Vodafone Takes Its SpaceX Concerns to Brussels as Wall Street Sticks to Its Guns

Vodafone has reportedly approached officials at the European Commission seeking regulatory guidance on the competitive threat posed by large digital and aerospace groups, naming SpaceX and its Starlink division outright. It is a familiar reflex: when new technology undercuts established networks, the incumbents go looking for the competition authorities.

The timing is no accident. Roughly a week ago SpaceX agreed to acquire a nationwide 800-MHz low-band spectrum portfolio from Grain Management for a reported $8 billion — a deal still subject to regulatory approval, but one that signals a strategic shift from launch provider to global telecommunications and data-infrastructure operator. For traditional carriers, the ground is moving beneath their feet.

A Launch Cadence That Looks Like a Timetable

Operationally, the machine is running flat out. On Thursday a Falcon 9 carried the classified USSF-481 mission to orbit for the U.S. Space Force; the booster used was flying for the 28th time, a marker of how routine reusability has become. Days earlier, Dragon delivered more than 6,000 pounds of supplies and research cargo to the International Space Station for NASA under the CRS-35 mission. Ship 40, meanwhile, returned to Starbase in Texas for inspection of its heat shield, engines and avionics.

What once required national space agencies and years of lead time now resembles a scheduled service for the U.S. military. That tempo has turned SpaceX from ambitious rocket builder into something closer to the backbone of government and defense architecture — and it is precisely this entanglement that animates the bull case on Wall Street while raising awkward questions about dependency.

Starshield and the Limits of Private Infrastructure

The deeper SpaceX pushes into defense-relevant structures, the more exposed it becomes to geopolitical friction. Recent reports that Starshield terminals are technically restricted above speeds of 160 kilometers per hour — a limitation that hampered military drone operations in Ukraine and has been the subject of talks between Kyiv, the Pentagon and the company — laid the dilemma bare. When armed forces depend on a private provider's proprietary networks, the boundary between corporate decisions and national security inevitably comes under scrutiny. SpaceX is no longer merely selling transport; it is touching operational warfare and questions of sovereignty.

Investors are not blind to that reputational risk. The stock has been consolidating: on Friday the shares slipped 1.9% to close at 129.96 euros, extending the decline over the past seven days to 10%. With a market capitalization of 1,962.16 billion euros, the company now trades in territory reserved for the world's most valuable technology giants — a valuation that rests less on reusable boosters than on a prospective infrastructure monopoly between Earth and low orbit.

Evercore Raises Its Sights

Against that choppy backdrop, the analyst community remains firmly constructive. On Friday Kutgun Maral of Evercore ISI lifted his price target to $275 from $230 and reiterated an Outperform rating, citing continued monetization of launch capacity and the global build-out of satellite systems. The gap between a target of that size and a share price near 130 euros says plenty about how much of the growth story the market has yet to price in — or how much regulatory and political risk it is already discounting.

The complaint in Brussels ultimately underscores a single point: Europe's established players no longer view SpaceX as an exotic space venture but as a fundamental threat to their business models. Supremacy in low Earth orbit is largely uncontested. What comes next will depend on how deftly the company handles the gathering headwind from regulators and governments down on the ground.