Rumor: Google invests in SpaceX to provide the world with internet

Google is said to be planning to invest in SpaceX from well-known entrepreneur Elon Musk in the near future. Concrete amounts have not yet been mentioned, although the space company is said to be worth around 10 billion euros.

That reports The Information on Monday, which usually reports reliable news about Google. The site says, citing several anonymous sources, that the two companies want to work together to provide the world with the Internet.

Google and SpaceX are said to be still working on the potential agreement. The Information does not mention any conditions and amounts. However, there would be one source who claims that Google had recently valued SpaceX at 10 billion dollars. An investment, in which other companies also compete, would therefore be ‘huge’.

It is not surprising that Google seems to be reaching out to SpaceX. Both companies want to serve places where there is not yet good internet access. Google has its balloon project Loon for that, while SpaceX recently unveiled its plans for establishing global Internet access with a large-scale satellite network.

SpaceX’s satellites are to be placed in orbit at an altitude of about 1200km. That is considerably closer to Earth than conventional communications satellites, which are sometimes tens of thousands of kilometers above the Earth. The shorter distance would yield a higher internet speed.

For its satellite project, SpaceX is setting up an office with 60 employees. The project should grow to 1000 employees in the coming years. SpaceX states that it must also invest an amount of 10 billion dollars for the realization of the plans.