---
title: "Who actually supplies SpaceX? A data-driven map of the Starlink economy"
description: "We searched SEC filings and earnings transcripts with Aether to find the public companies inside SpaceX's supply chain and Starlink's customer base — then ran the financials on every name. AMD, Graham Corp, Amphenol, United Airlines and more."
canonical: https://evidinvest.com/blog/spacex-supply-chain-starlink-launch-aether-analysis-2026-06-04
date: "2026-06-06"
last_updated: "2026-06-06"
author: "EvidInvest Team"
publisher: "EBD Sweden AB (EvidInvest)"
tags: ["SpaceX", "Starlink", "supply chain", "Aether", "space technology", "semiconductors", "public-market proxies"]
---

# Who actually supplies SpaceX? A data-driven map of the Starlink economy

- Published: 2026-06-06
- Author: EvidInvest Team, EvidInvest (published by EBD Sweden AB)
- Canonical URL: https://evidinvest.com/blog/spacex-supply-chain-starlink-launch-aether-analysis-2026-06-04
- Research, not investment advice.

> We searched SEC filings and earnings transcripts with Aether to find the public companies inside SpaceX's supply chain and Starlink's customer base — then ran the financials on every name. AMD, Graham Corp, Amphenol, United Airlines and more.

# Who actually supplies SpaceX? A data-driven map of the Starlink economy

SpaceX is private, valued around $350B in recent funding rounds, and you cannot buy a share of it. But it doesn't build rockets and satellites out of thin air. Its supply chain — and increasingly its customer base — is full of public tickers.

So we did what we always do at EvidInvest: instead of repeating rumor lists, we searched the primary sources. Using [Aether](https://aether.evidinvest.com), our SEC-native search engine, we queried 10-Ks, 8-Ks, earnings transcripts and press exhibits for direct SpaceX and Starlink evidence — then pulled the financials on every name that survived.

Here's what the data says. *(All financials from the EvidInvest database, as of June 2026. Revenue/EPS CAGRs are 5-year unless noted.)*

## The single cleanest supplier link is in AMD's own earnings slides

Most "SpaceX supplier" lists are inference. This one isn't.

AMD's **Q3 2024 earnings presentation, filed with the SEC as exhibit EX-99.2** (accession 0000002488-24-000161, filed 2024-10-29), names SpaceX directly: the latest-generation Starlink broadband satellites are powered by AMD's **Versal AI Core adaptive SoCs** — the Xilinx acquisition doing exactly what it was bought to do. An EDGAR full-text search for "SpaceX" + "Versal" returns three documents; AMD's own filings are two of them.

What does that exposure sit on top of, financially?

| AMD ($AMD) | |
|---|---|
| Market cap | $760B |
| Revenue CAGR, 5Y | **+28.8%** |
| Revenue growth, last 12m | **+34.3%** |
| EPS CAGR, 5Y | +4.9% (GAAP, acquisition-amortization heavy) |

Satellite silicon is a rounding error inside AMD's AI-driven income statement — this is not a SpaceX play, it's an AI play with confirmed SpaceX content. But it matters for the map: with thousands of Starlink satellites launching on a multi-year replacement cycle, AMD is the one company where "supplies SpaceX satellites" is a statement you can footnote to an SEC filing. [Run the AMD valuation →](https://evidinvest.com/valuation/AMD)

## The pure-play: Graham Corporation, the quiet compounder in the map

If AMD is the biggest confirmed name, **Graham Corp ($GHM)** is the most concentrated one. Its Barber-Nichols subsidiary builds rocket-engine turbomachinery, and its commercial space customer roster — per company materials and industry coverage — includes SpaceX. (Evidence label: company materials, not yet an SEC-filed supplier disclosure.)

