SpaceX Q3 Revenue Jumps 161% to $14.6B on AI and Starlink

SpaceX reported third-quarter 2026 revenue of $14.6 billion, up 161% from $5.6 billion a year earlier, “fueled by our Super Intelligence (SI) segment and accelerated growth in Connectivity,” the company said in its results release filed with the SEC on 20 October 2026. Net income was $4.4 billion, against a net loss of $1.1 billion a year earlier, and adjusted EBITDA was $8.8 billion.

Analysts had expected revenue of about $12.74 billion and earnings of 14 cents a share, according to data compiled by LSEG, Reuters reported on 19 October 2026. SpaceX reported diluted earnings of $0.35 a share. Below are the segment figures, the capital spending, and how the quarter compares with what SpaceX itself said in August.

Business Pill · CAPEX AND DEPRECIATION

A short explainer on capex and depreciation: how money spent on long-lived assets such as data centres turns into a cost over years. It teaches the general idea only and says nothing about any company in this story.

The Quarter in Numbers

Revenue in the quarter ended 30 September was $14,575 million, against $7,814 million in the second quarter, according to the release. The SI segment, SpaceX’s artificial intelligence business, brought in $7,560 million, up 195% sequentially and 830% year over year, which the release attributes to new cloud services agreements, the acquisition of Cursor and increased Grok adoption.

Connectivity, which includes Starlink, brought in $5,248 million, up 22% sequentially and 69% year over year. Space revenue was $1,767 million, up 84% sequentially and 6% year over year, the release said.

Income from operations was $2,791 million, against a loss of $143 million in the second quarter. Net income of $4,404 million also included $873 million of interest income, $1,025 million of other income, net, and a $390 million income tax benefit, according to the statement of operations in the release.

What Was Posted on X

Kyle Reidhead of Milk Road posted this summary of a Morgan Stanley SpaceX preview on X at 19:30 UTC on 19 October, the day before the results. The expectation figures in the table above that are credited to Morgan Stanley or to consensus come from this post; we have not read the Morgan Stanley note itself.

Against Expectations

The table sets each reported figure against the expectation and names who published it. The LSEG figures come from Reuters; the consensus and Morgan Stanley figures come from Milk Road’s summary of a Morgan Stanley preview, posted on X by Kyle Reidhead on 19 October 2026, which we have not read in the original. The two consensus sets differ, and we do not merge them.

By our arithmetic, revenue came in about $1.8 billion, or about 14%, above the LSEG figure. LSEG’s basis for its 14-cent estimate is not stated in the Reuters account we read, so we set it beside GAAP diluted earnings without calling either a match.

Capex and Compute

Capital expenditure was $19,593 million in the quarter, of which $16,444 million was in the SI segment, according to the release. In the second quarter it was $18,369 million, and on the August earnings call chief financial officer Bret Johnsen said investors should think of the next two quarters as “very similar to the current quarter” on capex. By our arithmetic, third-quarter capex was about 7% higher than the second quarter’s, and the SI segment accounted for about 84% of it.

Nameplate compute reached 1.7 gigawatts on 30 September, up from 1.4 gigawatts at the end of June and 0.6 gigawatts a year earlier, as SpaceX continued the buildout of COLOSSUS II, the release said. In August, Elon Musk told analysts: “We expect to end this year with over 2 gigawatts of compute.”

Starlink and Space

SpaceX had 13.6 million Starlink consumer subscribers on 30 September, up 1.6 million in the quarter, and consumer monthly ARPU rose 5% sequentially to $69, the release said. Connectivity income from operations rose 99% year over year to $2.4 billion. More than 3,800 aircraft were equipped with Starlink.

In the Space segment, SpaceX completed Starship Flight 14, which the release calls its first orbital Starship flight and its first revenue-generating Starship mission, delivering 26 Starlink V3 satellites. It also signed three additional NASA ISS crew missions, 18 National Security Space Launch missions and three commercial Starfall missions, and announced Starbase, Louisiana, a spaceport with a first launch targeted for 2029.

