SpaceX, the space technology company owned by billionaire Elon Musk, announced its Q3 2026 financial results showing a 161% increase in revenue compared to the same period last year, exceeding analyst expectations. The AI business grew the fastest with revenue increasing ninefold, causing SPCX shares to jump about 8% in after-hours trading on Tuesday.
During the earnings call, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk stated that he considers merging SpaceX and Tesla a “good idea” and revealed that both companies have established a special committee to discuss this possibility.
Key financial results for SpaceX in Q3 2026 are as follows:
SpaceX CFO Bret Johnsen disclosed during the meeting that the company expects Q1 2027 revenue to be between $33 billion and $37 billion, well above the LSEG analyst consensus estimate of $22.2 billion.
Johnsen noted that this revenue forecast is supported by clearer business opportunities in the computing segment over the next six months.
Although SpaceX is best known for its reusable rockets, in the past quarter most of the company’s revenue and profits came from its connectivity business, particularly the Starlink satellite internet service.
Starlink’s user base grew to 13.6 million in the quarter, up from 12 million in the previous quarter.
Total revenue from the connectivity business rose 69% to $5.25 billion from $3.1 billion a year earlier, surpassing StreetAccount analysts’ estimate of $4.84 billion.
Nearly all of the company’s profits continue to come from Starlink, with operating profit from connectivity almost doubling to $2.37 billion.
Breaking down revenue sources, SpaceX earned $3.12 billion from consumer Starlink users, while government and enterprise customers generated $2.13 billion.
A major driver of this growth is Starlink’s plan to build a mobile phone network in the U.S. SpaceX announced in early October that it would acquire 800 MHz low-band spectrum. Additionally, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approved the expansion of the company’s satellite constellation by 15,000 satellites.
SpaceX entered the AI sector by acquiring xAI, Elon Musk’s own AI research and development company, earlier this year. The company rapidly expanded this business by offering compute power leasing services to companies such as Google and Anthropic.
SpaceX now refers to its AI division as “Super Intelligence,” which has become the company’s largest business segment, with revenue soaring ninefold to $7.56 billion from $813 million a year ago, surpassing analyst expectations of $6.47 billion. This AI business also turned to an operating profit of $431 million.
In Q3, SpaceX also completed the acquisition of Cursor, an AI coding startup valued at over $60 billion.
Conversely, SpaceX’s rocket launch segment grew slightly this quarter, with revenue increasing to $1.77 billion from $1.67 billion a year earlier, while the space business posted an operating loss of $7 million.
Elon Musk also mentioned during the meeting that including infrastructure, cloud services, and paying users of its Grok AI models and products, the company targets an annual recurring revenue (ARR) between $500 billion and $1 trillion by the end of next year.
However, LSEG analysts project SpaceX’s total revenue for 2027 to be approximately $110 billion, implying more than 100% growth compared to this year.
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