The financial profile is the most interesting small cap in this dataset:

| Graham Corp ($GHM) | |
|---|---|
| Market cap | $1.2B |
| Revenue CAGR, 5Y | **+18.3%** |
| Revenue growth, last 12m | +13.1% |
| EPS CAGR, 5Y | **+42.6%** |
| Trailing P/E | ~79× |

A defense-and-space industrial compounding EPS at 42% a year now trades at a software multiple — the market has found this story. The data question for investors is whether space/defense backlog keeps converting; that's a filings-monitoring problem, which is exactly what Aether is for. [Run the GHM valuation →](https://evidinvest.com/valuation/GHM)

## The Starlink terminal bill of materials — one product, very different shareholder outcomes

Starlink's user terminal is mass-produced consumer-grade hardware: phased-array RF, power management, controllers, connectors, passives. Public teardown and FCC evidence identifies component families from a who's-who of electronics names. (Evidence label: component presence in the device family — not a disclosed supply contract or volume.)

Here's the part most articles skip: these companies are *not* one trade. Run the numbers and the "Starlink BOM" splits into winners and casualties:

| Company | Mkt cap | Rev CAGR 5Y | Rev 1Y | EPS CAGR 5Y |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Amphenol ($APH) | $171B | **+21.8%** | **+51.7%** | +28.3% |
| Analog Devices ($ADI) | $196B | +14.5% | +16.9% | +6.8% |
| TE Connectivity ($TEL) | $62B | +7.0% | +7.9% | — |
| NXP ($NXPI) | $75B | +7.3% | −2.7% | — |
| Texas Instruments ($TXN) | $259B | +4.1% | +13.0% | −2.1% |
| Vishay ($VSH) | $8B | +4.2% | +4.5% | — |
| Skyworks ($SWKS) | $11B | +4.0% | −2.2% | −8.6% |
| onsemi ($ON) | $46B | +2.7% | −15.3% | −12.6% |
| Microchip ($MCHP) | $48B | −2.8% | +7.1% | −16.6% |
| Qorvo ($QRVO) | $9B | **−1.7%** | −1.1% | −10.7% |

Two observations fall straight out of the table:

1. **Interconnect and analog are the structural winners.** Amphenol — connectors, cable assemblies, the unglamorous plumbing of every phased-array terminal and data center — grew revenue 51.7% in the last year. If you want one liquid name levered to *physical connectivity demand* (Starlink terminals being one driver among many), the data points at APH, not at the RF names.
2. **RF front-end content ≠ RF front-end profits.** Qorvo and Skyworks both appear in terminal teardowns, and both have shrinking five-year revenue and negative EPS CAGRs — their fortunes are set by smartphone cycles, not satellite dishes. Component presence in a hot product tells you nothing until you size it against the rest of the income statement.

That second point is the core discipline of this whole exercise.

## Flip the telescope: Starlink's customers are louder in SEC data than its suppliers

Here's a finding from Aether that surprised us: search every indexed earnings transcript and press exhibit for "Starlink" and you get **63 distinct segments** — and almost all of them are *customers*, not suppliers. SpaceX doesn't file with the SEC; its buyers do.

The demand-side evidence, with citations:

- **United Airlines ($UAL)** — "industry-leading agreement with SpaceX to bring Starlink's Wi-Fi service to more than 1,000 of the airline's mainline and regional aircraft," free for MileagePlus members. It appears in UAL's Q3-2024 and Q4-2024 earnings releases and is still being discussed in Q3-2025 materials ([SEC source](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/100517/000010051725000013/ual_12312024erex991.htm)). UAL: $34B cap, revenue CAGR +30.9% (post-COVID recovery base), trailing P/E ~9×.
- **Southwest ($LUV)** — the Starlink Wi-Fi rollout is now material enough to appear in the company's own forward-looking-statements list in Q1-2026 earnings materials.
- **T-Mobile ($TMUS)** — the direct-to-cell partnership: "with the beta launch of T-Satellite, T-Mobile now operates the only satellite network in the US that works on most modern smartphones" (Q1-2025 earnings, [SEC source](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1283699/000128369925000078/tmus03312025ex991.htm)). TMUS: $193B cap, EPS CAGR +29.5%.
- **John Deere ($DE)** — satellite connectivity for precision agriculture across regions where terrestrial coverage fails; announced January 2024, now part of the Precision Ag narrative in quarterly materials.
- **Carnival ($CCL), Royal Caribbean ($RCL), Norwegian ($NCLH)** — fleet-wide connectivity deployments. The cruise recovery numbers (RCL revenue CAGR +52.0%, CCL +36.6% off pandemic lows) aren't Starlink-driven, but always-on connectivity is now part of the onboard-revenue model.
- **Axon ($AXON)** — Starlink-enabled field connectivity in public-safety deployments. Axon itself: +32.5% revenue CAGR, one of the fastest compounders in the dataset.

