Amazon Just Bought Its Way Into the Satellite-to-Phone Race — And the Real Target Is SpaceX

Amazon announced a deal to acquire satellite operator Globalstar, a move that instantly vaults the company into the direct-to-device connectivity market and sets up a collision course with SpaceX’s Starlink. It’s a classic Amazon play: buy what you can’t build fast enough. But the company it’s trying to catch has spent five years proving that in the satellite business, execution beats capital — and SpaceX has both.

The acquisition gives Amazon globally licensed mobile satellite services spectrum...