SpaceX’s third-quarter revenue reached $14.6 billion, according to a regulatory filing made public on Tuesday, and the company returned to net profit as its artificial intelligence business grew. Net income for the quarter was $4.4 billion, a turnaround from a loss of $1 billion in the same quarter last year. Data compiled by LSEG, a financial data firm, put analysts’ estimate for revenue at $12.72 billion.
What drove the quarter
Growth came from every part of the company, but the biggest gains came from what SpaceX now calls its “Super Intelligence” business line. That unit includes the Grok chatbot, the X social-media platform, the recently acquired Cursor coding tool, and a fast-growing cloud-style data-center operation the company calls a neocloud. The operation now has 1.7 gigawatts (GW, a unit of power used to measure computing capacity) and earns most of its AI revenue by renting that capacity to developers such as Anthropic, Google and Reflection AI rather than from its own models.
Not all of the improvement came from operations. About $1 billion came from the recovery in bitcoin prices, and some unspecified related-party income may be linked to a SpaceX investment in another company. Even so, the company still has ground to make up, because it reported a net loss of $413 million across the first nine months of the year.
Heavy spending and what comes next
Total capital expenditure, the money spent on buildings, chips and equipment, came to $19.6 billion in the quarter. Much of it is going to Colossus II, a second data-center project, and to Starship, the heavy-lift rocket the company sees as essential for launching a new generation of Starlink satellites and for orbital data centers. Starship has not yet entered commercial service, and its first orbital test flight last month deployed several Starlink satellites before ending hours early after an engine issue.
Starlink, the satellite-internet unit, kept adding subscribers across consumer, business, aviation, maritime and government services. SpaceX has warned that expansion beyond the wealthiest countries could push average revenue per user lower over time, and investors are watching whether that pressure has started to appear. Musk predicted that SpaceX’s annual recurring revenue, meaning the yearly value of its repeating contracts, would be “somewhere between $500 billion and $1 trillion” by the end of 2027.
Timeline: what has happened so far
- Last month: Starship’s first orbital test flight deployed several Starlink satellites but ended hours early after an engine issue.
- Tuesday, October 20, 2026: SpaceX reported third-quarter revenue of $14.6 billion and net income of $4.4 billion.
- Wednesday: Tesla reports its results, and investors will be listening for Musk’s comments on a much-discussed potential merger between SpaceX and Tesla.
Aasan alfaaz mein
SpaceX ne teesri simahi mein $14.6 billion ki aamdani batayi, jo analysts ke andaze se zyada hai. Company ka AI business ab kul aamdani ka 52 percent hai, aur munafa dobara $4.4 billion ho gaya hai. Lekin saal ke pehle nau mahinon mein ab bhi $413 million ka nuqsan hai. Is khabar ka aam Pakistani ke bill ya rozmarra kharche par seedha asar abhi nazar nahi aata.
