Depends who you ask:
1. ๐ฎ๐ณ Hindu Farmer, India
"The best future is when the rains come on time, my crops grow well, and my children don't have to leave the village to eat. Simple dharma โ harmony with nature."
2. ๐ณ๐ฌ Christian Pastor, Nigeria
"A future where every child born in Africa has clean water, a school, and dignity. God's abundance isn't just spiritual โ it must be physical too."
3. ๐ธ๐ฆ Muslim Scholar, Saudi Arabia
"Al-adl โ justice. The best future is one where every human, regardless of wealth or status, is treated fairly under one moral law."
4. ๐ฏ๐ต Buddhist Monk, Japan
"No future is 'best' without inner peace. Technology without mindfulness creates suffering. The best future begins within."
5. ๐ง๐ท Indigenous Elder, Amazon
"Stop cutting our trees. The best future already existed before you arrived. Let the forest breathe again."
6. ๐บ๐ฆ War Refugee, Ukraine
"Tomorrow without bombs. That's it. Just one quiet morning with my children safe beside me."
7. ๐ธ๐ช Atheist Scientist, Sweden
"A future driven by evidence, not belief. Universal healthcare, clean energy, and no child dying from a preventable disease."
8. ๐ฒ๐ฝ Catholic Grandmother, Mexico
"A future where my grandchildren don't risk their lives crossing borders for a better life. Dignity at home โ that's abundance."
9. ๐ฐ๐ท Young Tech Worker, South Korea
"A future where AI creates opportunity equally โ not just for billionaires. Redistribute the gains, then we'll talk about the best future."
10. ๐ต๐ธ Teacher, Palestine
"A classroom. Four walls, a roof, and books. Just let our children learn without fear. That is the entire future we ask for."
Well, $100T isn't crazy at all.
It's actually conservative if you map out the verticals:
Starlink alone:
5B potential subscribers ร $150/mo = $9T/yr revenue at scale.
Even at 10x earnings, that's a $90T company by itself.
Starship changes the cost of access to space by 100x.
Every kg to orbit goes from $10K โ $100.
That unlocks orbital manufacturing, space solar power, and asteroid mining โ industries that don't exist yet because launch was too expensive.
Moon + Mars: The US will dominate both the Moon and Mars by a long way.
@SpaceX isn't just a transport company like UBS.
It becomes the infrastructure layer of a multi-planetary civilization.
Mars alone, at even 1% of Earth's future GDP, is tens of trillions.
Orbital data centers:
Latency-free global compute from LEO.
Combine that with Starlink backhaul, and you have AWS in space โ another multi-trillion vertical.
Defense contracts:
Starshield, rapid payload delivery, hypersonic โ the US military is writing blank checks. This alone could be a $1T business.
By 2051 (Elon's 80th), if even 3 of these hit, $1,000 Trillion becomes the floor, not the ceiling.
SpaceX will get there with the Earth, space, the Moon, Mars, and any other planet or moon where Elon decides to go next!
Will any competitor even show up to try to out-compete Elon?
@belliott123@jackprandelli@PatriotPops555 The problem that needs to be solved now is not power, it is water.
Desalination plants are needed for the millions of gallons of water consumed by these data centers, and sucking up water from natural resources will eventually just dry them up!
There are challenges like:
1) Heat Density
2) Thermal management in space
3) Facing away from the sun at all times
4) Maintenance of these specialized radiators
A 1 GW space data center would require a total radiator area of about 3,300 ft ร 3,300 ft. That's 11 million sq. ft., assuming 85% net radiator efficiency.
Data centers need their own dedicated infrastructure; it's the only logical solution.
The Fayetteville and Tucson incidents are symptoms of a fundamental category error: we are treating hyperscale data centers like large warehouses, when, in operational terms, they are closer to small cities.
A fulfillment center uses a parking lot's worth of water and power.
A hyperscale data center uses a small town's worth โ continuously, permanently, and with the growth curve of a tech startup.
When you permit something city-scale under industrial-user rules, you get gaps large enough to lose 30 million gallons through.
Cooling towers are the primary water consumers in a data center. They work by evaporative cooling, and that water is simply gone (into the air) from the local watershed.
When a campus draws from municipal supply, it competes directly with consumers in homes, hospitals, offices and farms.
Once live, a large campus can consume hundreds of millions of gallons per year. The right answer is a closed-loop system fed by desalination or atmospheric water generation, entirely decoupled from the municipal supply.
The cost is real, and it's shocking for a suburb, too, because the billing system didn't know a hookup existed.