Inside Amazon’s Effort to Challenge Musk’s Starlink Internet Business

Amazon executives tend to describe their satellite venture, Project Kuiper, in philanthropic terms, emphasizing its potential to connect people in remote or impoverished areas with education and global commerce. Less altruistically, Amazon also hopes the $10-billion-plus project can transform it into a global telecommunications giant. The company plans to sell rooftop antennas to individual internet users, cloud-computing and data-recovery services to business, and connectivity to wireless companies to link remote cell towers to their networks, starting in 2025. Project Kuiper is among the Seattle-based company’s biggest bets, one of just a few that have survived two years into a cost-cutting drive that has eliminated many of the speculative projects started late in Jeff Bezos’s tenure as chief executive officer. It’s an enormous undertaking in an arena that has had more bankruptcies than successful businesses. Broadband is already widely available and, in many places where it isn’t, it’s not clear people will be able to afford space-based internet. Some Amazon observers see Project Kuiper as another front in the rivalry between Bezos and fellow billionaire Elon Musk, whose SpaceX operates the Starlink constellation of internet satellites. At the very least, Amazon is building an alternative to Musk’s service at a time when governments and corporations alike are looking for ways to reduce their reliance on the erratic and controversial businessman.