Rocket Lab CEO Takes a Swipe at Elon Musk, Explains Why Neutron Gives Company an Edge Over SpaceX: ‘First Priority Is…’

Rocket Lab Corporation (NASDAQ:RKLB) CEO Peter Beck believes its Neutron rocket could give the company a competitive advantage over Space Exploration Technologies Corp.‘s (NASDAQ:SPCX) Starship, even if the latter achieves full reusability.

Space-Based Services Will Open $1 Trillion Market Opportunity

In an interview on TheAngry Astronaut YouTube channel on Wednesday, Beck was asked about how the company’s now-delayed Neutron rocket will compete with SpaceX’s Starship if the latter achieves full reusability.

The CEO said, “50% of Neutron’s purpose of existence is to launch our own stuff,” adding that the scenario also assumes that SpaceX makes Starship available for others.

“I’m sure Elon’s first priority is SpaceX and not everybody else,” he said. “You’ve seen that now with Falcon 9, right? The priorities shift around and rightly so,” he added. Musk was “prioritizing his business and his objectives and his returns to his shareholders,” Beck said.

“Even if Neutron wasn’t competitive to Starship and even if Starship was on the open market providing launch, it’s still a huge competitive edge for us, for our own internal programs,” Beck said. He then said that the total addressable market (TAM) for launch was roughly $10 billion to $20 billion.

“The total addressable market in services from space is $350 billion going to $1 trillion. So if you want to play, that’s where you ultimately want to play,” the CEO said. Beck then acknowledged the importance of the launch business, calling it the “keys to space.”

Rocket Lab Will Continue the Same Trajectory

When asked where Rocket Lab will be in the next five years, Beck said that the company will follow the “same trajectory” it said it would follow when it went public. Beck said that Rocket Lab will move into providing space services and move into bigger rockets.

“If you look back five years from here, you know, the company was, I think, $30 million of revenue, not nearly a billion,” he said. Beck added that the company was not content with just being “the IOT L-band guys of the world” or stopping at the pending Iridium Communications Inc. (NASDAQ:IRDM) acquisition.

“We’ll continue to keep growing into more and more space services and keep on adding more and more to the portfolio,” Beck said.

Price Action: RKLB shares were down 2.04% to $64.80 during pre-market trading on Thursday.

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