beyond. That he has become the world’s first paper trillionaire is arguably less important than the fact that capitalism is all set to make its mark on outer space.

Since it dawned in the 1950s, the age of outer space has been the sole preserve of governments. The construction of rockets, satellites, space shuttles, orbiting space stations, and planetary exploration was driven by states. During the Cold War, space activity symbolized scientific achievement and national prestige in the all-encompassing competition between Washington and Moscow. Reaching for the skies was also about exploiting outer space for military purposes and gaining control over a new frontier. Catching up with the United States and the Soviet Union in space became a national obsession for lesser powers and aspiring ones.

As missile capabilities and outer space presence became a key dimension of the great nuclear arms race between Washington and Moscow, they negotiated the 1967 Outer Space Treaty (OST), which set some rules for global governance of the new domain. It prohibited the deployment of nuclear weapons in space; barred the national appropriation of celestial bodies; made governments responsible for space activity; and, under the pressure of the developing nations, proclaimed that outer space is the “province of all mankind” and that it must be used only for peaceful purposes.

That world is disappearing before our eyes. It was bound to; the world of the 1960s is well behind us. In making governments responsible for space activity, the OST was simply acknowledging the expansive challenges of access that space presented. As technological capabilities of commercial entities accelerated in the 20th and 21st century, the private players have now become critical actors.

In fact, private enterprise is becoming the principal driver of innovation, investment, and expansion. The center of gravity is shifting from governments to entrepreneurs, investors, and corporations, especially American ones.

No company symbolizes this transformation more than SpaceX. In roughly two decades, Musk has done what governments and established aerospace firms struggled to achieve for half a century. With innovations on making rockets cheaper and reusable, SpaceX dramatically reduced the cost of reaching orbit. Access to space, once the privilege of governments, has now become a commercial service.

This has led to SpaceX’s dominance of the global rocket launch business. The company was responsible for nearly 51 percent of all global orbital launches and nearly 85 percent of U.S. launches in 2025. Musk’s Starlink now dominates the satellite communications market, too. It owns, as of June, nearly 10,500 satellites in orbit and plans to deploy several thousand more as part of a constellation of 42,000. Through Starlink, SpaceX has created a global communications network in orbit. Governments, militaries, businesses, and individuals increasingly depend on a privately owned satellite constellation for connectivity. During Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the strategic significance of Starlink became evident to the entire world. As Musk looks beyond commercial and military communications and plans to build data centers in space, he is talking about launching a million more satellites.

This is a great reversal. For centuries, states built infrastructure and private actors used it. Now, private actors are increasingly building the space infrastructure on which states depend. SpaceX is not alone: Amazon’s Project Kuiper —recently rebranded as Amazon Leo—seeks to build a rival satellite network. New companies are developing lunar landers, asteroid-mining technologies, in-orbit servicing systems, and commercial space stations. Eutelsat’s OneWeb is another piece of private space infrastructure—and a rare example of a non-U.S. one.

As new frontiers open, the question of legal governance inevitably follows. The definitions of property rights and dispute settlement become critical. The era of European maritime expansion generated debates about sovereignty claims, freedom of navigation, trade with distant lands, and strategic rivalry. Space is now approaching a similar moment that casts a shadow over the high-minded sentiments of the Outer Space Treaty.

The OST prohibits sovereign claims over celestial territory. Yet it says remarkably little about the ownership of resources extracted from the moon, asteroids, or other celestial bodies. Can a company own the lunar minerals that it extracts? Can it establish exclusive operating zones around its facilities? Can it build infrastructure whose value depends on some degree of property protection? As many nations and companies rush toward the south pole of the moon, do first movers gain advantage over the latecomers despite the talk of equality under the OST? These questions were largely theoretical until recently. They are becoming practical today.

The United States has already moved toward recognizing the rights of companies to own resources they extract from space. In U.S. law today, private actors are expressly allowed to extract and own “space resources” that they recover (for example, from asteroids or the moon), but the United States explicitly rejects any claims of sovereignty or territorial ownership over celestial bodies themselves and insists that this must remain consistent with the OST.

Major space-faring nations are beginning to follow the United States’ lead, but the scale and intensity of private sector participation vary significantly. None of them, however, have the depth of the U.S. capital markets and private sector innovation ecosystem.

China has built a rapidly growing commercial ecosystem since reforming space policy in the mid‑2010s, but private firms operate under strong guidance of the communist party-state. Europe is actively promoting space entrepreneurship through several funding tools but remains far behind. Japan has begun to nurture private launch and satellite services, with start‑ups entering under updated legislation. India has liberalized its space sector, triggering the rise of a dynamic start-up environment, but it has yet to provide a formal legal framework for the expansive growth of private capital. Russia remains dominated by state corporations but is slowly opening the door for the private sector.

Two small but strategically ambitious states—Luxembourg and the United Arab Emirates—have moved with speed to create national legal frameworks that explicitly favor private enterprise in space. Luxembourg, a financial and corporate hub that bats far above its size, passed a law in 2017 that grants companies the right to own resources extracted from space. It backed this with public investment funds, regulatory clarity, and diplomatic outreach. The result: a cluster of asteroid‑mining and satellite‑servicing firms relocated to Luxembourg, turning the tiny state into an unlikely node of the global space economy.

The UAE has taken a similar path. Its 2019 space law provides a permissive environment for private actors, encourages foreign investment, and positions the country as a regional hub for commercial space activity.

As space capitalism globalizes, the ambiguities of the OST will come into sharper view. Private capital needs clear property rights to venture into a new domain. Yet this is precisely where geopolitics enters the picture. The debate about property rights in space is not merely a legal question; it is fast becoming a strategic one. The United States and its partners are building a framework centered on the Artemis Accords. China, working closely with Russia and other partners, is promoting alternative arrangements linked to its International Lunar Research Station project. Behind the technical language lies a larger contest over who will write the rules of the next frontier.

The rise of space capitalism does not eliminate the role of states. On the contrary, the world will need governments to come up with some set of agreed rules—just like in the maritime domain and the management of the radio frequency spectrum. As private capital pushes into space, there is bound to be intense competition among states to occupy positions of advantage before agreeing to new rules.

State monopoly over space might be ending, but governments will continue to back their own corporations to establish positions of dominance. Musk’s SpaceX IPO might well be a big new step in the great human contest for outer space.