He has also revealed that the space internet project will operate out of SpaceX's new Seattle office, starting with 60 employees who will also be working on the Falcon rockets and Dragon capsules. Musk said it will take them more than five years cost them a whopping $10 billion to build the satellites for the project. But the amount isn't an issue, as SpaceX sees it "as a long-term revenue source for SpaceX to be able to fund a city on Mars." Of course, that depends on whether the flourishing private space company (or anyone else, really) manages to shuttle people to the red planet and build a colony.

Another company called OneWeb announced a similar project earlier this week, headed by Greg Wyler, who was reported to be in talks with SpaceX for a joint venture last year. In the end, Wyler and Musk had a "fundamental disagreement about the architecture" of the technology, and Wyler secured funding from Richard Branson's Virgin Group instead.