Written by: Little Gold Tooth

Amazon is taking action again.

This time, it has acquired the satellite communications company Globalstar for billions of dollars, continuing the latter's partnership with Apple and directly entering the communication capability of "mobile direct satellite connection."

This inevitably brings to mind the competition between Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk regarding space from years ago—originally thought to be nearing its conclusion, but it seems far from over now.

Amazon has not chosen to compete head-on with the number of satellites, but instead has taken a more fundamental approach by focusing on D2D (direct device) capabilities, attempting to find a breakthrough from the communication method itself.

When viewed in a broader context, this acquisition aligns well with Amazon's consistent strategy: not rushing to clash directly, but instead approaching from the periphery and gradually encircling. Its recent moves in the AI field are also reflecting this same logic.

Amazon Acquires Globalstar

Let’s first take a look at this acquisition.

Amazon's opening offer is indeed generous—the acquisition price is $11.6 billion, which is 40 times Globalstar's revenue from last year. Globalstar shareholders can choose to receive $90 per share in cash or 0.321 shares of Amazon stock. The cash payment is limited to 40% of Globalstar's shares.

On the surface, Amazon's acquisition of Globalstar seems to be about buying a satellite company, but interpreting it simply as "buying dozens of satellites" actually underestimates the true value of this deal.

The most valuable aspect of Globalstar is its unique and hard-to-replicate spectrum resources, as well as the direct device capabilities that have already been successfully developed around this spectrum.

Globalstar does not own many satellites—about a few dozen, which are continually being updated—but it possesses a spectrum known as S-band/L-band, which is a critical resource for "mobile direct satellite connection," rare and highly regulated.

The spectrum is allocated globally; it is not simply available for purchase. U.S. federal documents show that Globalstar is the only licensed MSS (Mobile Satellite Service) holder for the spectrum range 2483.5–2495 MHz; earlier FCC documents also describe it as the sole MSS system operator in this frequency range.

Globalstar's satellite network primarily provides stable, low-data communication directly to mobile devices, known as Direct-to-Device (D2D).

This technology no longer requires devices to connect to ground cellular base stations, making it crucial for supporting emergency services and providing connectivity in under-covered areas of cellular networks.

Apple is undoubtedly Globalstar's marquee client.

For instance, the "Emergency SOS" and "Find" satellite-based safety features in current iPhones and Apple Watches are supported by Globalstar’s D2D.

Apple is not just Globalstar's client.

In 2024, Apple invested approximately $1.5 billion in Globalstar to support the expansion of its iPhone communication services, which also resulted in Apple holding about 20% of Globalstar's shares.

At the end of last year, Globalstar announced that with Apple’s support, it is developing a new network that will increase its satellite count from approximately 24 to 54, including a few spare satellites.

At the same time as Amazon acquired Globalstar, its collaboration with Apple continues.

In other words, through this transaction, Amazon not only gains valuable spectrum assets and opens up D2D mobile direct connection scenarios, but also starts off with a major client like Apple.

Is the Space War Between Bezos and Musk Not Over?

Amazon's goal is clear: to strengthen its nascent satellite business and catch up with Elon Musk's Starlink. This move by Amazon coincides with SpaceX advancing its IPO plan.

Musk's Starlink has thousands of satellites and currently serves over 9 million users worldwide. SpaceX has rapidly deployed Starlink satellites at an astonishing pace, launching dozens at a time, creating the largest satellite constellation in the world. Starlink accounts for about 50% to 80% of SpaceX's revenue.

Amazon Is Still Far Behind, Currently Having Only Over 200 Satellites.

Amazon has been advancing its own low-earth orbit satellite project, which was previously known as Project Kuiper, and is now being more clearly referred to as Amazon Leo. The license it obtained from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) allows for the deployment of 3,236 low-earth orbit satellites. According to previous regulatory milestones, Amazon is required to deploy half by July 2026, which means 1,618 satellites, and the remainder by July 2029.

However, progress has not been as fast as planned. Recent reports from Reuters mention that Amazon has currently launched only about 243 satellites, falling far short of its mid-2026 target; a report from The Verge a few days ago indicated a similar figure of 241 satellites. These two numbers show slight discrepancies but point to the same fact: it is far from meeting the FCC’s originally set mid-term milestone.

Therefore, Amazon has sought a delay from the FCC. Public documents show that it hopes to push back the original mid-deployment deadline from July 30, 2026, to July 30, 2028.

