SpaceX revenue jumps 92% but stock tumbles as investors weigh AI spending
By Allison Morrow, CNN
New York (CNN) — SpaceX beat earnings expectations while continuing to burn through cash in pursuit of CEO Elon Musk’s vision for an AI-powered, Mars-colonizing future, the company’s first-ever quarterly earnings report showed.
The newly public satellite, space and AI behemoth brought in $7.8 billion in revenue in the April-June quarter, which SpaceX said was up 92% from the same period in 2025. But it remained unprofitable, losing $541 million in the second quarter, following a $4.3 billion loss in the first three months of the year.
The results, the first financial snapshot for the company since its blockbuster IPO in June, were well above the consensus forecast among analysts polled by FactSet, who had estimated revenue of $6.8 billion and a net loss of $1.9 billion.
SpaceX shares tumbled more than 6% in late trading despite better-than-expected revenue. The reason is primarily because of the eye-popping figures the company spent on its unprofitable AI segment.
“The stock’s negative reaction is less a rejection of the fundamentals than a reflection of the enormous price of growth,” Luke Lango, technology analyst and publisher of Innovation Investor, said in a note. “Investors are demanding clearer evidence that its extraordinary growth can ultimately generate returns commensurate with its extraordinary spending and valuation.”
After shelling out more than $10 billion on capital expenditures – most of it on AI infrastructure — in the first three months of the year, SpaceX diverted another $18.4 billion in the second quarter, much higher than the $13 billion analysts had forecast.
Capex has become one of the most closely watched financial metrics as tech companies race to outspend each other in the AI race. Nearly $16 billion of the second-quarter capex came from its xAI business. Analysts expect the company to top $45 billion in capex for the year.
SpaceX is in a heated race with competitors like OpenAI, Anthropic and Google to dominate the market for the emerging technology. SpaceX said AI revenues grew 247% year-over-year. Revenues for its only profitable business segment, the satellite-based internet service Starlink, jumped 66%.
Investors were also anticipating a key event for the stock on Thursday, when a lockup period on up to 911.5 million SpaceX shares expires, giving some employees and other insiders who held the stock pre-IPO a chance to sell their shares.
The slump in shares after hours may be “less about the earnings and more about what’s coming in the next few days,” said Will Rhind, CEO of investment firm GraniteShares, in a note.
In a call with analysts Tuesday evening, SpaceX executives offered the kind of bullish, at times hyperbolic, forecasts that Musk is known for.
“Our internal projections for reaching a trillion dollars in revenue…have moved up from 2031 to 2030,” Musk said. “And there’s a non-zero test of that being in 2029.”
This story is developing and will be updated.
–CNN’s John Towfighi contributed to this report.
The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
