SpaceX's AI Computing Arm Overtakes Starlink as Profits Surge

Space Exploration Technologies Corp., the rocket and satellite company known as SpaceX, told investors Tuesday that leasing out artificial-intelligence computing capacity has overtaken its Starlink satellite-internet service as its largest source of revenue, a reversal that underscores how quickly the AI boom is reshaping even companies built around rockets and orbital hardware.

In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, SpaceX reported third-quarter revenue of $14.58 billion, up 161 percent from $5.58 billion a year earlier and well ahead of the roughly $12.7 billion to $12.9 billion Wall Street had expected. Net income came to $4.4 billion, or 35 cents a diluted share, reversing a $1.1 billion loss in the same period last year. Operating income was $2.79 billion, compared with a $273 million operating loss a year earlier, and adjusted EBITDA nearly quadrupled to $8.81 billion.

An AI business bigger than Starlink

The shift was driven almost entirely by what SpaceX calls its Super Intelligence segment, which leases computing capacity from the company's data centers to outside customers training and running large AI models. That business generated $7.56 billion in revenue in the quarter, up more than eightfold from $813 million a year earlier, and for the first time brought in more money than Connectivity, the segment that houses Starlink. Super Intelligence's operating income flipped to $431 million from a $1.72 billion loss a year ago, while the segment's capital spending, $16.4 billion for the quarter, accounted for the large majority of SpaceX's total $19.6 billion in capital expenditures.

Connectivity revenue, mostly Starlink subscriptions, still grew 69 percent to $5.25 billion, and the satellite broadband service added 1.6 million consumer subscribers during the quarter to reach 13.6 million worldwide, with average revenue of $69 a month per customer and installations on more than 3,800 aircraft. That growth trails the pace analysts had penciled in, a sign that Starlink's expansion, while still strong, is maturing in its most developed markets even as rivals such as Amazon's Kuiper satellite-internet constellation and traditional broadband providers compete for the remaining subscriber base. The company's Space segment, which includes launch services for government and commercial customers, grew a more modest 6 percent to $1.77 billion on 35 total launches, 12 of them for paying customers, including NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope mission. For the first nine months of 2026, SpaceX reported revenue of $27.08 billion against a net loss of $413 million, a figure that reflects heavy early-year losses in the AI segment before this quarter's turnaround, according to the filing posted on the company's investor relations site.

• Total Q3 2026 revenue: $14.58 billion, up 161% year over year
• Net income: $4.4 billion, versus a $1.1 billion loss a year earlier
• Super Intelligence (AI) segment revenue: $7.56 billion, up from $813 million
• Starlink subscribers: 13.6 million, up from 12.0 million in the second quarter
• Quarterly capital expenditures: $19.6 billion, with $16.4 billion tied to AI infrastructure

Built on data centers and a $60 billion acquisition

SpaceX's move into AI computing is not entirely new. The company's since-public initial public offering filing earlier this year disclosed multiyear leasing agreements under which AI developers, including Anthropic and Google, agreed to pay hundreds of millions of dollars a month for access to graphics processors housed in SpaceX's Colossus data center cluster. SpaceX said nameplate compute capacity reached 1.7 gigawatts at the end of the quarter, up from 1.4 gigawatts in June and 0.6 gigawatts a year ago, a buildout pace that rivals dedicated cloud providers.

The company also closed its all-stock acquisition of Cursor, the AI coding assistant maker previously known as Anysphere, on August 14, at an implied equity value of $60 billion. Cursor, now a wholly owned subsidiary, contributed $608 million in revenue in the roughly six weeks since the deal closed through the end of the quarter. The quarter's Super Intelligence revenue also included $538 million in advertising, tied to usage of Grok, the AI chatbot developed by Elon Musk's xAI, which SpaceX's infrastructure helps power. In its release, SpaceX's finance chief said the company had delivered "another strong quarter" while "building the infrastructure of the future with discipline," language the company used to emphasize capital efficiency even as spending accelerates.

Who is affected

The results matter well beyond SpaceX's own balance sheet. Anthropic, Google and xAI are all effectively renting scarce AI training and inference capacity from a company that, a few years ago, had no presence in cloud computing at all, adding a new and fast-growing supplier to a market already strained by a shortage of data-center power and advanced chips from makers such as Nvidia. That scarcity is part of why SpaceX's compute pricing has been lucrative enough to overtake Starlink: companies racing to train and run ever-larger AI models have shown themselves willing to pay a premium for any available capacity, wherever it is built. Starlink's roughly 13.6 million subscribers, along with airlines and enterprise customers using the service, are unaffected operationally, but the results show that Starlink, once SpaceX's singular growth story, is now a smaller part of a more AI-centric company. Employees and shareholders who bought into SpaceX's June initial public offering are also watching a stock whose business mix has shifted considerably since the IPO prospectus was written, with the Super Intelligence segment's share of revenue roughly doubling in two quarters.

The quarter also arrives as Tesla shareholders and analysts watch for any sign of closer ties between Musk's companies: on the earnings call, Musk told analysts that SpaceX and Tesla had each formed special committees of independent directors to study a possible merger, at the request of shareholders in both companies, though he said he could not take part in those discussions directly because of his conflicted position as controlling figure in both firms. Musk has floated the idea of combining the two companies in earlier earnings calls this year without confirming any formal process was underway, making Tuesday's disclosure of dueling special committees the most concrete step toward an eventual transaction so far.

"I do think there's a lot of merit to combining the companies, as we are pretty much in the super intelligence singularity," Musk said on the call, describing the overlap between SpaceX's compute buildout and Tesla's own AI ambitions.

Reaction and what comes next

Wall Street's immediate reaction centered less on the quarter itself, which beat consensus on nearly every line, than on what the spending trajectory implies going forward. Industry analysts tracking the filing have projected that SpaceX's capital expenditures could climb from roughly $70 billion this year toward $200 billion by fiscal 2028 if the AI buildout continues at its current pace, a trajectory that would require SpaceX to keep raising debt alongside the roughly $90 billion in cash and marketable securities it held at quarter's end. The company itself offered no formal financial guidance for the fourth quarter or full year in its filing, a reticence that stands out given the scale of the numbers it did disclose.

Several near-term developments will test whether the quarter marks a durable shift or a single standout period. SpaceX is awaiting regulatory approval, including from the Federal Communications Commission, for its roughly $8 billion deal to acquire Grain Management's 800 MHz wireless spectrum licenses, meant to improve indoor and mobile Starlink coverage, a transaction the company expects to close in the first half of 2027. The company also used the quarter to notch its first revenue-generating Starship mission, Flight 14, which delivered 26 next-generation Starlink satellites, as SpaceX works toward a first launch from a planned new Starbase facility in Louisiana, not expected before 2029. And investors are watching Tesla's own third-quarter report, due after markets close Wednesday, for any further comment from Musk on the merger question that SpaceX's special committee disclosure has now put squarely on the table.