Elon Musk said SpaceX’s fourth-quarter revenue will probably rise “something like 70%” from the third quarter, speaking with Ron Baron at the Baron Investment Conference in New York on Friday, in a fireside chat streamed on X by Baron Capital. “Q2 to Q3 revenue increase was I think over 80% this year. I’m not sure what the exact numbers will be, Q3 to Q4, but probably something like 70%”, he said, according to our machine transcript of the broadcast, at about 1:28 p.m. ET.
SpaceX reported revenue of $14,575 million for the third quarter in its 10-Q, up from $7,814 million in the second quarter, an 86.5% rise by our arithmetic. Another 70% would put fourth-quarter revenue at about $24.8 billion, by our arithmetic of Musk’s forecast. That is a forecast, not a reported figure.
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The key insight:Musk told Friday’s Baron conference that SpaceX’s fourth-quarter revenue would probably rise “something like 70%” from $14,575 million, about $24.8 billion by our arithmetic, and that annual recurring revenue would likely exceed $500 billion in December 2027, a forecast he called “not a promise”.
On SpaceX’s third-quarter call on 20 October, Musk predicted annual recurring revenue by the end of 2027 “somewhere between $500 billion and $1 trillion”, TechCrunch reported. On Friday he put the top of that range at long odds. He said “it seems quite likely that our annual recurring revenue in December of next year will exceed 500 billion”, and added: “Now, this is not a promise”. “This is my best guess”.
On $1 trillion, he said “a trillion is not out of the question”, and put the likelihood at “maybe 2% or something like the likelihood”. An annual rate of $500 billion would be about $125 billion a quarter, about 8.6 times SpaceX’s third-quarter revenue, by our arithmetic.
For this December, Musk said SpaceX is “tracking to have an annual rate of revenue” of about $100 billion; one word in that sentence is unclear in our recording. He said that “unless there’s some sort of natural disaster or something, we’ll meet that target”. A $100 billion annual rate equals about $8.3 billion a month, by our arithmetic.
SpaceX revenue by quarter, $ billions: Q1 to Q3 2026 as reported in its 10-Qs; Q4 2026 at Musk’s ‘something like 70%’ (our arithmetic of his forecast); Q1 2027 at the midpoint of the CFO’s $33 billion to $37 billion guide from the 20 October call. Forecasts are not reported figures.
What Was Posted on X
Elon Musk says SpaceX could begin deploying space-based AI computers co-designed with Nvidia around Q3 2027.
“We’ll start off slow, but then it will ramp to significant volume probably in 28. And then very large volume in 29.”
“The cost of intelligence in space is dramatically less than the ground. Once you have a low cost per ton to orbit.”
“You get 30% more solar power in space, it’s sunny all the time, there’s no seasonality.”
“You really need to go to space, because there isn’t enough power on the ground to, to realistically get to those levels per year.”
Wall St Engine posted a clip from the chat at 19:37 UTC, quoting Musk on space-based AI computers co-designed with Nvidia, which it says SpaceX could begin deploying around the third quarter of 2027. The piece quotes the same remarks from our own transcript.
*MUSK SEES $SPCX 4Q REVENUE UP ~70% Q/Q, $2B ABOVE WALL ST ESTIMATES
*MUSK: ANNUAL RECURRING REVENUE COULD EXCEED $500B IN DEC 27, AND $1T THEREAFTER
— Nicholas Mugalli (@RealNickMugalli) Nov 06 18:44
Nick Mugalli posted a clip at 18:44 UTC with headlines on Musk’s fourth-quarter revenue forecast and a line that annual recurring revenue could reach $1 trillion thereafter. In our transcript Musk put a trillion at maybe 2%, as the piece notes.
Above the Company’s Own First-Quarter Guide
Musk said the fourth to first quarter could be “maybe something similar” to the 70%. If both steps were 70%, first-quarter 2027 revenue would be about $42.1 billion, by our arithmetic, above the $33 billion to $37 billion that chief financial officer Bret Johnsen forecast on the 20 October call, as TechCrunch and CNBC reported. Musk did not give a first-quarter number on Friday.
