Anpanman - Updated thoughts on Globalstar rumors and recent precedent

[00:00:06] Speaker A: This is the AST SpaceMobile Podcast.
[00:00:09] Speaker B: It will just basically come to your phone and be seamless regardless of where you are. We don't want the user even to know that it's connected by satellite. Listen, the opportunity that we have is very, very, very large.
[00:00:27] Speaker A: Hey everyone, happy Sunday. It's a beautiful Sunday, more, uh, I guess afternoon here in New York City. The, uh, marathon running, which is always a great event. Um, just got back from some kid soccer and I have a little bit of free time, so I figured I'd run a space and provide some additional thoughts about the article, or sorry, not the article, but the post that I'd Put up about Global Star and potential SpaceX interest, and reported SpaceX interest, and how Apple fits into that. If people can give me a thumbs up, I just want to make sure that before I start rambling, that people can hear me. Just look here. What's weird about I mentioned this before Twitter Spaces is that you. There's a delay. It's probably 15 seconds, 10-second delay. And so when you're not live, you actually, when I, when you ask for like thumbs up, you don't really see thumbs up until a few seconds later. So anyway, yeah, thanks everyone for joining. I wanted to talk about some of the latest thoughts about the 2 information articles and then one Bloomberg article that leaked over this past week about a supposed Globalstar sale process and what it means and what it could mean. And there's an interesting precedent that I wanted to talk about, which kind of gives you a good sense of the potential deal dynamics and why a deal would be tough. Unless, of course, I mean, all roads basically lead through Apple because they effectively control Globalstar.
[00:02:11] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:02:12] Speaker A: And so if Apple has indeed changed their heart and is willing to work with SpaceX, then certainly a deal can happen. And never say never. I mean, you know, there's a whole host of reasons why Apple should work with SpaceX and there's a whole host of reasons why they shouldn't work with them. And we'll kind of go through those. But yeah, so I guess to start, I did want to answer a few questions. There were some people who reached out to me and said, hey, isn't leaking this stuff illegal because it's material non-public information? And can people get sued, like journalists or the sources? And I'll just say, when I was an investment banker, you know, I did M&A in the tech industry for, and, you know, financing IPOs for one of the big banks for, you know, call it 8 years. And leaks are Pretty common practice. I would say some firms, you know, definitely look down on it, but it's part of like deal tactics, right? And so if you're a banker, an attorney, or even a PR firm working with a company, usually a PR firm gets engaged when a deal's about to get announced. And so they usually aren't the sources of leaks, but it's usually bankers or lawyers and sometimes company insiders. And the reason why leaks happen is that it's, and this is why I've said, Whenever you read something in the journal about a sale process or something high profile, you always have to ask yourself, you know, why is it being leaked and who's leaking it? And, you know, what's their objective? What are they trying to accomplish? And so oftentimes leaks will happen for a number of reasons. For example, if a company has put itself up for sale and let's say they send out feelers to various buyers and And let's say they're not getting the reception that they thought they would, not as much interest, then you might go out to Bloomberg and say, hey, the company is in the process of selling itself. And let's say Amazon, Meta, and Google are thought to be lead bidders. Then all of a sudden that makes potential buyers snap to your attention like, oh, they've got real players there who are looking to potentially acquire the company, maybe I should take a look too. And so that's one way where you can hopefully gin up more interest. It is risky though, because, you know, for any company that if you're in a hot sale process, it's actually usually a good thing because then you can informally let the market know that there's a lot of buyers involved. You might also put a price out there, like the board might have some price expectations of like, hey, we, we think a clearing price of $10 billion or more will get the deal done. And so oftentimes that will get leaked too. But, you know, on the flip side, it can be risky, right? Because if it's a, oftentimes if there's a sale process that's not going well and you try to leak things like, oh, you know, potentially Bain Capital's there and some other PE firm and here are the price expectations. Well, It's not as if the buy side, their advisors or the buyers are not sophisticated either. Sometimes they can kind of read the tea leaves and see what people in the process are doing and be like, oh, that article was leaked because this process is not going well. And so I can lower the price or I can just walk away like nothing's happening here. And so there is a risk, you know, oftentimes some buyers who are in processes, if they see news leak, they will tell Even before the process starts, they'll tell sell-side advisors, like, if there's any leaks, like there's no deal. We're not going to be part of some public auction. And oftentimes, like if the companies are in exclusivity, for example, let's say the buyer and the seller get into exclusivity for a period of, you know, call it 2 weeks or something, then leaks at that point are quite dangerous because as the seller, you don't want to piss off the buyer. And if you're in exclusive talks, You know, you want to get that deal done. But then there's also other leaks that try to kill the deal. Like if you're a, let's say if you're a buyer who didn't make it to the final rounds or didn't get exclusivity, you might leak it to the Wall Street Journal to try to blow the process up. And so that's why there's so many different potential reasons why you might leak a deal or leak a situation. You might try to set price expectations. Another thing is like sometimes buyers who are interested in a target company and they're unwilling to sell, they'll put them in play. Like they'll actually leak an article and say XYZ company approached so-and-so with a price this high and were rebuffed. And then all of a sudden the target, you know, is now, that's like a very hostile approach where then you might have ARDs and event-driven hedge funds start buying the stock. and the stock goes up, you know, 20, 30%, and then you've got these hedge funds calling board of management saying, hey, you guys should sell the company. And they're incentivized to do that because all of a sudden they're involved in a stock that's up 20, 30%, and if the company doesn't sell itself, then the stock's going to drop back down. And so all of a sudden, you know, there's this shareholder pressure to get something done. And so that would be like a hostile situation where, you know, a buyer tries to put a company in play, by leaking that they approached them or somebody else approached them and then the company rebuffed them. And so other things, other potential leaks are you could have attorneys or bankers, basically what we call like a trial balloon. Like they float a potential deal and Globalstar would fit into this construct, by the way. You might float the idea of a potential deal and then you have something to actually talk about with regulators. Like you could totally see SpaceX going up to Chairman Carr at the FCC and the Attorney General at the Department of Justice and say, hey, you know, that article, you know, just curious like what your thoughts are, or get a reaction from maybe staff of what they think about a potential transaction. And so, you know, you might float regulatory balloons to see what the market reaction is. Like if the market, if And this is like, this is kind of deal tactics 101. If you're a buyer and you're unclear whether or not the market would be receptive to a potential acquisition of another company, you might go leak it and then see what your stock price does. If the stock price goes up, then it's like, oh, investors think it's a good idea. And so I think I have, especially if you're issuing stock, then you're like, oh, I have the mandate, or at least initially it seems like the market would be okay with it. Obviously the market needs to