Alphabet carried its unlisted stakes valued under the measurement alternative at $128.2 billion on 30 September, double the $64.1 billion at the end of 2025, according to its third-quarter Form 10-Q. The filing says those investments “primarily consist of our investment in one private company”. About 69% of that value, $88.8 billion, is cumulative upward adjustments, by our arithmetic.
The same filing lists $75.2 billion of SpaceX shares, now held as marketable equity, “subject to short-term restrictions on the ability to sell”.
Short explainer · Alphabet’s 10-Q: $128.2B in Private Stakes, $31.9B in Pledges
Business Pill · FINANCIAL CONDITIONS
A short explainer on financial conditions. It teaches the general idea only and says nothing about Alphabet.
The key insight: Alphabet’s 10-Q carries its unlisted stakes at $128.2 billion, primarily one private company, and $88.8 billion of that, about 69% by our arithmetic, is cumulative upward adjustments; it also holds $75.2 billion of SpaceX shares under short-term sale restrictions.
The note on non-marketable securities gives a total initial cost of $48.6 billion for these stakes on 30 September, against $28.4 billion at year-end. That is about $20.2 billion of added cost in nine months, by our arithmetic. Cumulative upward adjustments rose to $88.8 billion from $44.5 billion; cumulative downward adjustments, including impairments, were $9.2 billion.
Total non-marketable securities on the balance sheet reached $135.2 billion, against $68.7 billion at year-end. The filing does not name the private company.
Alphabet’s non-marketable equity securities under the measurement alternative (which the 10-Q says primarily consist of one private company), their cumulative upward adjustments and initial cost, and marketable equity securities, at 31 December 2025 and 30 September 2026. Source: Alphabet Form 10-Q, quarter ended 30 September 2026. The 69% share is our arithmetic.
Where SpaceX Sits Now
Marketable equity securities were $90.4 billion on 30 September, against $6.3 billion at year-end, and the 10-Q says that figure “includes $75.2 billion of Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (“SpaceX”) shares”.
Our earlier report on Alphabet’s stake swings noted that the second-quarter 10-Q listed $80.0 billion of SpaceX shares under the same short-term restriction. The third-quarter figure is $4.8 billion lower, by our arithmetic. Total marketable securities rose to $208.8 billion from $96.1 billion.
What Moved the Income Line
The 10-Q says other income and expense fell $21.0 billion from a year earlier in the third quarter, “primarily related to net unrealized losses in our marketable equity securities largely from SpaceX, and decreased net unrealized gains on our nonmarketable equity securities largely from a private company”.
For the nine months, it says the line rose $100.9 billion, “primarily related to net unrealized gains on our nonmarketable equity securities largely from a private company, and SpaceX prior to its initial public offering”. The total gain on equity securities was $127.3 billion for the nine months and a $8.7 billion loss for the quarter.
The Business Lever: Earnings That Track Other Companies’ Prices
As we read the filing, Alphabet’s reported profit now moves with the value of two holdings it does not run: a listed SpaceX block and one private company carried under the measurement alternative. Our breakdown of the quarter reported that Alphabet’s release said the $8.7 billion loss on equity securities reduced diluted earnings per share by $0.55.
Anthropic’s S-1, which we covered in our piece on the Google-Anthropic loop, lists Google funding and investments; Alphabet’s 10-Q does not name the company behind its largest unlisted stake.
The Structural Read
As we read the note, most of the value Alphabet carries for its unlisted stakes comes from write-ups after observable transactions rather than from the cash it put in, which the 10-Q gives as $48.6 billion of initial cost.
As we read the income statement notes, two holdings drove the swing in other income: the 10-Q ties the quarter’s loss largely to SpaceX and the nine-month gain largely to a private company.
As we read the SpaceX line, the stake moved from a private holding to listed shares with sale restrictions, so its value now changes with SpaceX’s share price each quarter.
Alphabet Form 10-Q, quarter ended 30 September 2026
“primarily consist of our investment in one private company”
Three Implications
FOR ALPHABET’S REPORTED EARNINGS The 10-Q ties the quarter’s other income loss largely to SpaceX and the nine-month gain largely to a private company.
FOR THE BALANCE SHEET Total non-marketable securities were $135.2 billion on 30 September, against $68.7 billion at year-end.
FOR WHAT IS STILL UNKNOWN The 10-Q does not name the private company or give its share of the $128.2 billion.
The framework argues: “The job of any operator, investor, or builder is to know which layer they are operating inside and which layer the binding constraint is rotating toward next.”
As we read it, Alphabet now operates across layers as both a supplier and an investor whose reported profit moves with the value of its stakes. The framework predates this filing and does not discuss it.
What Is Not Established
The 10-Q does not name the private company, does not give the share of the $128.2 billion it represents, and does not say how much of the $4.8 billion fall in the restricted SpaceX figure reflects price rather than shares sold or released. The 10-Q says carrying values under the measurement alternative are “adjusted upward or downward to fair value upon observable transactions for identical or similar investments of the same issuer or impairment”, so they are not a daily market price.
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Alphabet’s third-quarter 10-Q carries its unlisted stakes at $128.2 billion, primarily one private company, with $88.8 billion of that in cumulative write-ups, about 69% by our arithmetic. It also holds $75.2 billion of restricted SpaceX shares, which the filing ties to the quarter’s loss.
A note on sourcing. All figures are from Alphabet’s Form 10-Q for the quarter ended 30 September 2026, read on 31 October; the second-quarter SpaceX figure is from our earlier reporting on Alphabet’s second-quarter 10-Q. Figures labelled our arithmetic are our own.
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur (for example, How to Digitize a Family Business in Europe) and HackerNoon. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
