SpaceX Revenue Surged AI Takes the Lead. Its Stock is Soaring.

SpaceX reported a sharp increase in third-quarter revenue and a return to profitability as its expanding artificial intelligence business and continued Starlink growth lifted results above Wall Street expectations.

Elon Musk's company generated $14.58 billion in revenue for the three months ended September 30, exceeding analysts' forecast of $12.72 billion. Net income reached $4.4 billion, compared with expectations of $1.57 billion. The results reversed a $541 million loss in the second quarter. Its stock is jumping on Wednesday, climbing almost 8%.

The earnings report also showed how rapidly SpaceX's business is changing. Its Super Intelligence division generated approximately $7.6 billion in quarterly revenue, roughly nine times its year-earlier level and almost triple the previous quarter's total, according to the Financial Times.

That put AI-related operations ahead of the company's other businesses by revenue, accounting for more than half of total sales. The expansion has increasingly tied SpaceX's financial performance to demand for computing infrastructure alongside its established space and satellite operations.

Much of that AI revenue comes from supplying computing capacity to other developers. SpaceX rents data-center infrastructure to companies including Anthropic, Google and Reflection AI. Those contracts give it a business resembling a cloud provider, even as its own Grok models compete for users in a crowded AI market.

Connectivity remained the largest contributor to operating profit. The division, which includes Starlink, produced $5.25 billion in revenue and $2.37 billion in operating income. SpaceX said enterprise and government demand, together with continued consumer subscriber growth, supported the improvement.

The Super Intelligence segment recorded $431 million in operating income, reversing a $1.26 billion operating loss in the preceding quarter. Space operations approached break-even, reporting a $7 million operating loss on $1.77 billion in revenue.

Another measure of profitability also exceeded expectations. Adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) reached $8.8 billion, compared with analysts' projection of $6.4 billion. That was approximately $2.4 billion above the forecast. The stronger earnings came with substantial investment requirements. Capital expenditures totaled $19.59 billion, exceeding the $18.05 billion analysts had anticipated.

The Super Intelligence division accounted for $16.44 billion of that spending, or approximately 84% of the total. SpaceX has been directing money toward data-center capacity and its Starship launch system.

SpaceX also reported the first revenue-generating mission for Starship, which delivered 26 Starlink V3 satellites. The company said the deployment added approximately 10 times the downlink capacity of a Falcon 9 Starlink launch.

"We are building the infrastructure of the future with discipline," the company said in its earnings commentary, citing capital efficiency and maintaining an investment-grade balance sheet among its priorities.

The report was SpaceX's second since its June stock-market debut. The offering priced shares at $135, followed by a climb above $225 and a subsequent retreat. Shares had recently traded around $148, valuing the company at approximately $2 trillion.