understand what the terms are, but that might be a problem you float to see what the market reaction is. And then of course, if it is something that is sensitive from a regulatory standpoint, you might get some comments from politicians who are like, oh yeah, this is a good deal, or this promotes American leadership in this sector. Or you might get other politicians or regulators who might come back and say, this thing's DOA, dead on arrival. Like, there's no way we're going to let this deal happen. We're going to go try to block it or whatever. And so, so yeah, that would be a potential regulatory type of trial balloon that people float. They leak some article. But going back to what I was saying before, you know, is it legal? Yeah, it's legal. It's looked down upon, but companies, bankers, lawyers, they all engage in it and they do it to accomplish what their objectives they are, whether it's, you know, there's always some angle, which is why it's rare when journalists actually dig up something and they get it right. Usually they get pieces of it fed to them and they're given hints and directions and it's like, hey, I think you should go talk to this person at this company, or, you know, here's a few crumbs, maybe check out these filings, or they'll just get told directly what it is. And by the very nature that this information is being fed to a journalist who then goes and publishes it, It's legal in a sense that that private information becomes widely distributed and public now. And so it's not material non-public information because it becomes material but public information, if that makes sense. And so journalists have a high degree of protections given the freedom of speech in the US. And as long as they are widely disseminating that information, then it becomes cleansed in some regard. Now, if a journalist is talking to sources and then trades on that information on their own, then obviously that's illegal. Or if they share that information directly to say a hedge fund and they trade on it, that's illegal. However, if an investor is talking to journalists and they're doing research and it's part of a mosaic where they get some hint that maybe a company is looking at some strategic alternatives. And that investor also looks at, I'll just make stuff up, like, you know, the company recently put in a double trigger mechanism on the executive compensation packages like a month ago, which, you know, which typically you would do in a change of control transaction. You want to keep the executives around. And so sometimes that's a tell where people put double triggers in compensation packages, like a few months right before a deal's announced. So they put that together. They put, they look at some of the other things that company's doing, maybe on the conference call that, you know, for example, Iridium on their conference call, you could tell like they're boxed in and they need to do something. And all the research analysts are basically like, out of all the 5 or 6 companies, who are your top partners? Then that seems pretty clear. Like the company probably needs to sell itself. And so in that regard, if let's say hedge funds were talking to some of these journalists and journalists are smart, they're not going to give any details away and they know they can get in trouble too. But if that hedge fund were to piece together the pieces of the puzzle and create a mosaic of like, I think something's happening with this company, that's illegal. And that's stuff that, for example, Space Mob does. Like you're, You piece together various pieces of information, you know, who, what is the company, you know, what is the company posting about? And, you know, maybe there's like some logistics information, things like that. And maybe Abel has met, has gone to Saudi Arabia a few times and been at their conferences. And, you know, maybe there's some Saudi Arabian officials who've posted about the company. Then yeah, maybe there could be something going on there. I mean, Obviously the company had MOUs with, or has MOUs with the top 3 Saudi carriers, the MNOs. And so it seemed very likely that a deal with one of the 3 at a minimum, and of course all 3 is likely to happen. But anyway, that's a long rambling introduction to why these types of things get leaked. And yeah, so I think it's important to really when you see this type of stuff, to really take a step back and ask yourself, why is the news coming out now? Who's doing it? And what is their objective? And so going back to the information back in May, I believe it was May or January, there was an article that was leaked about how Apple— sorry, I should pull it up. Let me just take a look here. There's a whole history about how satellite, Apple satellite ambitions have been threatened by Elon Musk and then how the 2 companies, you know, have kind of had this standoff relationship and then Globalstar is kind of in the middle of it all. And so that kind of laid the groundwork. Sorry, this was in May of 2025. And so that laid the groundwork of where we are today and that gave kind of an overview of what the relationship, how it kind of evolved. And I think for those who don't know, I believe Apple, and this is kind of beyond the article, but I think Apple started testing with Globalstar and thinking through the potential of providing satellite SOS and text messaging back in 2021. And there were hints of it where I think in some disclosures around related to Globalstar, they talked about an unnamed partner that was giving them potential payments and testing the service. And of course, our industry consultant, Pim Farrar, was very close to that. He wrote about it at length. We all know that he works for Globalstar. In his recent industry presentation where he talks about the D2D market, that whole presentation, in a very, very tiny disclosure in one of the random pages, it says the whole report was paid for by Globalstar. But the reason why I mentioned him is that he is It does seem to me, just kind of going through the articles, is that he is a primary source of some of the information here. And so I think the company is using him as well as their bankers as a conduit to kind of feed these journalists. And so in that first article, it talks about the uneasy relationship between Elon Musk and Tim Cook, about how obviously Apple was developing their service. And then when Musk found out that this was happening, He supposedly, and this is according to the journalists, and by the way, the 2 journalists that the information both cover have both historically covered Apple for the Wall Street Journal. And so they do have some sourcing from former Apple execs and perhaps some Apple people who work at Apple now. But anyway, but in that article, they specifically mentioned how when Musk had learned in 2022 that Apple was going to include Globalstar SOS messaging in their iPhone 14, He contacted the company and said, hey, we want to do this. We'll provide it for you and we want you to pay us. And by the way, this is like, this goes back to like, hey, is this really a market? And are people going to pay for it? Well, SpaceX wanted to charge Apple $5 billion upfront for 18 months. And then on an ongoing base after that exclusivity period ended, they would charge them $1 billion a year for the Starlink service. And they have supposedly, you know, 72 hours to decide. And of course, you know, Tim Cook and Apple rejected that. And then infamously SpaceX announced in August of 2022 that they were going to partner with T-Mobile. They supposedly created this new technology that could connect to cell phones. They announced that in August 2022, which was announced right before Apple announced their new product with Globalstar, which was September of 2022. Interestingly, of course, HT SpaceMobile BlueWalker 3 was supposed to launch, I think it was that July or August, and then it got pushed back to September. And so just like Musk does, and that's one of his talents, as well as T-Mobile, they were able to win mindshare amongst the news outlets and they claim to this day that they were first. announcing this potential product in August of 2022, when in fact, as we all know, AST SpaceMobile kicked off this whole market in 2017. And so anyway, in that article, it talks about how there's this uneasy relationship between these 2 companies. Obviously SpaceX/Starlink/Tesla have various potential competing products. I mean, the biggest high-profile one would be Elon Musk's, you know, his alluding to potentially developing his own mobile phone to