{"id":214085,"date":"2026-02-16T09:57:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T14:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/16\/elon-musk-eyes-moon-facility-catapult-to-send-ai-satellites-into-orbit\/"},"modified":"2026-02-16T10:05:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T15:05:11","slug":"elon-musk-eyes-moon-facility-catapult-to-send-ai-satellites-into-orbit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/16\/elon-musk-eyes-moon-facility-catapult-to-send-ai-satellites-into-orbit\/","title":{"rendered":"Elon Musk Eyes Moon Facility, Catapult to Send AI Satellites Into Orbit"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnet.com\/tech\/services-and-software\/elon-musk-eyes-moon-facility-plus-catapult-to-send-ai-satellites-into-orbit\/\">Elon Musk Eyes Moon Facility, Catapult to Send AI Satellites Into Orbit<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnet.com\/tech\/services-and-software\/elon-musk-eyes-moon-facility-plus-catapult-to-send-ai-satellites-into-orbit\/\">https:\/\/www.cnet.com\/tech\/services-and-software\/elon-musk-eyes-moon-facility-plus-catapult-to-send-ai-satellites-into-orbit\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Publish Date: <a href=\"publish_date]\">2026-02-16 09:57:00<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Source Domain: <a href=\"www.cnet.com\">www.cnet.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"u-speakableText-p1\">During a recent staff meeting at artificial intelligence company <span section=\"shortcodeLink\"><span>xAI<\/span><\/span>, CEO\u00a0<span section=\"shortcodeLink\"><span>Elon Musk<\/span><\/span> reportedly told employees that he wants to build an AI satellite factory on the moon, according to\u00a0The New York Times. Musk also said he wants a giant catapult at the factory that would launch those satellites into space.<\/p>\n<p class=\"u-speakableText-p2\">A representative for xAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment but this wouldn&#8217;t be the first time the tech mogul has toyed with the idea of moving operating facilities to space.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>  <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\" alt=\"AI Atlas\" height=\"268.105702364395\" width=\"768\" loading=\"lazy\"\/>   <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Current advances in AI are dependent on large terrestrial data centers, which require immense amounts of power and cooling,&#8221; Musk said in a statement after his companies\u00a0SpaceX and xAI merged. &#8220;Global electricity demand for AI simply cannot be met with terrestrial solutions, even in the near term, without imposing hardship on communities and the environment. In the long term, space-based AI is obviously the only way to scale.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>And this &#8220;space-based AI&#8221; could happen sooner rather than later if it&#8217;s up to the billionaire.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;By far the cheapest place to put AI will be space in 36 months or less,&#8221; Musk reportedly said during a recent appearance on the podcast Cheeky Pint.<\/p>\n<p>If the moon mission is successful, Musk seems to have his eye on establishing a colony on Mars next. For years, he has described involvement with Mars as a necessary step in safeguarding humanity&#8217;s future, framing space colonization as a necessary backup plan and the next frontier of exploration.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnet.com\/tech\/services-and-software\/elon-musk-eyes-moon-facility-plus-catapult-to-send-ai-satellites-into-orbit\/\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Elon Musk Eyes Moon Facility, Catapult to Send AI Satellites Into Orbit https:\/\/www.cnet.com\/tech\/services-and-software\/elon-musk-eyes-moon-facility-plus-catapult-to-send-ai-satellites-into-orbit\/ Publish Date:&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":214086,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.cnet.com\/a\/img\/resize\/bf37a036d0cf86f46c3d626bffb5ca27779ec68c\/hub\/2025\/03\/18\/daa5f985-f30b-428b-9908-437e6543ef9c\/gettyimages-2198970101.jpg?auto=webp&fit=crop&height=675&width=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[20],"class_list":["post-214085","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificial-intelligence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214085"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=214085"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214085\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":214087,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214085\/revisions\/214087"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/214086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=214085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=214085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=214085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}