Almost 25 years after SpaceX aimed to make humanity multi-planetary, the company appears to have pivoted away from Mars. In February, Elon Musk announced a shift from Mars to the lunar surface, citing its usefulness for manufacturing orbital data centres. Last week, SpaceX stopped bidding for commercial Falcon 9 launches, restricting the rocket to US government customers only.

Gwynne Shotwell indicated in Paris that Crew Dragon, NASA’s only operational crew vehicle for routine missions, will eventually be wound down. In 2025, Falcon 9 flew 165 times, with only 43 flights carrying outside customers—nearly three-quarters of launches were for SpaceX’s own Starlink satellites. Launch services brought in $4.1bn last year, up just 8%.

In Q2 2026, space contributed only 12% of SpaceX’s $7.8bn revenue, while Starlink accounted for 55% and the AI business, launched in February, for 33%. Musk’s original bet on elastic launch demand failed to materialize, as the expected flood of customers did not arrive despite reduced prices. The real driver of SpaceX’s growth, the article suggests, has been narrative rotation—each new goal financed by belief in the last—rather than aerodynamics or telemetry.