compete with, you know, Apple and Google, but then also trying to provide internet connectivity directly to phones and basically going around MNO carriers. And so for those that don't know, there's also some additional history here between Elon Musk and Tim Cook. When Tesla was in trouble. I think it was like in 20, I forget exactly how many years ago, but there was a point in time when Tesla had, Elon Musk had tried to contact Tim Cook and offered to sell Tesla to Apple when they were having tough times. And then from, and depends on whose account you read, but supposedly when they did talk, Elon Musk was like, hey, I want you to buy my company and then I'll be the CEO of the combined company. And then Tim Cook was like, no. And so there's some history between the two, which I guess, you know, is a little bit of friction. But beyond that, obviously, and I've mentioned this before, given where, what SpaceX is trying to do, I think they're going to be increasingly competitive with Apple. And I'll talk a bit more about that later. But anyway, so yeah, there was this article which I've posted it before. If you do a search on the information, or go to my profile, you can see the first article where it talks about the issues between the 2 companies and how Apple was, you know, they made their bet with Globalstar and then internally they've had some potential infighting around whether or not that relationship makes any sense, just given kind of how the market has evolved. And so fast forward, I won't go through all that article, but fast forward to, I guess it was like 2 or 3 weeks ago, you know, we had another article from The Information talking about how SpaceX was proactively including Globalstar's spectrum band into its next generation satellites, which as I mentioned before, that's something that you would just do anyway. You want to make sure that any ASIC that you're developing for this new satellite, you'll want to include every single spectrum band under the sun. Because you never know what's going to happen in the future. And so, but then in this article too, it talked about how Apple would potentially support SpaceX's spectrum and that, and in particular EchoStar AWS-4 spectrum, which they're buying when they announced a deal to acquire that spectrum from EchoStar. And so as I mentioned in another call, Apple is a handset manufacturer. They're trying to, they want their handsets to work with everybody's spectrum, any spectrum that is currently in use today and any spectrum that's going to become available for use tomorrow. And so that's, you know, that was something where I have actually tweeted a post about back in April where Apple is trying to define, help define the next 3GPP standard, which is going to include all MSS spectrum. And so they were actively working at the standard setting body to include not only EchoStar spectrum, which SpaceX would be acquiring, but also Ligado, Viasat, I mean, any number of other satellite spectrum. They are actively working on shaping the standards around that, and they're going to include that in their next generation iPhone, which makes sense, right? Because as for Apple, they want to make sure that they are able to utilize any spectrum or any technology that they're MNO partners, whether that's AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, or any MNOs globally, like whatever service they want to use, Apple wants to make sure that they have absolute compatibility with all of them. Right. And so that's something that you would expect. However, the new part, the new part of, I guess the new information that was in that article was the fact that Globalstar You saw some specific leaks from Globalstar, which specifically mentioned a, and this kind of got further, I guess, further picked up by Bloomberg, who, and I'll explain the process of why Bloomberg ran an article, but the information article talked about how, and it introduced the idea that James Murrow, who's the chairman of Globalstar, he stopped being CEO and I I think Paul Jacobs took over from Qualcomm, but he's the founder who owns over 50% of Globalstar and he's kind of brought them back from the dead several times by pitching a new story about how Globalstar would reposition themselves. And then Apple came in in 2022 and basically bailed them out, right? Like they invested money into them and in exchange for that prepayment, They got 80, basically Globalstar had to give away their entire business. They gave away 85% of their current constellation capacity and 85% of future capacity. And so whether Globalstar builds that satellite, those satellites, and then operates the constellation, or if somebody else is doing it and they're using Globalstar spectrum, that 85% of capacity survives. into perpetuity. And so for all intents and purposes, Globalstar is effectively an Apple subsidiary where as a public investor, you own 15% of that satellite network capacity, which hopefully Globalstar can sell to somebody else. And then you get some economic return, hopefully off of the 85% that you're servicing for Apple. And that's the deal. you know, in distressed, in their distressed situation, that's the deal that they were able to negotiate. The other thing is that Apple got 20% ownership in this SPV that holds all of Globalstar's spectrum. And so, you know, there's very particular rights around what they can do around Globalstar. You know, they have a right of first refusal, which means if someone comes in and tries to buy the company, then Apple can come in and match them or top them in order to win the deal. But then some of these other business protections, which again, we don't know all the details, but by effectively having that right of first refusal and having ownership of 85% of the network, that's a de facto poison pill. What I mean by that is if you don't have Apple's consent to buy the company, and again, you have to be comfortable with the fact that you only get 15% of the network and then some economic return on the rest. But if you don't have their consent, then they can de facto just block you from doing a deal. And what I mean by that is, you know, they could always, of course, threaten to match your deal or top it, but they can also just not give consent that they agree to a deal, right? Because they effectively control the entire company. Let me just look here. I wrote a few small notes here, but yeah, there is a parallel to another situation which I'll talk about in a bit, but that I think is very similar and can kind of give us a sense of the weird deal dynamics here. But yeah, so that information article that came out recently, there were specific quotes in it. Which kind of allude to that they were being leaked by Globalstar. And in that article, you could kind of get a sense that Globalstar kind of sees, and I set this up in my Twitter post, but Globalstar specifically talks about a $10 billion price that James Monroe supposedly told some people who had direct knowledge. And so whenever articles refer to sources as direct knowledge of the matter, that's typically principals, like people at the company. Whenever an article says people familiar with talks, usually that refers to bankers or lawyers. And so these are, this is kind of the, when I worked at a hedge fund or was a banker, you read these articles very closely because they're written a certain way and they can give you hints as to, again, where they came from and what they're trying to do. But yeah, if you take into account that the Information article and then also the Bloomberg article that came out shortly thereafter, and the reason why Bloomberg ran an article is as a journalist, when you see something like that, you might go, one of the best things that journalists can do is to go try to go refute an article, meaning the Information puts out an article and says, hey, the company is potentially interested in selling themselves. And then what Bloomberg or Wall Street Journal might do, be like, oh, hey, you know, I've got some free time. Let me go try to refute this article. Because that's good reading as well. Like if you're able to basically write an article that says like the other one is complete bullshit, then that's a really fun and notable to write. So what they'll do is they'll go run the traps and talk to their sources. And so Bloomberg, of course, talked to their sources and they're like, oh, there actually is something going on here. And so in their article, they talked about The fact that, and this is where you would have Globalstar advisors feeding