[SatNews] According to The Seattle Times and reporters Dana Hull and Julie Johnsson (Bloomberg News), the world according to Elon Musk is about to get more ambitious—ranging from a Seattle engineering office to develop and launch satellites to the on-time delivery of a crossover electric SUV that will appeal to women.

The 43-year-old billionaire also said in an interview he’s optimistic his company—Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, the first commercial rocket maker to deliver cargo to the International Space Station—will settle a lawsuit with the U.S. Air Force over satellite launch contracts, and that construction of a Tesla “gigafactory” for electric-car batteries outside Reno, Nevada, is on schedule.

Satellites will play a crucial role in Musk’s efforts to reach his ultimate goal of establishing a human settlement on Mars. Building a commercial satellite business will provide the entrepreneur with revenue and communications know-how that will eventually serve his Martian aspirations.

“We’re going to try and do for satellites what we’ve done for rockets,” Musk said from SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, Calif., predicting the company’s Seattle engineering office will ultimately employ “several hundred people, maybe a thousand people.”

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