Cursor and Spectrum

SpaceX completed its acquisition of Cursor on 14 August 2026, based on an implied equity value of $60 billion, the release said. GAAP purchase consideration was $42.5 billion, and equity awards attributable to post-acquisition service are valued at $23.4 billion. Cursor contributed $608 million of revenue from the closing date to 30 September, and the SI segment’s operating income included $1.2 billion of share-based compensation from the acquisition.

On 8 October, SpaceX agreed to acquire a nationwide portfolio of up to 14 megahertz of paired 800 MHz spectrum for its Starlink Mobile strategy, with closing expected in the first half of 2027. SpaceX ended the quarter with $51,294 million of cash and cash equivalents and $38,561 million of marketable securities, about $89.9 billion combined by our arithmetic.

Connecting the Coverage

This follows our pre-results piece this morning, which set out Bloomberg Government’s count of $5.9 billion in defense obligations to SpaceX so far in fiscal 2026 and the LSEG consensus Reuters reported. The Starfall missions in the release connect to our piece on Varda flying a cancer drug to orbit beside SpaceX’s Starfall reentry capsule.

The capex figures sit beside the roughly $750 billion Meta, Google, Amazon and Microsoft are expected to spend this year, as Bloomberg Businessweek reported. And the share price matters beyond the market: our piece on Trump Accounts set out how a SpaceX share given to children through the accounts generally could not be sold for up to five years, CNBC reported.

The Structural Read

As we read it, the revenue mix changed inside one quarter: SI revenue rose 195% sequentially to $7.56 billion, which the release attributes to new cloud services agreements, Cursor and Grok adoption, while Connectivity grew 22% to $5.25 billion.

As we read it, the capex test Bret Johnsen set in August held roughly: he said the next two quarters would be “very similar to the current quarter”, and capex was $19.6 billion against $18.4 billion, about 7% higher by our arithmetic.

As we read it, compute is the figure to watch next: nameplate compute reached 1.7 gigawatts on 30 September, against the “over 2 gigawatts of compute” Elon Musk said in August SpaceX expected by the end of the year.

Three Implications

$14.6B REVENUE Third-quarter revenue was $14.6 billion, up 161% year over year, against about $12.74 billion in LSEG data cited by Reuters.

$19.6B OF CAPEX Capital expenditure was $19.6 billion, of which $16.4 billion was in the SI segment, according to the release.

1.7 GW OF COMPUTE Nameplate compute reached 1.7 gigawatts on 30 September, up from 1.4 gigawatts at the end of June, the release said.

The Business Engineer Lens

This story maps onto the Business Engineer framework The AI Capex Map.

The framework sizes the cycle this way: “The total cycle: $725B Big Four + $50B Oracle + $13B Apple + $60B Neoclouds + $80B China + $60B Sovereigns + $48B Other = ~$1.04 trillion in 2026 compute capex, the first trillion-dollar year of compute capex in human history.”

As we read it, SpaceX’s $16.4 billion of SI capex in one quarter is a test of where a vertically integrated buyer, one that builds compute, models and applications, sits in that cycle. The framework was published in May 2026 and does not discuss SpaceX’s third quarter.

What Is Not Established

The release gives no formal revenue or capex guidance and does not restate the $100 billion annualized revenue run-rate SpaceX described as a trajectory in August; the webcast at 20:30 UTC may address it, and we will add what is said there. The consensus figures are third-party estimates on bases we have not seen, and Morgan Stanley’s figures come from a summary of its note, not the note itself.

The Bottom Line

SpaceX reported third-quarter revenue of $14.6 billion, above the roughly $12.74 billion LSEG figure Reuters reported, with its SI segment nearly tripling sequentially to $7.56 billion and capex of $19.6 billion. As we read it, the quarter shows the SI segment producing more revenue than Connectivity, while SI capex of $16.4 billion was, by our arithmetic, more than twice the segment’s revenue.