Bloomberg the article because Bloomberg typically their sources are going to be bankers. And so the bankers told them, yeah, there's, we have a, we've been talking, we're at early stages of talks and we're speaking with a few companies. Let's see here. Let me just pull this one up. Yeah. So Globalstar in the Bloomberg article says, Specifically that they're exploring a sale. They've had early talks with SpaceX and then other suitors, according to people familiar with the matter. And so that's definitely bankers. And then they talk about how SpaceX is one of the parties the company's speaking to, but it's possible that others could emerge. And then, but however, SpaceX hasn't made a final decision, or sorry, Globalstar hasn't made a final decision and could remain independent. And so that By the way, is very specifically from Globalstar to say, we're not in play. We're totally in control of the situation and we may decide not to sell ourselves. But of course, like, as we all know, it's not really up to them. It's up to Apple because they hold the keys here. And so that's why, like, when I analyzed the 3 articles and I wrote about it, you could tell it's primarily sourced from Globalstar. They quote Tim Ferriss, In both of the information articles. And of course he talked in a very smug way about like something big that was happening. And so it's clear that he leaked a decent amount of it to them. And he also works closely with Globalstar. It's also why, for example, he hates AST SpaceMobile so much for the past several years because he works with Globalstar and some of the other legacy guys. And so, and it probably doesn't help that, you know, SpaceMob has called him out on all this bullshit. So that's why he hates the company. But anyway, but yeah, so, you know, the company Globalstar has effectively announced, like, without formally, because sometimes, like, companies will formally announce that they're seeking strategic alternatives. And that's actually, when a company does that, that's pretty serious, right? Like, if a company PRs and says, we've been approached and we're putting ourselves up for sale, when you do that, you have to feel really good that something's going to happen. Because if through that process you PR that and then maybe 1 or 2 quarters later you actually don't sell the company, that's really bad because then investors are like, what just happened? Like, so you felt good enough about the process and you ran an auction and then no one showed up. It's like, well, why didn't you sell? Is there something bad? Like, did buyers not like something? You know, if it wasn't priced, you know, is there a potential material issue with the company? that we should be worried about. And so that's a really risky gambit. And so what Globalstar here has done, what they've done is they've put the company in play informally through these articles, but there's a reason why they did that, right? And so here it's a risky gamble for them because they're trying to create this narrative that there's a robust auction process. You know, the Bloomberg article talks about SpaceX is basically saying like they're the lead horse and there's potentially other people there. And The reason why they're doing this is that they want to create this sense of urgency and demand that the company's in play and there's a lot of people involved and potentially you could get over $10 billion, which is the price that they keep stating in these articles, right? And so that price was stated in the information and then for it to be repeated in Bloomberg, that means that Bloomberg, the journalist went to Global Star's banker and said, hey, is this true? Is it $10 billion? And they were like, yeah. That's what we want. So are they going to get it? Who knows, right? But why? So taking a step back, you have to ask yourself, well, why is Globalstar doing this? Why would they risk a potentially failed sale process? And what is causing them to kick this off now? And so I think for some of us, we've asked, well, why would SpaceX want to go buy the company now? Or any other potential parties, right? Like Globalstar's obviously in a pretty tough position given that Apple kind of runs the show. And so why would they do this? Well, after doing a little bit of research, I was able to find that, and I haven't followed Globalstar that closely, but so in 2023, they took a prepayment of $252 million from Apple. in order to start work on their service. And this isn't prepayment meaning here's money and you get to keep it forever. It's actually, it's a prepayment that has to be paid back to Apple and whether that's in kind, meaning like if Apple users use a certain amount of messaging and then that messaging basically gets offset whatever Apple had to pay, that gets offset by the $252 million. Like, that's one way. Or if those, that service, um, is the service isn't being used, then Globalstar actually has to pay back that money to Apple, um, in hard dollars.
[00:32:39] Speaker B: Right.
[00:32:39] Speaker A: And so that initial tranche of $252 million, um, that payback period starts in this quarter, Q3 of 2025, and that's over 16 quarters of installments. So that's about $15.8 million per quarter, which is for Globalstar, that's a pretty decent amount. So that's like just annually, that's about $63 million. And that's for a company that, as I mentioned before, has had financial issues in the past. If I just look at Globalstar's projections for 2025, they're looking to make $265 million of revenue, EBITDA of $129 million. Let's see, their operating income in total for this year was $11.7 million. I guess next year they're going to do like $39 million of operating income and $147 million of EBITDA. But I mean, that's $63 million that they have to pay back over 4 quarters or for 4 years. And so $252 million in total, but, you know, $63 million annually. So that's a pretty decent size nut. And then you've got another tranche, you know, Globalstar got another $235 million prepayment from Apple that they used to pay off their 2029 13% notes. And interestingly, those are the notes that our old friend Charlie Ergen had purchased, and I think he controlled most of those. And so Charlie Ergen, who is the founder and owner of Dish and EchoStar, He's had this history of buying credit in distressed companies and then taking them over. He did that with DBSD and TerraStar, which then ultimately those 2 satellite companies' spectrum became what is known today as AWS-4, which then he flipped to SpaceX for $19 billion. But anyway, but yeah, Globalstar went to Apple and said, hey, we need to borrow another $235 million in 2024 to go repay these notes so that Charlie Ergen You know, it doesn't give us a hard time. And they're like, okay, fine, we'll give it to you. And so that $235 million has to be repaid either in service, you know, Apple Messages, they, you know, Globalstar charges them for the usage or in hard cash. And so $235 million over, let's see here, I think it's 32 quarters. So that's about $7.4 million a quarter, or that's $29 million a year. So now you're looking at $63 million and $29 million, that's $92 million that has to be paid back to Apple annually. For a company that's doing $130, $150 million of EBITDA, that's a lot of money. And then on top of that, Apple provided the company $278 million in March of 2025 to help build— these were prepayments to help build the next generation of their constellation, which I believe Apple in the contract can give up to $1.1 billion. I think in certain cases, $1.3 billion. But again, this is not free money that Globalstar actually has to pay this back. And so whether they pay that back through the service they provide to Apple or through cold hard cash, that's money that has to be paid back over time. So if you start adding all this stuff up, Globalstar is in a tough spot, right? Like they still need to try to find customers for the 15% of the network that they currently operate or the future network. That network doesn't do broadband. It just does SMS and SOS messaging. In the future one that they're going to roll out, and we, you know, I guess people at NDA Space would know better, but I'm not sure the new constellation's going to be that much better. You know, I'm sure it'll provide better data services, but in order to pay back all of this money, you're going to need like real real service revenues. And, you know, given where, and so if you're a Globalstar, you've got these payments coming up and the story right now is that, for now, is that, you