In other words, Amazon has admitted that, at the current pace, it will not meet the original timeline.

Regarding commercialization, Amazon's new timeline indicates that Leo commercial services will launch by mid-2026. Andy Jassy recently mentioned this publicly, and some media have reported that Amazon has conducted corporate previews and signed a batch of clients or partners in advance, including aviation, carriers, and government-related clients.

The real bottlenecks are primarily the launch capabilities and the rhythm of the supply chain. Amazon's issues include not just satellite manufacturing but also tight rocket launch resources, manufacturing delays, and the lack of a mature high-frequency proprietary launch system like SpaceX has. Even Blue Origin cannot meet the launch demands, and to fill the schedule, it has to rely on third-party rockets, even using SpaceX’s Falcon 9.

Although Amazon's founder Jeff Bezos has long retired from the company, his "space war" with Musk has never ended, from disputes between Blue Origin and SpaceX a few years ago to the current low-earth orbit satellite battle between Amazon and SpaceX, the competition will continue.

Amazon's choice to enter through D2D is quite subtle; after all, Musk's Starlink primarily offers high-speed broadband services, and although it has partnered with telecom operators like T-Mobile to develop D2D services, it has not "monopolized" the field. Amazon has already fallen behind Starlink in the satellite broadband domain. Acquiring Globalstar will allow it to catch up in D2D spectrum layout and achieve a leap in D2D deployment.

Amazon's Ambition

If the acquisition of Globalstar is primarily a communications deal, then stepping back further reveals that, entering 2026, Amazon is also taking frequent actions in another field of great interest—AI.

Interestingly, just as Amazon's low-earth orbit satellite business seeks a breakthrough through D2D, Amazon's AI endeavors are also showcasing their own characteristics.

A few days ago, an internal memo from OpenAI was revealed, containing a particularly intriguing detail: Amazon was repeatedly mentioned.

OpenAI's new Chief Revenue Officer Denise Dresser emphasized in the memo that while the collaboration with Microsoft laid the foundation for OpenAI, this long-term partnership also limited OpenAI from serving clients "where their corporate customers are," which, for many enterprises, is precisely Amazon Bedrock.

She also mentioned that since the announcement of their partnership at the end of February, the related demand has been "astonishingly high." In other words, in OpenAI's own statements, Amazon has become an increasingly important corporate distribution channel, far more than just a new "deep-pocketed benefactor."

Just under two months ago, Amazon and OpenAI announced a multi-year strategic partnership, with Amazon investing $50 billion in OpenAI, making AWS the exclusive third-party cloud distribution provider for OpenAI’s enterprise platform Frontier. Some capabilities of OpenAI will be provided to enterprise clients through Amazon Bedrock, and they will jointly develop an "operating environment with state memory," allowing the model to retain context, task status, and historical information during operation instead of starting from zero with every call.

Moreover, Amazon is not making a single linear bet.

Its investment in Anthropic is earlier and deeper.

In 2023, Amazon first announced an investment of up to $4 billion in Anthropic; by November 2024, this partnership further expanded, and Anthropic officially confirmed that Amazon's total investment would increase to $8 billion, with AWS becoming its main cloud and training partner, while Amazon would continue to hold a minority stake. This means that with Anthropic, Amazon bets on equity, cloud, and self-developed chip ecosystems; while with OpenAI, it bets on larger capital amounts, corporate distribution, and platform binding. The two lines may seem different, but the underlying logic is consistent, which is to make AWS an unavoidable infrastructure platform for leading model companies.

If this memo inadvertently reminded the public of something, it is likely that Amazon's role in the AI race is no longer that of a "low-profile old giant," as many still perceive.

Over the past period, the external focus has tended to be on companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and Meta; Amazon seems to stand in the back row.

But looking back now, it has quietly occupied several very key positions: on one hand, it uses AWS to block entry for corporate clients; on the other, it leverages Bedrock to absorb model capabilities upwards; it stretches downwards into chips and computational power through Trainium, while also using capital to deeply bind itself with the most important foundational model companies.

It may not always be the company that generates the most buzz, nor is it always at the center of public discourse.

While the outside world is still focused on whose model is stronger and whose product is hotter, Amazon has been quietly connecting satellites, cloud, chips, corporate distribution, and model collaboration into a bigger landscape.

When this map truly takes shape, perhaps people will realize that the contest between Bezos and Musk may have never been confined to space.

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