SpaceX Shifts Revenue Focus From Rockets to AI

SpaceX reported $14.6 billion in third-quarter revenue, and artificial intelligence accounted for 52% of its income as the company expanded its AI business and data-center operations. TechCrunch’s report on the results described a company shifting its commercial focus from its roots as a space company toward artificial intelligence.

AI Revenue and Company Results

SpaceX’s renamed “Super Intelligence” business line generated $7.5 billion in revenue. The line combines the recently acquired Cursor coding tool, the Grok bot and SpaceX’s growing neocloud business, which had 1.7 GW of compute. The AI business recorded $431 million in profit before accounting for $1.2 billion in one-time stock-based compensation expenses tied to the Cursor acquisition. The company said those expenses reduced reported profit.

SpaceX reported net income of $4.4 billion for the quarter, compared with a $1 billion loss in the same quarter last year. For the first nine months of the year, though, the company still recorded a net income loss of $413 million. Its third-quarter results also included about $1 billion in income tied to the recovery of Bitcoin prices, along with unspecified related-party income that might be attributable to a SpaceX investment in another company.

Data Centers and Capital Spending

Total capital expenditures reached $19.6 billion. SpaceX was building Colossus II, its second data-center project, as it increased investment in Starship, the heavy-lift rocket. The company views Starship as important for deploying a new generation of Starlink satellites and developing orbital data centers. CFO Bret Johnsen said SpaceX would spend $35 billion to $40 billion on new capital investments in the fourth quarter.

During a live-streamed discussion of the results with investors, CEO Elon Musk said he spent four days a week in Memphis, Tennessee, where Colossus II is being built, working to bring the data center online. Musk said power, cooling and infrastructure, more than chips, constrained the deployment of super intelligence. “This is a bit like the New York Yankees playing in Little League. It’s not fair, but the net result is being able to deploy power cooling infrastructure at a rate that is vastly faster than any anyone else,” he said. Musk added that he had assigned SpaceX engineers to address the infrastructure constraint.

Musk said turbine manufacturers faced 12 to 18 month delays in obtaining the metal blades and vanes used in machines that power data centers. SpaceX was using metal-casting capabilities it developed for the company to make those components and obtain turbines more quickly.

Forecasts and SpaceX’s Next Test

SpaceX expected its next Starship test flight in November and planned to attempt recovery of both the first-stage booster and the second stage. Musk called recovering both segments a “massive technology milestone,” but said the true milestone would be reflying both stages. Starlink had 13.6 million consumer subscribers, and Musk predicted AI agents would increase demand for connectivity.

Musk forecast that annual recurring revenue for the Super Intelligence business would reach “somewhere between $500 billion and $1 trillion” by the end of 2027. Johnsen forecast total revenue of $33 billion to $37 billion in the first quarter of 2027. Those figures are company forecasts; the third-quarter results reported $14.6 billion in revenue and $4.4 billion in net income. The report said the story was developing.