know, Apple's your biggest customer and you've got this relationship. And so Globalstar seems like it's in a pretty good spot for investors. But then once investors start seeing these payments start going out the door this quarter and, you know, maybe they have enough service revenues to cover 'em, but once they start seeing this drag, on their financials this quarter and into 2026 and beyond, then the story becomes a bit more precarious, right? Because then what if these Apple users then start using AST SpaceMobile or Starlink direct-to-cell services? Then how are you going to end up, you know, then, and if there's a dearth of users on your network, then these payments become hard cash payments that go to Apple, Right. And so that's where I think you've— Jay Munroe, I mean, he's not a dumb guy. Like he probably saw the writing on the wall and was like, okay, we're in a really tough spot. Like people feel good about our story to a degree, but it's going to start becoming really bad once AST SpaceMobile and SpaceX get their constellations up and people really start using them. They're like, oh wait, I can use these services. And, you know, for AST it's broadband and And works indoors and I don't have to point my phone at anything. Like, why would I ever use this Apple SOS messaging service? And so that's where I think that became the impetus for all this activity out of nowhere starting in May. And then of course October, you know, the second half of October, like these leaks. And so, oh, the other thing I forgot to mention is for Apple, that $1.1 billion infrastructure payment of which they've disbursed $278 million. The other thing that's kind of scary for Globalstar is that if they lose any of their spectrum licenses, which by the way, like SpaceX at the FCC has been trying to like take their licenses away, which, you know, I guess that's part of SpaceX's playbook because they did the same to EchoStar. So they like, they used the stick, but then they ultimately gave them the carrot, which they bought them out. But if they lose any licenses and/or they can't deliver the new network, which I think there's like certain milestones, then Apple can claim immediate default and ask for repayment of that $1.1 billion, whatever they dispersed out of the $1.1 billion. And so I know Tanner alluded to this, but I don't really know for sure. I think of course NBA Space is building that satellite and then I think Rocket Lab is providing some of the buses around that next generation constellation. But at least kind of at a high level, looking at some of the pieces of news or social media posts out there, it seemed like that constellation is behind or delayed. I don't think it's because of Rocket Lab. I think it's because of MDA Space, or I mean, I think as we all know, space is hard. This stuff takes longer than you think. For Globalstar negotiating with Apple in a, you know, from their distressed position, they probably promised Apple the moon. And then when it comes to actually delivering, if you're using a prime and not doing it Internally, building a constellation is really tough. And so they probably are feeling some level of stress that they're not going to be able to hit those milestones. And so, you know, for Apple, they're in a really sweet spot. Like if Globalstar slips on a banana and they don't do what they say they're going to do, then they can immediately claim repayment and effectively put Globalstar into bankruptcy. And that I think is a Pretty realistic. I wouldn't say it's not, I don't think it's Apple's MO to try to put companies into bankruptcy, but if they got a, if they woke up on the wrong side of the bed one day and were like, you know what, I want to own Globalstar Spectrum and then I'll go lease it to somebody else, they could totally put Globalstar into bankruptcy tomorrow by not giving them any more financial lifelines and not allowing them to sell anyone. And then Globalstar's in a tough spot, right? And I'll talk about a precedent that kind of fits that narrative. But anyway, going back to what I was saying before, and sorry, I keep just kind of going all over the place. It's a lot to cover. But for Globalstar to kind of start planning this idea, and you've seen kind of the themes in these articles where it's like, well, Apple's kind of unsure what they want to do, and SpaceX is interested in working with Apple, but You know, maybe, maybe a compromise potentially is, you know, one of two things. I mean, this is what Globalstar would— the whole objective of all this would be either to, one, buy more time with Apple or, or, you know, loosen up, um, this, maybe some of these milestones or maybe get additional capital, just get Apple to make a decision, like either go all in on what we're doing and give us more money, uh, and give us more freedom or buy us. I mean, Globalstar in their world, like the perfect situation would just be that the company that controls you just ends you. That would be their highest outcome. And then the second one would be inject enough uncertainty here. And this is where the uncertainty comes. 'Cause I think in both of the information articles, like it's very specific where, and Tim Farrar plays the leading role here. He's like, well, if SpaceX is able to buy Globalstar, then it's basically game over for everybody.
[00:42:20] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:42:22] Speaker A: That's an implicit threat from Globalstar saying, Apple, if you don't give us time, you don't help us out, and SpaceX ends up buying us, then they're going to control everything.
[00:42:31] Speaker B: Right?
[00:42:32] Speaker A: So, but it's kind of, they're kind of playing both sides where it's like, we need your help. You're the optimal outcome. But then, you know, we're going to run this sale process and SpaceX is the main potential bidder. And if they win, Then who knows? Who knows what's going to happen? Like maybe they'll be more competitive with you or whatever it is, right? Like, but at the end of the day, Globalstar wants to sell to Apple because Apple holds all the keys. And in these articles, they talk about the, obviously the, you know, Apple's right of first refusal and some of the deal dynamics there because they want to make sure that the market knows that, hey, we're warning you that these things are out there just in case, or any potential buyers should know that. these are out there. And obviously, like, if they're negotiating, if buyers are doing due diligence, they'll learn this stuff on their own, but they want to make the public know that these things are out there, right? And so, yeah, as I mentioned before, you know, Global Star is at a crossroads. They face significant financial repayments to Apple starting now. You know, they don't have the control of their own destiny in that they outsource the design, development, and manufacture of their satellites to somebody else. They basically outsource by prime contractor. And then of course, like if AST SpaceMobile and Starlink are successful, then what economic return can they expect being a backup service for Apple, right? Like if no one's using the network and they owe Apple all these payments and they're not getting service revenues in return to make those payments, then They're going to be in a tough spot, right? And so, yeah, I think that's why you're seeing all this kind of come to a head and Globalstar's holding their nose and hoping, you know, they've kicked off this process and they're hoping that, you know, either Apple buys them or they've put enough pressure and they have enough sponsorship within Apple where Apple's like, you know what, we'll just let you guys sell to SpaceX and we'll get some preferential terms or treatment for their next generation constellation and we'll call it a day. But the issue with that, of course, is that Apple sees SpaceX as a direct threat in terms of wanting to make their own handset, whether it's getting into on the X side. And it's not just SpaceX, it's all of Elon Musk's ecosystem. We've talked about like this vertical stack of, you know, with X, he's got social media, AI, financial payments, calling. I mean, you can use X for chat and calling. And so these are all things that Apple's interested in or are important to Apple in their ecosystem. And obviously you have to include Tesla as well and robots and just a whole host of things. It's not just SpaceX, but it's all these, it's X, it's Grok, it's Tesla. And so for Apple, like it's a pretty big threat. And so the key question is, why would you underwrite