The Elon Musk Starlink Announcement -- Telecoms -- October 9, 2026

Locator: 51896TELECOMS.
Locator: 51896STARLINK.  

Buried in this long discussion: American Tower (AMT, up 8% today); and Crown Castle (CCI, up 13% today on the announcement). Counterintuitive:

• each individual cell tower has, all of a sudden, become much more valuable
• there is little incentive now to build more towers (this will have huge impact in rural areas) 
• to make his system work, Elon Musk / Starlink needs terrestrial towers
• will Elon Musk end up paying the telecoms to use their towers?

Mostly smoke, little fire. It's a non-story (don't take this out of context).

It's a physics problem (that may never get solved); not an engineering problem (which was relatively easy to solve).

So, why would Elon Musk want it?

• military
• robots (every Elon Musk robot will be connected)
• Tesla autos (ditto) 

Analyst on CNBC: Craig Moffett, Moffettnathanson, senior analyst.

• the market is overreacting

Query:

With Elon Musk / Starlink announcement today (800 Mhz frequency announcement), the question naturally arises: with LEO isn't Amazon also likely to offer the same service?

Reply:

Query:  How soon could Starlink start providing this surface?

Query: 

A CNBC analyst says this makes the existing terrestrial towers much more valuable, stating that existing providers will be hesitant to build more towers AND terrestrial towers are still needed. Why is true?

Reply: 

"They" Say The US Bull Market Turns Four Years Old Next Week -- It's Simply Cocktail Chatter -- October 9, 2026

Locator: 51895BULLMARKET. 

It's hard to argue the US equity bull market is only four years old:

Definition Of Compute -- A Term CNBC Talking Heads Mention So Much, It Works For The Classic Drinking Game -- October 9, 2026

Locator: 51894COMPUTE. 

Compute: basically relates to whom can afford to buy the most of the highest capacity chips available.  

Previously posted (Locator: 51549CRAMER):

New asset class? Some analysts still support this concept. A financial asset class is being built by Jensen Huang. Folks may want to discuss with Gemini the concept of a  financial asset class. 

• the asset: specifically AI chips (GPUs) and AI compute capacity, not tokens;
• mechanism: Wall Street is creating structured financial instruments, lease backstops, and asset-backed debt tied directly to physical chips and data center compute power; 
• the analogy: prominent investors like Mark Cuban and Jeff Gundlac have noted that Wall Street is trying to treat silicon chips like a tradable commodity (akin to oil or gold), prompting major exchanges like the CME group to plan future contracts tracking GPU rental indices
• asset-backed debt: financial insitutions are issuing long-dated loans and bonds using physical AI chips as the underlying collateral
• One may want to use this prompt: one may recall that Larry Ellison bought a huge amount of compute (chips) for which he was criticized but now it turns out that he can indeed rent them, even if they are seen by some as "old."
• in hindsight, one might argue that Larry Ellison was the first big investor to note this "new" financial asset class. 
• Larry Ellison was absolutely the first major tech titan to aggressively treat AI compute as an investable infrastructure asset class, essentially proving the concept years before Wall Street formalized it. 
• Again, not chips, but compute: capacity / chip x chip = compute. But that's a theoretical number, similar to "nameplate capacity" used by utilities. Compute is also affected by optimum wiring, optimum cooling, optimum power availability, etc. So, analysts must consider all these factors to determine "compute."  
• but there's more -- see the BOX below:

 Tag: Ellison

 

Just One Of Many Surprises Today -- SCCO -- October 9, 2026

Locator: 51893SCCO. 

SCCO. 

See disclaimer.

 

********************************
Disclaimer

Briefly: 

I am inappropriately exuberant about the Bakken and I am often well out front of my headlights. I am often appropriately accused of hyperbole when it comes to the Bakken.

I am inappropriately exuberant about the US economy and the US market.

I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Apple.

See disclaimer. This is not an investment site. 

Disclaimer: this is not an investment site. Do not make any investment, financial, job, career, travel, or relationship decisions based on what you read here or think you may have read here. All my posts are done quickly: there will be content and typographical errors. If something appears wrong, it probably is. Feel free to fact check everything.

If anything on any of my posts is important to you, go to the source. If/when I find typographical / content errors, I will correct them. 

Reminder: I am inappropriately exuberant about the Bakken, US economy, and the US market.

I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Apple. 

And now, Nvidia, also. I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Nvidia. Nvidia is a metonym for AI and/or the sixth industrial revolution. 

I've now added Broadcom to the disclaimer. I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Broadcom. Now, I've added Amazon. And QCOM. Nothing on this site should be seen as recommendations for the general public. On the other hand, I have no problem if members of my extended family "see" recommendations I might be making - but only members of my extended family, limited to my children and my grandchildren.

Longer version here.

Raising The Alarm About The Dangers Of AI -- Nothing New Under The Sun -- October 9, 2026

Locator: 51892AI. 

Watching CNBC these days, one can be misled to thinking that all this talk about the risks of AI is something new. Hardly:

 

For a full discussion, link here. Link: https://share.google/aimode/J8aPjMif04LjQzMbg. 

Update, link here. Link: https://share.google/aimode/bFrCyAuOzEzgk0sr6.  

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Nvidia Vs AMD: Flashback

From Stephen Witt's biography of Jensen Huang, c. 2025, chapter 14: "The Good Year," page 156:

"In 2016, Nvidia's stock price appreciated 224 percent, restoring Jensen Huang to glory and making a billionaire once again. Yet Nvidia was not the best-performing stock in the S&P that year. The title went to Nvidia's longtime rival AMD, which went up 309 percent. Huang didn't like coming in second. He redirected himself to victory and found it the next year. Revenues doubled, profits tripled, and the company launched new products at dizzying speed. Few companies anywhere, ever, could hope to have a year as successful as Nvidia had in 2017."  

Lisa Su is CEO of AMD. She joined the company in 2012 and became president and CEO in 2014. AMD was founded in 1969 and went public in 1972.

Jensen Huang co-founded Nvidia in 1993.