Here's your Forbes Daily Briefing for Friday, April 11th.

Today on Forbes, Starlink's numbers could bring SpaceX's valuation crashing down.

Settling other planets isn't going to be cheap.

That's why Elon Musk, after setting out to develop lower-cost rockets at SpaceX, decided to make money

with them by launching a satellite network called Starlink to sell broadband internet access

to ruralites. Writing on his social network X last year, he said, quote, Starlink is how we are

paying for humanity to get to Mars. Starlink's progress has been stunning.

In March, less than five years after starting service,

it reached 5 million customers,

more than doubling the market of the previous satellite communications incumbents,

via Sat and Hughes, at their height. Sunny expectations for Starlink are one of the

main reasons investors have been eager to pump money into SpaceX. Its valuation hit $350 billion

in December in a sale of insider shares, making it the most valuable private company in the world.

That valuation has largely held steady on secondary markets this year, even as shares in Musk's

electric carmaker Tesla have plummeted 55% from a record high reached in mid-December amid

faltering sales and public fury over Musk's role in the Trump administration,

and embrace of right-wing nationalists in Europe.

On Wednesday, shares of Tesla surged 22% after President Trump suddenly announced a pause

in most reciprocal tariffs for 90 days.

By market closed Thursday, shares had dropped back down 7% for the day.

But even with a relatively steady valuation amid Tesla's troubles, some fears SpaceX, too, could face a reckoning,

with the upside for Starlink not as high as investors seem to be betting.

...