your own demise, right? So why would you let Globalstar sell to SpaceX and then they potentially start eventually, because Globalstar has global worldwide S-band and L-band spectrum, that would just accelerate their ability to provide some type of internet service directly to users without having to go through Apple or MNOs. And so for me, that seems kind of a bit of a stretch where I don't know if Apple, I think Apple's pretty strategic. I don't think they would give away the cards like that. And so for those people who are optimistic that a Starlink, or sorry, a SpaceX Globalstar deal could happen, I would refer them back to a very painful experience of mine before. And this is the precedent that I'm going to talk about, which is there was this company that I invested in that would public via SPAC called Kano Health, and this was a value-based care provider. which ultimately went into bankruptcy. But interestingly, a lot of the dynamics are similar here where you have a dominant customer/payer in the Apple Globalstar situation. Apple gets 85% of Globalstar's total capacity on their network. And in the Kano Health, which was a value-based health provider, it was basically a captive supplier for Humana, And so about 60 to 70% of Kano Health's Medicare Advantage patients and the revenue went through Humana. And I believe Humana was like an early investor too. But for all intents and purposes, like Humana was a critical customer and they had the ultimate say of what happened with Kano Health. And so interestingly, you know, Apple has a right of first refusal before any sale or change of control. Humana also had a right of first refusal with Kano. before and other protective provisions that basically would prevent a sale of Kano without their say, right? And so fast forward to, I think it was like 2022, you know, Kano Health was a highly leveraged entity and when rates started going up and their growth started flagging a bit, the company did the same thing. They announced through the Wall Street Journal, they leaked that they were in a potential sale process and they put everybody's names out there and they talked about like UnitedHealth, all the other, all the big managed care providers, UnitedHealth, of course Humana, they put their name in there too, and CVS and others, right? And so they were trying to create this sense of a potential sale process when everyone knew like it was basically up to Humana to decide whether they wanted the company to sell or not. And it was either going to be Humana that would buy them or they would say no. And that was it. They couldn't sell. And so interestingly, when they leaked those articles, maybe it was like a month or two later, Kano Health leaked to, I think it was the Wall Street Journal, that CVS was in exclusive talks with Kano Health and had beaten out the other players. And so that took the stock up and people were pretty excited. And again, just remember this company was highly leveraged and had faced some difficulties because growth had slowed and rates were going up. I think a lot of their debt was floating rate debt, and so they were going to have a tough time meeting their obligations. And so, excuse me, but then what ultimately happened is that CBS decided to walk away from that deal because at the end of the day, they just realized that Fumana had the keys where they could not only match whatever CVS bid, but then they could just terminate the contracts that they had with Kano. So for those that don't know, CVS owns, I think it's Aetna. Yeah, Aetna, which was a direct, which is a direct competitor to Humana. And so for Humana, it was dead on arrival. Like they would never let Kano sell to to CVS and have, you know, compete or be in a position to better compete with them. And so Humana basically put a kibosh on that and CVS walked from the deal, stock cratered. And then they tried to, you know, restructure the company a few times and ultimately, and Humana let this happen, right? They, the company went into bankruptcy and then Humana, you know, in a smart way, they went into the bankruptcy and they bought the assets. as they wanted and they walked away, you know, so they were able to walk away with the assets that were important to them. And then the rest of Kando's business, which served UnitedHealthcare, CVS, and other companies, that went under. So they actually damaged their competitors and yeah, and they got what they wanted. But that was all that whole situation. was started by Cando Health because they were facing some financial difficulty and they decided to put themselves in play full well knowing that structurally they were disadvantaged because Humana ultimately had the cards, like they had the right of first refusal. They had other protective provisions that would basically prevent the sale of the company to anyone else. And so there are, it's almost like eerie parallels here where Globalstar is in a financially, they're looking at the market becoming increasingly competitive. ASTC Mobile, Starlink are coming in and they're going to get relegated to the, like this backup service, but then they can't do anything about it because Apple holds the cards. And so they're going to now try to put the company up for sale and get something going. And it's a pretty dangerous gambit, right? Because either Something does happen, but it's not going to happen without Apple's consent. And Apple could look at this and say, well, you know, I'm okay with it. Like I put some money into this thing and I have senior security protection. I own basically the current and future network that will run on the spectrum. You know, I have the money and the wherewithal to buy this, you know, to fully fund this thing or to buy it out of bankruptcy. So no one's going to push me around. I'm going to make the decision. And for people who are not familiar with this situation looking at it, they might say, well, why would Globalstar ever negotiate that? It doesn't make any sense. Like they've painted themselves in a corner. And it's like, yeah, Globalstar was on the financial ropes until Apple came in and gave them money to, you know, not only gave them money, but gave them a market, right? For what they had previously Apple was like, okay, we're going to integrate you into all these Apple iPhones and devices. I mean, Apple just recently integrated it into one of their watches with the SOS messaging service. But yeah, Bulbasaur got an offer, a deal that they couldn't refuse because there was no alternative. The alternative was financial ruin. And so I think When looking at SpaceX's perspective, or even, you know, some people have talked about AST SpaceMobile, I don't know why either party would want to do this deal because essentially you're buying, you're stepping into the shoes of Globalstar who got a raw deal to begin with, right? And so you gotta be comfortable with a raw deal and maybe that's worth it, like working with Apple, like that's worth it. But then for SpaceX, That doesn't seem to make sense because you probably are going to be able to go cobble together global spectrum and do it, take your time in doing that. I mean, Globalstar would accelerate that, but then you've got, you're locked into Apple and it's almost like, what was it? I think Circle, this is kind of a non sequitur, right? Circle, they have this stablecoin called USDC. And in order to drive adoption, they basically got Coinbase to have it, you know, on their platform. And it's been great. Like they've gotten a massive amount of adoption, but they gave away, I think like 80 or 90% of economics, not only on Coinbase, but wherever USDC trades, any yields that they get from it, they have to give it to Coinbase. And so that product is structurally flawed forever. And so that's what gold stars do. Like they've It's flawed because Apple owns this thing and whether SpaceX buys it or like, you know, if AST SpaceMobile buys it, they would have to work out something with Apple to make it more attractive. And that's why I mentioned that before. And so I think that's where this whole story and the situation kind of falls on its face. Now, you know, could the parties work something out with Apple? Like, could SpaceX work something with Apple and they become friends and the deal happens? Sure, it could totally happen. But I think in terms of the market assigning some probabilities, I think the probability of something happening here that's going to be good for Globalstar shareholders is lower than the market thinks. And, but again, the home run scenario is like