The investable insight: **Starlink is becoming infrastructure**, and infrastructure shows up in its users' filings as a competitive weapon — free Wi-Fi as a loyalty driver (UAL), satellite texting as a churn reducer (TMUS), connected machinery as a subscription product (DE). You can't buy SpaceX's revenue, but you can see who's building products on top of it, quarter by quarter, in their own SEC documents.

## Materials and propulsion: real exposure, thin disclosure

Reusable launch is a materials business — cryogenic fluid handling, valves, actuation, specialty alloys, composites. The public names that fit the technical requirements:

| Company | Mkt cap | Rev CAGR 5Y | EPS CAGR 5Y | Evidence level |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Parker-Hannifin ($PH) | $111B | +7.7% | +24.0% | capability proxy |
| Woodward ($WWD) | $21B | +7.4% | +14.0% | capability proxy |
| ATI ($ATI) | $24B | +9.0% | — | capability proxy |
| Materion ($MTRN) | $5B | +8.7% | +36.6% | capability proxy |
| Hexcel ($HXL) | $7B | +4.7% | +29.4% | capability proxy |

Note the pattern: mid-single-digit revenue growth, double-digit EPS growth — aerospace suppliers in a margin-expansion cycle. None of them needs SpaceX to justify a thesis, and none should be bought *because* of SpaceX: vertical integration means SpaceX discloses almost nothing about material vendors, and we won't pretend otherwise. These are aerospace-cycle names where commercial launch is incremental demand.

## What the data actually says

Four takeaways from running financials across the whole map:

1. **The confirmed-supplier layer is tiny.** After filtering to names with direct, citable SpaceX evidence, you're left with a handful — AMD (SEC-filed exhibit) at the top, Graham/Barber-Nichols (company materials) as the pure-play. Everything else is component-presence or capability inference.
2. **The "Starlink BOM" is not a basket.** Inside the same terminal you find a +51.7%-growth connector company and RF names with negative five-year CAGRs. Exposure labels don't pay; income statements do.
3. **Demand-side evidence dominates and is growing.** 63 Starlink-related segments across SEC transcripts and exhibits, overwhelmingly from customers — airlines, telecom, agriculture, cruise, public safety. Each new partner that mentions Starlink in an earnings document is a free, timestamped datapoint on constellation monetization.
4. **The map needs maintenance, not belief.** Labels should move when filings move — a teardown name disclosing a space-segment customer concentration, an airline quantifying Wi-Fi-driven loyalty revenue, a materials name calling out launch-related backlog. That's a search-and-alert problem.

## Monitor it yourself

Every claim above traces to a primary source you can re-run:

- **Search the filings** with [Aether](https://aether.evidinvest.com) — it indexes SEC filings and earnings transcripts with hybrid semantic + keyword retrieval and returns the exact cited passage (try `"Starlink" agreement aircraft` or `Versal adaptive SoC satellites`).
- **Run the financials** on any name in the map with EvidInvest: [AMD](https://evidinvest.com/valuation/AMD), [GHM](https://evidinvest.com/valuation/GHM), [APH](https://evidinvest.com/valuation/APH), [UAL](https://evidinvest.com/valuation/UAL), [TMUS](https://evidinvest.com/valuation/TMUS).

*Evidence labels used here: **SEC-filed** (the claim appears in an SEC document, linked), **company materials** (public non-SEC sources naming SpaceX), **component presence** (teardown/FCC evidence in the device family), **capability proxy** (fits the technical requirement; no direct relationship claimed). Financial research, not investment advice.*

---

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