SpaceX Slides Despite Big Revenue Beat, Tame CapEx
Ahead of the SpaceX earnings today - its first as a public company - we said that investor focus is increasingly shifting beyond the quarter itself, and while revenue and EBITDA performance will matter, the August 6 lockup expiration appears likely to be the bigger near-term driver, opening the door to the first meaningful wave of insider selling just days after results.
On the call, management is expected to spend considerable time on AI-related initiatives. Investors will be looking for updates on data center buildouts, potential increases to compute targets and any incremental commentary around Grok deployment timelines. Stronger-than-expected AI revenue could represent one of the more credible upside catalysts.
Beyond AI, attention will also center on Starlink and Starship. An updated Starlink subscriber figure could be disclosed, although the market may be hesitant to place significant weight on the metric while the network remains largely supported by V2 Mini satellites. For Starship, investors are likely to focus on execution milestones, launch cadence and any signals around the path toward operational payload launches.
Lastly, positioning remains an important factor. As we warned earlier, and as Musk amplified, there is a huge retail short overhang.
I try to warn them, but they just double down … 🤷♂️
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 4, 2026
Hedge funds also screen as notably short, which could amplify upside if AI revenue exceeds expectations or if Starlink economics surprise positively, particularly around ARPU. Even so, the UBS desk believes the lockup expiration is likely to dominate the T+1 reaction and remain the primary stock-specific overhang in the near term.
And with all that in mind, here is what SpaceX reported for its first quarter as a public company, technically the second quarter of 2026:
- Total Revenue $7.8 billion, beating estimate $6.81 billion
- AI $2.561BN
- Space $962MM
- Connectivity (Starlink) $4.291BN
- Total Operating Loss $143MM, better than the $970MM loss a year ago
- AI segment operating loss $1.26 billion, beating an estimated loss of $2.39 billion
- Connectivity operating income $1.656MM, up from $923MM a year ago
- Space operating loss $205MM, worse than the $93MM a year ago
Out of its three segments, SpaceX’s Connectivity business -- which encompasses its Starlink satellite business -- continues to be the only profitable one of the trio. Space, which covers launch and Starship development, as well as AI are operating at a loss.
Going down the income statement:
- Total EBITDA $3.538BN, up from 1.214BN a year ago
- AI EBITDA $1.146 billion,up from a $276MM loss a year ago
- Connectivity EBITDA $2.597BN, up from $1.583BN a year ago
- Space EBITDA ($205MM), worse than the ($93MM) a year ago
- Total CapEx $18.369BN, up huge from the $2.825BN a year ago, but just below the median estimate of $18.58BN
- AI CapEx $15.828 BN YoY, above est of $13.09BN
- Space CapEx $1,174MM up from $946MM YoY
- Connectivity CapEx $1.367BN, up from $1.130BN YoY
Taking a closer look at the last one, capital expenditures jumped to $18.4 billion in the second quarter, from $10.1 billion in the first three months of the year and just $2.8 billion a year earlier. Capex for AI was 86% of the 2Q total and exceeded estimates. SpaceX 2Q AI Segment Capex $15.83B, Est. $13.09B
And visually:
Focusing on the company's Space Segment, it writes that...
Starship V3 development continued to advance towards full and rapid reusability:
- Completed Starship V3’s first suborbital mission in May, Flight 12, which achieved a successful lift off from our new Starbase pad, a precision landing of Starship’s upper stage, and deployment of modified V2 Starlink satellites
- Subsequent to the second quarter, completed Starship Flight 13 in July, which achieved all flight objectives including deploying 20 production V3 satellites, demonstrating in-space relight of a Raptor engine, and executing the softest ever splashdown of Starship, providing critical views of an intact heatshield
Worth noting that Starship continues to add to SpaceX’s expenses. The total costs and expenses for its Space segment, which includes Starship development, were up by $389 million year-over-year, as the company "continued to accelerate R&D investments in our Starship program, which... will reduce the cost to orbit by 99% or more relative to the historical average, and unlock significant revenue potential across all business segments." In other words, Starship development continues to be expensive.
Numbers linked to SpaceX’s AI segment also showed improvement this quarter, mainly thanks to all the deals the company has signed to provide computing power. AI revenue for the second quarter was almost $2.6 billion, up from $737 million this time last year, with most of it coming from AI infrastructure.