Apple decides to just buy Globalstar and integrate it. But as we've read in some of these articles, Globalstar, Apple is probably loath to become a service provider itself and compete directly with its MNO customers, which introduces a whole host of regulatory things when they're, it's like being regulated by the FCC, et cetera. But I think the, and yeah, I've been rambling here for maybe an hour almost, but the other angle that I did want to talk about is the regulatory, the antitrust angle. Because I think direct-to-device is a new market, but it shouldn't be a foregone conclusion that SpaceX or even AST SpaceMobile could buy Globalstar or Iridium for that matter, because it's going to depend on how the market, how the Department of Justice, who I think they would be, not the FCC, FTC, but the DOJ would probably review this deal, how they define direct-to-device market. Like, do they view it as something that includes All the players, like, or do they, you know, like all data services including satellite phones, or are they focused on the new market, which is these services to mobile phones? And do they slice up the market into messaging, or do they talk about it more broadly as just data in general, or are there subsectors of the market? So it's really going to depend on how they slice the market, but I think Given how nascent this is and SpaceX's current dominant position in fixed wireless, it'll be an interesting exercise to see how regulators would look at this because I don't think it would be a layup for, for example, SpaceX to buy Globalstar or Iridium, effectively putting a competitor out of business and then consolidating your market share. Because then that would effectively, if you look at like old school traditional services and it's in the US, then maybe there's 3 players right now. That's how you would define market because AST SpaceMobile for all intents and purposes is not to market yet. It's going to be next year. And of course the DOJ would look at that too. But if you were just to say it's Globalstar, Iridium, and SpaceX, that's a 3-player market going to 2. When it comes to old school antitrust analysis, that's an immediate block. Like the DOJ is going to sue them to block that deal. And I think the chances of winning are probably low. But then if you include AST SpaceMobile and you say, hey, they've got all these MNOs and they've got AT&T and Verizon, so maybe that's a 4-player market and it's going to go to 3, that still would have a pretty difficult review and maybe maybe gets approved with, you know, some conditions or concessions that SpaceX would have to provide. I'm not sure what those would be, by the way, but even a 4 to 3 where the DOJ, I've mentioned this before, like they learned their lesson by approving the Sprint T-Mobile merger, which then created, turned a 4-player market into 3. And then, you know, what we, what consumers have seen over the past couple years is just prices continue to go up. And I think most people agree that that was a big mistake. Because part of the concessions to get the deal done was to divest Boost Mobile and some spectrum assets to Dish Networks. Good old Charlie Ergen, because he's going to create a 4th, what we say facilities-based competitor, meaning someone who's going to actually build a physical network to compete versus a virtual network operator, which you can't really say like those guys have the ability financially to compete. But anyway, we saw that fall on its face. And of course, Charlie Ergen was like, yeah, I'm going to build this out and then failed. And then, you know, he's selling his spectrum to AT&T and SpaceX and probably Verizon as well. And so that's a case where a DOJ fix ended up being a complete failure. So they want, they probably would want to avoid that. So I think even if SpaceX were to tried to get a deal done with Globalstar and Apple did consent to it, you would have a pretty tough time in a regulatory review. And I'd probably give the odds of a deal like that actually going through probably like 20 or 30% at most. But who knows, right? It depends on how they position it. It depends on the administration. I think even for a Trump administration, people would say, oh, they're business friendly and they'll help Musk out. I don't think you can assume anything, right? Because I think people assumed that about the Trump administration the first term and they're like, oh, it's going to be an M&A cornucopia. Like people are going to be able to get deals done because this administration's going to just approve, be business friendly. And then of course they came out and blocked, oh gosh, I'm trying to remember. They blocked like a few big deals just because of, I think it was around media because Trump didn't like it or, you know, they didn't want, There to be a— yeah, it was like politically motivated. It was Time Warner and somebody else, which then ultimately, I think, of course, AT&T won that deal and then later they spun it off. But anyway, I think with this administration, yeah, it's probably hard to handicap the odds of any deal getting through regulatory review. But I think when it's pretty clear-cut, when you have a 4 to 3 and especially a 3 to 2, that deal is most likely going to get blocked because the last thing regulators want is a duopoly that you help facilitate versus, you know, the market kind of naturally goes there. I mean, the great thing is like you've got A.C. SpaceMobile and Starlink, they're entering the market. You've got 2 legacy players. And so, you know, what the regulators would say is, I'm going to block this deal because Globalstar should be a good competitor for long-term because it's got implicit backing by Apple. They have deep pockets and so they'll figure it out. They'll get some type of competing service going. And so I need to block this because Apple's not going to just let this die. And of course Apple can tell regulators like, hey, we're going to let this thing die. And then regulators will be like, okay, well then they'll go into bankruptcy and then we'll see who buys the assets out of it.
[01:00:55] Speaker B: Right.
[01:00:55] Speaker A: And it can be somebody else. It can be Google or who knows. But anyway, yeah, I think You know, I've been going on for an hour. Hopefully that's been helpful. I've kind of been rambling and kind of going over different aspects of this, but let me check the questions here just in case I missed something. Let's see. Already hear you got burned by Kendo Health. Yeah, I was a big bull on Kendo Health and so I got burned on that, which is why I know about the parallel here. And for those that don't know, Yeah, you can go back and read. I mean, the deal dynamics are very similar. You've got Humana that's effectively in control of Canno. They have a right of first refusal. They have all these other deal protections. And so it was basically up to them to whether the company could sell or not. It was either going to be to Humana or nobody. And then Humana was like, you know what, I'm just going to let these guys go to bankruptcy, which is what they did. And they bought the assets out of bankruptcy. I'm not saying that's going to happen to Globalstar, but The same dynamics apply where it's up to Apple to decide if Globalstar is going to sell or not. And if they don't want it to sell to SpaceX, it's not going to happen because Apple can make it hard. Like, let's just, let's go back to the regulatory review. If Apple is the owner of Globalstar and the DOJ and FCC are seeking comments about the deal, let's say SpaceX and Globalstar decide to announce the deal anyway, then Apple can complain at the DOJ and the FCC and say, hey, we we think this is highly anti-competitive and we wanted Globalstar to build this constellation for us and they're not doing it. And we want to build a third credible player and we're going to give them money to go do it. And once the DOJ reads that, they're going to be like, oh, this is an insta-block. And when you go in front of the courts and Apple has witnesses and files affidavits that, hey, we're going to go invest in this, I mean, that's an immediate Deal killer, right? And then of course, Apple, for any number of these other aspects of their agreement with Globalstar, they can make life really hard, right? So they do have the de facto blocking power and will decide ultimately who owns Globalstar or no one will own Globalstar. Let's see. Am I recording this space? Yes, I'm recording. So if you can't hear, you can listen to it later.
[01:03:19] Speaker B: Let's see.