Walter Bloomberg, the markets news account on X, posted at 18:36 UTC that Musk sees fourth-quarter revenue “UP ~70% Q/Q, $2B ABOVE WALL ST ESTIMATES”. We have not seen the consensus figure behind that comparison. A clip posted on X by Nick Mugalli carried the line that revenue could reach “$1T THEREAFTER”; in our transcript, Musk put a trillion at “maybe 2%”, so that wording goes further than his.
Terafab: A Terawatt of Chips a Year
Musk also described the goal for Terafab, the chip plant planned at 100 million square feet. “if you want to get to, say, a terawatt a year of chip production, which is our goal, that’s the reason it’s called the terafab”, he said. He put global output at “around 20 gigawatts of AI chips, maybe 25” this year and “maybe around 35 to 45 gigawatts of AI chips next year”.
A terawatt, he said, means “30 times what current global production will be roughly next year”. By our arithmetic, 1,000 gigawatts is 22 to 29 times the 35 to 45 gigawatts he cited. In the same exchange, our transcript records the line “It’s going to cost a trillion dollars. But we won’t need that money immediately”; the transcript does not label speakers.
Musk Guesses Space Computers Co-Designed With Nvidia in Q3 2027
Asked about computing in orbit, Musk said SpaceX expects to start launching its first space computers, “which we’ve co-designed with Nvidia”, “probably, I’m just guessing here, but in the third quarter of next year”. He added: “start off slow, but then it will ramp to significant volume probably in 28 and then very large volume in 29”.
He said that “in order to get to the terawatt per year scale or even I’d say maybe the 200 gigawatt per year scale, you really need to go to space”, and that in orbit “you get 30% more solar power”. “The cost of intelligence in space is dramatically less than the ground”, he said, once launch costs fall. Our earlier pieces cover SpaceX’s plan for up to 1 million orbital data-centre satellites and the launch-cost arithmetic.
As we read the two calls, the end-2027 range Musk gave on 20 October, $500 billion to $1 trillion, now has a floor he calls likely and a top he put at maybe 2%.
As we read the arithmetic, a $500 billion annual rate means about $125 billion of revenue a quarter, about 8.6 times the third quarter, by our arithmetic.
As we read the space-compute remarks, Musk tied the timing of orbital computers to the third quarter of next year and called it a guess.
Elon Musk at the Baron Investment Conference, 6 November 2026 (our machine transcript)
“Now, this is not a promise.”
Three Implications
FOR SPACEX REVENUE Third-quarter revenue was $14,575 million, up 86.5% from $7,814 million, its 10-Qs show; about $24.8 billion is Musk’s forecast for the fourth, by our arithmetic.
FOR THE 2027 RUN RATE Musk said annual recurring revenue would likely exceed $500 billion in December 2027 and put $1 trillion at maybe 2%.
FOR TERAFAB Musk said the goal is a terawatt of chips a year, which he put at 30 times next year’s global output.
The framework argues: “It is a sovereign-scale financing problem dressed in tech-company clothing”.
As we read it, SpaceX is a builder of that capacity as well as a user of it, and Musk’s forecasts put a revenue figure on that. The framework does not discuss SpaceX’s forecasts.
What Is Not Established
The quotations are from our own machine transcript of Baron Capital’s X broadcast, not an official transcript; clock times are approximate. The fourth-quarter growth, the December 2027 revenue rate and the 2% likelihood are Musk’s forecasts, which he called “not a promise”. SpaceX has not reported fourth-quarter revenue. The $24.8 billion, $42.1 billion and $125 billion figures are our arithmetic on his forecasts. The launch timing for the space computers is, in his words, a guess.
Musk told the Baron conference that SpaceX’s fourth-quarter revenue would probably rise “something like 70%” from $14.6 billion, about $24.8 billion by our arithmetic, and that annual recurring revenue would likely exceed $500 billion in December 2027, while putting $1 trillion at “maybe 2%”. On 20 October he had described the end-2027 range as $500 billion to $1 trillion.
A note on sourcing. Quotations are from our own machine transcript (faster-whisper) of Baron Capital’s X broadcast of the fireside chat on 6 November 2026, not an official transcript; clock times are approximate. Revenue figures are from SpaceX’s 10-Q filings for the second and third quarters of 2026. Growth rates, the fourth-quarter estimate and the other conversions are our arithmetic on Musk’s forecasts. The 20 October range and the CFO’s guide are as reported by TechCrunch and CNBC.
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.
