Amazon is snuffling around Globalstar to bulk up its low Earth orbit ambitions and provide Elon Musk with some serious competition.
The e-commerce outfit is in talks to buy the satellite telecoms group, a move that would juice its efforts to build its own low Earth orbit satellite business.
People familiar with the matter said the two sides are still haggling over deal complexities after a long stretch of talks.
One sticky bit is the Fruity Cargo Cult Apple’s 20 per cent stake in Globalstar, which means Amazon has had to negotiate with Job’s Mob as part of any takeover.
No deal has been stitched up, and the talks could still veer off or collapse. It is not helped by the fact that no one is saying anything publicly about the deal.
Founded in 1991, Globalstar’s shares have jumped in recent months on takeover chatter, hitting a market capitalisation of about $9bn on Wednesday.
Its stock is up about 230 per cent over the past year, with investors betting it could become a challenger to SpaceX.
Globalstar has been attracting interest from other suitors as firms scramble to build their own low Earth orbit satellite constellations, with Starlink remaining the dominant player.
Job’s Mob put $1.5bn into Globalstar in 2024, taking a 20 per cent stake in the company.
As part of that deal, Globalstar agreed to reserve 85 per cent of its network capacity for the iPhone maker for satellite texting when users are outside cellular tower coverage.
Bloomberg reported in October that Globalstar was exploring a sale and had early talks with SpaceX.
Amazon has been pushing its own effort, dubbed Leo, and launched the first batch of satellites for its internet constellation last year.
The company has more than 180 satellites in orbit, but that deployment looks small next to the more than 10,000 active satellites operated by SpaceX.
In February, Amazon had to ask the Federal Communications Commission for a two-year extension of a July deadline to launch 1,600 satellites.
Amazon plans to have about 700 satellites in space by the middle of this year, but regulatory filings say a launch capacity shortage is slowing the build-out.
Amazon has signed deals with JetBlue and Delta for in-flight internet services starting in 2027 and 2028, respectively.
Amazon chief executive Andy Jassy told investors in February that Leo was part of a suite of “incremental opportunities” that the $2.2tn ecommerce group would pursue.
Globalstar reported full-year revenue of $273mn in its latest annual results, a nine per cent rise from 2024.
Income from operations was $7.4mn in 2025, after a narrow loss the year before.
