With its first full quarter as a public company under its belt, SpaceX blew past expectations Tuesday with ~$14.6B in revenue and net income of $4.4B.
The revenue number is up 87% from Q2 and 161% YoY—plus substantially higher than the ~$12.8B that analysts had expected.
Once again, SpaceX’s earnings are as much an AI story as a space one. The Evel Knievel–esque (or Hot Rod, for the millennials) unveiling of a flying Tesla Roadster last week added more fuel to the Tesla-SpaceX merger rumors. But the bigger surprise was in the numbers. For the first time, SpaceX’s AI business, rebranded as SpaceXSI for “Super Intelligence,” out-earned Starlink.
So let’s take a peek under the hood.
Rent’s due: Space revenue in Q3 jumped 84% compared to the previous quarter to $1.8B despite fewer launches—35, compared with 38 in Q2—as more of them carried paying customers.
- The segment lost just $7M, nearly breaking even after a $542M loss in Q2. That’s despite spending $1.2B on R&D, mostly for Starship.
- SpaceX flew 12 customer launches, up from 10 in Q2.
- The company dubbed Flight 14—SpaceX’s first orbital Starship flight—its first revenue-generating Starship mission, delivering 26 Starlink V3 satellites last month.
SpaceX will try to catch both the booster and the ship next month on Flight 15. During the earnings call, Elon Musk called success “more likely than not” and said he expects weekly Starship flights in the first half of 2027.
Middle child: Starlink is still SpaceX’s biggest profit-maker, earning $2.4B in operating income on $5.2B in revenue. That revenue now makes up 36% of the company’s total, down from 55% in Q2, as AI pulled ahead.
- SpaceX added 1.6M consumer subscribers, bringing the total to 13.6M. That count no longer includes managed enterprise and government accounts, such as airlines and ships.
- The average subscriber paid $69 a month, up from $66, as more growth came from developed markets where plans cost more.
- Enterprise and government revenue nearly doubled from a year ago, to $2.1B.
- Starlink Mobile now has 22M monthly users, up 37% since Q2.
Main character energy: SpaceXSI brought in $7.6B in Q3, nearly triple its Q2 total and more than half of SpaceX’s revenue. Cloud deals accounted for most of the jump, with Cursor and Grok adding the rest.
- SpaceXSI turned a profit, earning $431M in operating income after losing $1.3B in Q2.
- It also makes up the bulk of spending, accounting for $16.4B of SpaceX’s $19.6B in Q3 capex.
- Cursor—acquired in August—has already brought in $608M.
Johnsen said new compute pays for itself in less than a year, and Musk said SpaceX could rent out its compute “several times over.” For now, SpaceX is keeping contracts short so it can charge more at renewal.
SpaceX had 1.7 GW of compute at the end of Q3 and expects 2.5 GW to 3 GW by December. Musk said he’s “highly confident” the business can add another 10 GW next year.
One more thing: SpaceX still spends more cash than it brings in, and Q4 will cost even more. The company projected capex to balloon to $35B to $40B, roughly double Q3 spend.
Management anticipates that the spending will pay off fast, forecasting $33B to $37B in revenue for Q1 2027. Musk took estimates a step further, putting annualized revenue at $500B to $1T by the end of 2027.
As for the Tesla merger, Musk said calling it a done deal “would be overstating it.” The two companies haven’t agreed on terms, and shareholders would still need to vote.
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Senators are demanding answers about what caused the disruptions to SpaceX Starlink connectivity in Ukraine—and what consequences the comms outage had.
Starlink terminals supporting Ukrainian operations reportedly had speed restrictions imposed between Oct. 12 and 14. The limitations impacted Ukrainian drone and aircraft operations, potentially impacting the military’s response to Russian drone and missile attacks, according to the senators, who also raised concerns about “glitches” that affected intelligence sharing and early missile warning.
The buck stops…where?: Four Democratic senators sent a letter to SpaceX on Monday demanding that the company explain what role, if any, it had in the outages. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk wrote on X that any changes to Starshield—a military version of Starlink developed for the government—were the result of decisions made by the US government.
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