SpaceX Orders HJT Solar Lines From Singulus, and a 325-Person Firm Doubles

Singulus Technologies, a 325-employee machine maker in Kahl am Main, Germany, has signed a supply contract with SpaceX for a turnkey heterojunction (HJT) solar cell production line worth more than EUR 60 million — about $66 million — with first shipment in the first half of 2027. That is the confirmed deal. The far bigger number, 100 GW a year of manufacturing equipment, comes only from Elon Musk.

Musk posted the claim on X at 6:47 PM Eastern on November 10: "SpaceX has ordered 100 GW/year of HJT solar manufacturing equipment from Singulus in Germany. This is for Starmind to create a sentient sun." By Wednesday the post had roughly 4.9 million views. Starmind is SpaceX's planned fleet of solar-powered satellites built to run AI computing in orbit.

Singulus, in its own release issued after the German market closed, framed the partnership as designed to scale "to support more than 100 GW of production equipment" — with no per-year qualifier. The per-year figure is Musk's. The signed line supports satellite production at SpaceX's plant in Bastrop, Texas. Mike Nicolls, SpaceX's senior vice president for Starlink, said the deal "gives us a high-performance manufacturing path for solar cells for our Starmind satellites."

What does 100 GW a year actually mean?

The United States installed 43.2 GW of solar in all of 2025, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association and Wood Mackenzie, and held about 298 GW of cumulative capacity by mid-year. Their forecast runs at roughly 44 GW of annual additions through 2030. Musk's 100 GW a year is 2.3 times last year's national installations — and about a third of everything the country has ever built, every year.

The number matches SpaceX's own pre-listing filing, which describes a long-term goal of putting up to 100 GW of power into orbit annually, a cadence the company said would require thousands of launches per year. The published satellite design draws up to 250 kW at peak, so 100 GW of cells would feed roughly 400,000 satellites a year before losses. SpaceX has asked the Federal Communications Commission to approve up to one million Starmind satellites, with first launches planned for the second half of 2027.

On Wednesday, Musk explained his orbital arithmetic: "100GW in space is roughly equal to 800GW on Earth," because ground solar "must be paired with massive batteries to continue powering compute at night."

Who is Singulus?

Founded in 1995 as a management buyout from Leybold, Singulus built its name on CD and DVD pressing machines. It still sells optical disc lines alongside coating equipment for solar cells, semiconductors and medical packaging. Its 2025 revenue was EUR 48.3 million, with a net loss of EUR 14.2 million and EUR 6.2 million of cash at year-end. The first SpaceX line alone equals 1.24 times a full year of sales and 72% of the EUR 83 million the company forecasts for 2026.

SpaceX is also Singulus's lender. The partnership began in March; Singulus says SpaceX provided "significant funding" in March and again in October, when Singulus took a subordinated secured loan of about EUR 22.75 million to repay its former largest shareholder.

The market's reaction was violent. Singulus closed Tuesday at EUR 12.70 on Xetra. On Wednesday it opened at EUR 18.80, touched EUR 27.30 and closed at EUR 26.50 — up 108.7% on 799,838 shares traded versus 147,033 the day before. Thursday afternoon in Frankfurt it fell 17.4% to EUR 21.90. With 8,896,527 shares outstanding, market value went from EUR 113.0 million Tuesday night to EUR 235.8 million Wednesday — a one-day gain of EUR 122.8 million, twice the size of the order itself. The shares closed at EUR 1.465 on January 2, so even after Thursday they remain up 14.9 times this year.

What should SpaceX holders take from it?

For SpaceX, the money is small change. The company raised $85.7 billion in its June listing; the first Singulus line costs about $66 million. SpaceX traded at $143.78 Thursday morning, 6.5% above its $135 IPO price and 28.8% below its June 16 record close of $201.80. Neither company has disclosed the first line's output capacity or cell efficiency.

What the order does establish is that Starmind has moved from a filing to a factory contract with a delivery date. Whether the 100 GW-a-year vision follows depends on lines Singulus has not yet signed — and on launch cadences SpaceX has not yet flown.