SpaceX · SpaceX AI · 6 Nov 2026

Ron Baron says Elon is aiming to launch solar-powered data centers into orbit in 2027 and 2028

Ron Baron told CNBC's Squawk Box on Friday that Elon Musk is targeting launches in 2027 and 2028 to put solar-powered data centers into orbit, and that he expects them to be "significant in 2028" and "huge" a year or two after that. Elon shared the clip with three words: "Ron Baron understands." The timeline is an investor's view, and SpaceX has not announced it.

From Alex RSpaceX · SpaceX AI · News & analysis

Updated 9 Nov 2026

The editor holds Tesla and SpaceX shares. Supercharged Daily is independent and not affiliated with either company. Nothing here is financial advice.

What Baron said on CNBC

Baron, the founder, CEO and a portfolio manager of Baron Capital, made the comments in a Squawk Box interview on Friday. CNBC titled its video of the segment "Ron Baron on his Musk investments" and lists data centers in space among the topics, alongside the midterm results and a potential SpaceX-Tesla merger. The clip that reached X was posted by @cb_doge and runs a little over a minute and a half. In it, Baron says Musk is targeting launches in 2027 and 2028 to bring solar-powered data centers into orbit.

He put rough sizes on the timeline. Space data centers would be "significant in 2028," he said, and "huge" a year or two later.

Elon quoted the clip at 10:48am ET (7:48am PT) with "Ron Baron understands." That reads as agreement. It does not add dates, hardware, or a program name of his own.

The power argument

Baron's case rests on electricity. By his estimate, China has about three times the power-generating capacity of the US and adds about 300 gigawatts a year, compared with about 20 gigawatts a year in the US. "We need more power and Elon's doing that," he said.

Those are Baron's figures, given on air as an estimate, and he framed them as a power gap the US has to close. In the clip, the orbital data centers are his example of Musk working on that gap.

Investor view, not a launch schedule

Space-based compute has already come up this week on this site, including Texas data-center risk and SpaceX power plans, so the idea itself is not new here. What Friday added is a public timeline from a major investor, endorsed in three words by Elon. SpaceX has not published a schedule for orbital data centers, and Baron did not cite one.

Confirmed: Baron said the 2027 and 2028 launch targets, the "significant in 2028" and "huge" outlook, and the China and US power figures on CNBC on Friday, and Elon replied "Ron Baron understands." Not confirmed by SpaceX: any of those dates, the size of the first launches, or which company in Musk's group would build and operate the hardware.

Sources: Elon Musk on X (6 Nov 2026); CNBC Squawk Box clip via @cb_doge (6 Nov 2026); CNBC video page. Hero photo: Official SpaceX Photos / Wikimedia Commons, CC0 1.0. As of 6 Nov 2026.

— Alex R