SpaceX beats forecasts as revenue and spending rise

SpaceX has released its first quarterly earnings report, showing revenue growth of around 90% and a drop in operating losses during the second quarter of 2026.

The company, led by Elon Musk, reported second-quarter earnings of $7.8 billion (€6.7bn), compared to $4.1bn a year earlier, beating expectations of just under $7bn.

SpaceX also continued to spend heavily, with capital expenditure increasing to $18bn from $2.83bn a year earlier. More than 86% of spending went to its artificial intelligence division.

More than half of SpaceX’s total revenue came from its Starlink internet satellite business. Subscribers to the service grew to 12 million, doubling from the previous year, according to the report.

SpaceX noted its partnerships with major airlines, including Aer Lingus, United Airlines, American Airlines and others.

AI computing deals and Starlink satellite growth fueled the results, the company said in a statement.

Earnings from SpaceX’s AI business, which Mr Musk has pitched as the company’s future growth driver, surged by about 250%.

SpaceX’s AI division, which includes the social network X, its Grok chatbot, and data centers, is expected to become the company’s leading source of revenue by the September quarter.

“We’re building AI compute capacity at a scale faster than anyone else, we believe, and we’re significantly improving our AI models,” Mr Musk said during a post-earnings call.

SpaceX has signed agreements to lease unused computing power to companies including Anthropic and Google.

Those and other deals are expected to bring in an additional $6.7bn in computing leases over the six months beginning in October, according to CFO Bret Johnsen.

In July, AI lab Anthropic started paying $1.25bn a month to use SpaceX’s Colossus data center near Memphis, Tennessee. Google will soon start paying $920m a month for computing power.

SpaceX shares fell 7.5% in after-hours trading after rising 9.4% in regular trade ahead of the publication of results.

The stock could face additional pressure from the expiry of ‌SpaceX’s post-IPO lock-up period starting on Thursday.

A portion of SpaceX employees will be allowed to sell their shares post-IPO, which could double the already limited number of shares in circulation, which currently sits at around 5 percent.

SpaceX has struggled to maintain investor confidence since its record IPO, which valued the company at about $1.75 trillion.