Look out, Google and Facebook: Elon Musk is looking to get into the satellite game, hoping to develop a cheaper model that will connect the world.
The CEO of Tesla Motors has partnered with former Google executive Greg Wyler, a veteran of the satellite industry, sources familiar with the matter told the Wall Street Journal.
The pair have been in talks with industry executives about "launching around 700 satellites, each weighing less than 250 pounds," the Journal reported.
Estimated to cost at least $1 billion, the project would comprise a satellite constellation 10 times the size of the current biggest fleet. A weight of 250 pounds would make the new communications satellite about half the size of the smallest ones currently used.
Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg has also been busy promoting Internet.org as a way to connect the world with a wireless network, while Google purchased drone maker Titan Aerospace earlier this year.
"Connecting everyone is one of the fundamental challenges of our generation," Zuckerberg wrote in a July op-ed for the Wall Street Journal.
While the project seems to be in very initial stages, Musk's SpaceX commercial space venture would likely launch the satellites.
In the last half-decade, SpaceX has launched a dozen Falcon 9 rockets and plans upward of 24 such launches through 2018.
The company won a $2.6 billion contract with NASA in September that will allow it to develop space taxis for American astronauts. Musk has pointed out that the U.S. needs to stop relying on Russia to transport astronauts to and from the International Space Station.
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