GSAT - Musk says SpaceX talked with Apple over satellite phone service

Elon Musk says his company SpaceX ( SPACE ) talked with Apple ( AAPL ) over plans to bring satellite service to iPhones, using SpaceX's Starlink satellite constellation.

"We’ve had some promising conversations with Apple about Starlink connectivity. iPhone team is obv super smart," Musk said in a tweet .

As part of its iPhone 14 release event , Apple ( AAPL ) said it was introducing an emergency service that would let users send SOS messages via satellite while outside the reach of cellular/Wi-Fi connections - and Globalstar ( NYSE: GSAT ) confirmed it was the partner enabling that service .

"For sure, closing link from space to phone will work best if phone software & hardware adapt to space-based signals vs Starlink purely emulating cell tower," Musk continued on Thursday.

A jump in Globalstar ( GSAT ) shares on Wednesday ( by as much as 38% ) began to fade by the market close that day, and the stock slipped 12% on Thursday.

Globalstar's service seems focused on emergency use only, in the vein of a similar offering from Garmin ( NYSE: GRMN ). AST SpaceMobile ( NASDAQ: ASTS ), meanwhile, is looking at direct communications between satellites and ordinary mobile devices; its stock fell nearly 7% Wednesday and is down another 2% Thursday.

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