[01:03:20] Speaker A: Uh, okay. People are giving me thumbs up, so let me see if there are, if anyone has any questions, feel free to write them. Oh, someone's requesting to come up. I'll, I'll take them up. Let's see. Spack Willy. Hey, Spack Willy, are you there? You're on mute. Do you have a question? Maybe he's shy. Back, Willie, you there? Okay. Anyway, I think I covered most of it. Yeah, the key, I would just say we'll probably hear more about this potential deal or deal process. I might be wrong, like I could be totally surprised. You might see a deal If a deal is announced between SpaceX and Globalstar, that's certainly possible. It would have to have some type of blessing from Apple. I think in that type of situation, Apple probably, if a deal is announced, Apple probably gets some type of sweetheart deal, but then they stay arm's length away from it because ultimately they kind of want to work with everybody. I think for, but I wouldn't, I think the high probability is that no deal happens. Or there's a small probability, maybe a deal with AST SpaceMobile or somebody else, right? But I don't think AST SpaceMobile would buy Globalstar themselves. They would have to be in partnership with Apple or something like that, because it's a pretty big financial net. Globalstar, if you, let's just assume $10 billion price is correct. I mean, the company is only generating $130 million of EBITDA this year, $150 million next year. There are some, there would be some cost savings if you did a deal, but GoldStar is effectively better dead than alive because all the values in the spectrum is not really in the current operating business because you'd basically shut it all down. Like the constellation's old, the spectrum is valuable, And with the new constellation, you could certainly deploy a really good, decent broadband service on that. But if you were just to look at things financially, for example, Iridium is much more attractive. Its spectrum is not as valuable because it— here, let me just go back to my notes. I think Iridium has about 8 megahertz, just one sliver of 8 megahertz of L-band spectrum globally. And so that is attractive, but it's not great. But then Globalstar has 8.7 megahertz of spectrum, L-band spectrum, and then 17 megahertz of S-band spectrum globally. So their position is much better. But as I was saying before, Iridium, they actually have, yeah, they're generating, call it $500 million of EBITDA this year. And so I think if you were to do some type of deal with them, That's more interesting financially because you can, you know, they stopped their share buyback. You could cut their dividend, you could take out a ton of costs and just run it for cash until you have a constellation that would be able to utilize their spectrum. But anyway, maybe I'll end it there. My kids are back, so, oh, I see Francisco. Maybe I'll bring you up here if you have a question. Hey Francisco, are you there?
[01:06:52] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:06:54] Speaker A: Hey, what's going on, man?
[01:06:55] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm here.
[01:06:56] Speaker A: How's it going? Uh, here Sunday getting ready for the week.
[01:07:00] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:07:00] Speaker A: But, um, real quick, I wanted to clarify that, uh, the CEO of, um, Globalstar on the 3rd quarter, he actually mentioned that they have received the buses from Rocket Lab and MDA and that they were expecting to receive the 2nd batch of buses like by the end of, uh, this quarter. So Rocket Lab is not late on those buses. what it sounds like. I don't know where that rumor came from. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, it's, I think Tanner, he's up here too. Maybe he can clarify, but I think the— sorry, go ahead. No, go ahead. And I did listen to the CEO talking about this during the 3rd quarter. So it's not something that I've read or somebody told me. I've actually listened to it.
[01:07:45] Speaker B: Right. Yeah. Yeah.
[01:07:47] Speaker A: I mean, I, as I was saying before, I don't think it's a Rocket Lab issue, but I think Taylor was writing about how maybe the timing has been off, which, as I was saying before, like it wouldn't be a surprise.
[01:08:02] Speaker B: Right.
[01:08:02] Speaker A: And I think for a company like Globalstar who was negotiating from a position of weakness, for them, they probably told Apple like, hey, we're going to do all these things and it's going to be great. And then of course, when it comes to reality, as we all know, space is hard and it takes time. And, you know, it's like, was it Viasat? I mentioned this as an example for when people get all testy about things taking longer than you think. Like Viasat, their second satellite came, what, 5 years delayed? I think it's launching on ULA in the coming weeks. But yeah, that stuff happens. I mean, it's just normal. It's not good or bad. It's just, that's just what it is. But yeah, no, I appreciate it. Yeah, I don't think Rocket Lab is delayed. But I guess I would say for a company like Globalstar, if you're outsourcing all your design and manufacturing, it's tough, right? Because like we've already seen with AST where they've taken longer to build the satellites because they wanted new features and they were able to incorporate them or they made changes. And so like, for example, FM1 and FM2, We don't really know all the features that are on those things, but they're much heavier. And then of course the next satellites after those are going to be made of composites, which are much lighter. But then I think they're probably not going to have some of the same features as FM-1 and FM-2 because there's some like secret stuff going on there. But anyway, anyhow, but yeah, no, thanks for coming up and clarifying that. I think I'm going to end it.
[01:09:32] Speaker B: You're welcome.
[01:09:33] Speaker A: Yeah, I think I'm going to end it here because I got the kids here. I did want to give a shout out to the Dodgers, which I was potentially going to do a spatial survey, but then I was watching the game and it was probably one of the best World Series games I've ever seen. But sorry for Blue Jays, but hey, it was a great series. But yeah, we'll see what this week brings. I think there's going to be more news from AST SpaceMobile, especially as we head into the quarter. And so yeah, I'm very optimistic and bullish and I think As someone, you know, I alluded to this or I did a post about it before. It's just interesting to see how this industry has evolved where what was once thought impossible is now kind of accepted as, you know, this is the new state of the market. And these legacy players are, we've gone from, you know, 1 or 2 years or 3 years from them saying, being comfortable and smug about their position to now having to sell their companies, both Globalstar and Iridium, which is kind of nuts. But yeah, that's life comes at you fast, man. That's how things work when you've got innovation at play. But yeah, thanks everyone for joining. Hopefully that was helpful. Stay tuned for this evening. You know, Coop will have his space and, you know, maybe he'll talk about, well, I'm sure he'll talk about some of these things as well. But, um, but yeah, we'll, we'll meet again. We'll talk again. And, uh, hope this was helpful. Thanks everyone for joining. Thanks for listening to the AST SpaceMobile podcast. If you enjoyed this episode and you'd like to help support the podcast, please share it with others, post about it on social media, or leave a rating and review. To catch all the latest news about AST SpaceMobile, make sure to subscribe.
[01:11:22] Speaker B: Thanks again. We're doing something very, very big. Connecting with this technology, we can really affect a billion lives. AST SpaceMobile is the only company that has proven technology to deliver cellular mobile connectivity directly from space to the everyday smartphone. People will just basically turn on their phone and be seamless, really. Regardless of where you are, we don't want the user even to know that it's connected by satellite. Our role is to bring this into reality, always in partnership with the NMO. Listen. Mmm, waffles.