SpaceX’s second-ever earnings report revealed it is spending greater than ever on AI — and that would quickly double.
SpaceX reported spending $16.4 billion on AI-related capex within the third quarter, persevering with the acceleration of AI spending seen in latest quarters.
SpaceX spent roughly $19.6 billion on total capital expenditures within the third quarter as Grok maker continues its AI buildout. That was squarely in keeping with what Wall Avenue analysts had been anticipating.
Of that $19.6 billion, SpaceX reported spending $16.4 billion on AI-related capex. Analysts had been anticipating $16.9 billion.
SpaceX expects capex to balloon within the present quarter, with CFO Bret Johnsen forecasting $35-$40 billion because of new compute coming on-line. Johnsen additionally mentioned SpaceX expects to rapidly see returns on its investments.
“At present pricing, new compute deployments are producing a payback of lower than a yr,” he mentioned.
SpaceX’s inventory was buying and selling up 4% after hours following the outcomes. The corporate is broadcasting the earnings name on X, turning into one in every of a small checklist of firms to broadcast video of the gathering.
Throughout the earnings name, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk mentioned that chips are now not the largest constraint to AI buildout.
“So speaking about SpaceX superintelligence, SpaceXSI — “attractive,” no matter — in order I feel individuals are beginning to understand the constraints on deployment of superintelligence is extra in energy and cooling and infrastructure than it’s in chips,” he mentioned.
SpaceX’s AI income grew considerably quarter-over-quarter to $7.6 billion — forward of analysts’ estimates of $6.3 billion. This report additionally marks the primary quarter since SpaceX bought Cursor.
That income implies that SpaceX’s AI section formally introduced in additional income than its Starlink enterprise. Starlink introduced in $5.2 billion for the quarter.
SpaceXAI has since rebranded as SpaceXSI, following Musk’s alignment with President Donald Trump’s most well-liked rebranding of “synthetic intelligence” to “tremendous intelligence.”
One space the place SpaceXSI has discovered some success is leasing its compute to Anthropic, Google, and Reflection AI. Throughout the firm’s final earnings name, SpaceX CFO Bret Johnsen mentioned the leasing preparations had generated $1.6 billion in further income.
Musk mentioned that SpaceX is being inundated with lease requests.
“We’re additionally frankly hounded relentlessly by each hyperscaler and by dozens of smaller firms to lease extra of our compute,” he mentioned. “So we might lease out our compute a number of occasions over if we mentioned sure to everybody.”
General, he mentioned the allocation for SpaceX compute is one thing “that is going to vary from one month to the subsequent.”
“I suppose as a tough approximation, our objective is to type of cut up it 50/50 roughly, the place half of the compute is used internally, and half of it’s rented to others,” he mentioned. “However that quantity might shift 60/40 by some means.”
Correction: Tuesday, October 20, 2026 — An earlier model of this story incorrectly included two values for SpaceX’s total capex. The proper worth is $19.6 billion.
