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SpaceX just proved it is no longer just a rocket company. The company Elon Musk founded to colonize Mars reported third-quarter results on Tuesday that blew past every analyst estimate — and the surprise wasn't the rockets or the satellites. It was the data centers.
Revenue surged 161% year over year to $14.58 billion for the three months ended September 30, well above the $12.72 billion analysts had expected, according to data compiled by LSEG and reported by Reuters. Net profit came in at $4.4 billion — against a consensus expectation of $1.57 billion — a dramatic swing from the $541 million loss SpaceX posted just one quarter earlier on revenue of $7.81 billion. It was the company's first profit since its historic public listing, which raised about $85.7 billion and valued SpaceX near $1.75 trillion, according to the New York Post.
The AI business is now bigger than Starlink
The headline number hides an even bigger story: SpaceX's artificial intelligence business has quietly become its largest division. AI revenue rose more than ninefold to roughly $7.6 billion in the quarter — overtaking the roughly $5.2 billion generated by the Starlink-led connectivity business. A year ago, connectivity accounted for about 61% of the company's revenue; the balance has flipped in a matter of quarters.
And here is the twist analysts keep missing: SpaceX isn't making this money by selling its own AI models. Grok, its xAI chatbot, remains overshadowed by OpenAI, Anthropic and Google, Reuters reports. Instead, SpaceX is earning AI revenue the way a cloud provider does — by renting out raw computing capacity to developers. Its customers for that compute include Anthropic, Google and Reflection AI, and the business spans xAI, the social platform X and a fast-growing data-center operation that is now the company's biggest area of investment.
The catch: $19.6 billion of spending
The boom is expensive. Capital spending nearly tripled in the quarter to $19.6 billion, and $16.4 billion of that went to AI infrastructure — land, power and chips for data centers. The AI unit is running large operating losses, and SpaceX has cautioned investors it will take sustained investment before the division generates consistent profits. In other words, the company is spending like a hyperscaler to become a hyperscaler, while the rockets and Starlink keep the lights on.
Starlink itself is still growing — subscriber numbers are climbing across consumer, aviation, maritime and government services. But the company flagged a familiar risk: as it expands beyond wealthy countries into lower-priced markets, average revenue per user could slide. Investors will be watching whether the pricing pressure has already begun.
Musk floats a SpaceX–Tesla merger
The earnings call delivered one more surprise. Musk told investors that SpaceX and Tesla have formed special committees of independent directors to discuss a possible merger "at the request of shareholders." He said he cannot take part in the talks because of conflicts of interest but called the idea a good one — adding that shareholders would ultimately decide. Shares jumped in extended trading on the results, with reports putting the after-hours move between 2.5% and 4.9%.
"We are in an inflection moment for SpaceX across launch, connectivity and superintelligence," Musk said on the investor call, according to Reuters. The numbers back him up: a rocket company that now earns most of its money renting computer chips to AI labs is playing a very different game than the one it IPO'd on four months ago. The question for the next quarters is whether the $19.6-billion spending spree turns that inflection into durable profit — or just a more expensive version of the same bet.
Read more: SpaceX's $10.7 billion share giveaway for every kid and the $8 billion Starlink spectrum deal, plus Anthropic's $45 billion AI cloud talks. Original reporting: Reuters and the New York Post.
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