But the wins in the AI business, which include the release of Grok 4.5 in July as well as the computing agreements, also come with huge capital expenditures. AI cap ex is around $15.8 billion, with capex for the whole firm this quarter being about $18.4 billion.
Here are the other highlights from the investor deck:
- Demonstrated the power of extreme vertical integration, delivering revenue growth of 92% year-over-year across Space, Connectivity and AI
- Completed two successful Starship V3 flight tests in the past 90 days, advancing towards full and rapid reusability
- Closed multiple industry-leading Cloud Services Agreements resulting in $14.1 billion of contracted sales
- Announced agreement to acquire Cursor for $60 billion to accelerate the AI enterprise opportunity
- Released our most powerful AI model yet with Grok 4.5 in July
- Delivered 66% revenue and 79% income from operations growth year-over-year for the Connectivity segment, driven by a doubling of Starlink Subscribers and continued momentum in Enterprise & Government
- Awarded over $6 billion in multi-year U.S. government contracts for Starshield
Of the above, the last is perhaps the most notable beause as Bloomberg notes, "In case there was ever doubt, SpaceX’s first shareholder deck as a publicly traded company underscores the value of government contracts: “Awarded over $6 billion in multi-year U.S. Government contracts for Starshield”
And the visual highlights:
One thing to note here: SpaceX still remains its own biggest customer of its Falcon rockets. Of the 78 launches it performed in the last six months, the majority were spent deploying Starlink satellites.
Some more details:
- SpaceX Ended 2Q With $100B Cash, Cash Equivalents, Securities
- SpaceX Ended 2Q With $47.5B Backlog
The bottom line: revenue (especially at AI where it surged from $737MM to $2.6BN) solid, and CapEx came in just below expectations, so overall a solid quarter.
The (relatively brief) earnings report also has some CFO commentary. Bret Johnsen writes that the business is scaling across all three segments. He says revenue growth “accelerated across all our business segments” and points to “strong operating leverage,” with margin expansion driven by the new AI computing agreements (the business of renting data center capacity to other tech companies -- Google and Anthropic).
Additionally, the company "ended the second quarter with $100 billion of cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities, and $47.5 billion in backlog." This financial strength gives SpaceX the "capacity to invest in Starship, Starlink Broadband and Mobile satellites, and our AI platform, while maintaining a disciplined long-term capital allocation framework."
Notably, there was no mention of Tesla or the Terafab in this release, although it is certain that analysts will ask about this on the call.
Also Bloomberg notes that there’s no direction on cap ex and it isn't clear what it would be. However, after the IPO and SpaceX tapping the corporate bond market, the CFO paints a picture of SpaceX being in a strong position to spend.
“This financial strength gives us substantial capacity to invest in Starship, Starlink Broadband and Mobile satellites, and our AI platform, while maintaining a disciplined long-term capital allocation framework.”
Looking ahead, there isn't much (any) information on what comes next, as there does not appear to be a forward outlook section. So no details on projected revenues and costs. We’re also lacking information on what comes next for its business segments.
When will SpaceX launch Starship again on its next test flight? What will the launch schedule look like moving forward? And what about the timelines for its V3 Starlink satellites and Starmind AI data center satellite system? Perhaps we’ll get some snippets about that during the earnings call.
So what to make of all this? While the quarter was solid, with revenue coming in $1BN above estimates, with capex below the bogey, the fact that the stock ran up aggressively during today's session may have set up the results for failure, and sure enough, after initially spiking higher, shares are off their highs (and lo0ws) and trading is choppy as shares drop more than 1%, erasing all of their previous post-market gains. However, as noted earlier, the stock gained nearly 10% in today’s regular session, its best performance since June. So on net, it is still up modestly on the day.
Investors are also likely gaming out what will be said on the conference call ahead of a Thursday share unlock which could flood the market with as many as 911.5 million additional shares. The options market was also pricing in a roughly 15% move after the results so more volatility may be ahead.
And while it’s not unusual for stocks to fall after a company reports solid earnings (especially its first earnings), Bloomberg notes that it usually follows a period of outperformance for shares. SpaceX is still down solidly from its $135 IPO price and has more downside pressure ahead as share lockups start to expire.
Full investor presentation below (pdf link):