Elon Musk predicts 3 huge milestones for the next decade: 'It sounds super sci-fi … but it’s going to happen'

Nevertheless, such predictions, made by the world’s richest man — who controls some of the world’s biggest tech companies — at the very least allow observers to imagine that a future once confined to the realms of sci-fi fantasy could actually be within reach.

So when Musk joined the SpaceX call after the company’s first-ever earnings report on Tuesday, all ears were on what grand pronouncement he might make next.

On the call Musk and his leadership team discussed various facets of the company, which posted a 92% year-over-year revenue growth of $7.8 billion. The notable achievement was offset, however, by the company’s $18.4 billion in capital expenditures — a 557% increase over 2025. As a result, SpaceX stock — which once peaked at $225 — dropped more than 8% Tuesday evening and was down 12% by Wednesday afternoon to $109 a share.

But the highlights of the call included Musk’s visions for the future of SpaceX — including one that he acknowledged sounds “super sci-fi right now, but it’s going to happen.”

Elon Musk’s three bold predictions for the next decade

Elon Musk’s vision for the future of SpaceX and, by extension, humanity is ambitious to say the least. On Tuesday’s earnings call, these three predictions stood out from the rest:

1. SpaceX would deliver $1 trillion in revenue by 2030: No company has ever recorded a trillion dollars in revenue in a year, but Musk believes SpaceX could hit that mark sooner than even he’d projected.

“Prior to the IPO, the financial projections we had were reaching $1 trillion in revenue in 2031. We now expect that to be in 2030. There’s a non-zero chance of that being in 2029,” Musk said.

This is significantly higher than recent forecasts from Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, which projected the company’s 2030 revenue at $470 billion and $330 billion, respectively.

One of the main hurdles remains the company’s capital expenditures, which came in at 40% higher than expected, while ongoing AI expenditures could keep rising in the coming years.

Though with companies like Anthropic sending SpaceX a monthly check for $1.25 billion for AI computing power and Musk noting on the call that they’re “rapidly expanding our compute capacity” to meet the needs of others, those checks could multiply significantly by 2030.

2. Starlink will provide the majority of the world’s internet in less than a decade: This is a bold prediction given the world boasts around six billion internet users and Starlink’s current subscriber base of 12 million represents about 0.2% of them.

Still, Musk said “it’s not out of the question” that the company will achieve the feat in “less than 10 years” — though he did qualify it with “at least in countries where we’re allowed to operate.”

Starlink data shows its services are available in more than 155 countries and markets and, while it doubled year-over-year subscribers with 12 million, that fell just short of expectations.

Still, the connectivity arm of SpaceX, anchored by Starlink, proved the only profitable sector of the company in the earnings report, pulling in more than a billion dollars — even as revenue per subscriber dropped $20 since last year due to offering more lower-tiered plans.

3. SpaceX could build a manufacturing hub on the moon: Perhaps the boldest of Musk’s predictions is his desire to use robots “to scale up manufacturing on the moon” to build factories, a mass accelerator and enable solar and radiator production. This is the prediction he referred to as sounding “super sci-fi right now” while reiterating that “it will happen.”

Musk largely pivoted from colonizing Mars to building moon factories earlier this year, when he noted the more favorable travel capabilities to the lunar surface.

TechCrunch wrote that building on the moon “would require a lot more of Musk’s other dreams coming true first” — including making it “dramatically cheaper to get to space, which is the central requirement” to get all the raw materials required for building up there.

Others, however, noted that the notion isn’t as far-fetched considering such an operation could hold benefits for both NASA and the country as a whole.

As for a theoretical timeline for this factory city on the moon, SpaceX president and COO Gwyn Shotwell added that they’re aiming for “boots on the moon in 2028.”

SpaceX did not reply to Moneywise’s request for comment on Musk’s predictions.