In its first quarterly earnings report since completing its $86 billion initial public offering in June, Elon Musk’s SpaceX delivered stronger-than-expected results, posting robust revenue growth while significantly narrowing its losses.
The Texas-based aerospace, satellite internet, and artificial intelligence company reported a second-quarter net loss of $541 million, an improvement from the $1 billion loss recorded in the same period last year. Revenue surged 92% year over year to $7.81 billion, surpassing Wall Street’s expectations.
The company posted a loss of 9 cents per share, outperforming analysts’ expectations of a 24-cent loss. Revenue also exceeded forecasts, climbing above the $6.81 billion consensus estimate compiled by Bloomberg.
Capital expenditures surged to $18.4 billion during the quarter, compared with $2.8 billion a year earlier, driven primarily by increased investment in the company’s artificial intelligence initiatives.
“We had an exceptional second quarter,” SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said during the company’s earnings call. “It really feels like we’re just getting started all over again.”
Ahead of the earnings release, SpaceX shares climbed $10.80, or 9.4%, to close at $125.33 on the Nasdaq. The company reported its quarterly results after the market closed on Tuesday.
Second-quarter results were fueled by strong growth in SpaceX’s connectivity segment, led by its Starlink satellite internet service.
The division generated net income of $1.66 billion, up 79% from a year earlier, while revenue climbed 66% to $4.29 billion. During the earnings call, President Gwynne Shotwell said Starlink added 1.7 million net subscribers during the quarter, bringing the constellation to roughly 9,600 satellites in orbit. She also highlighted a new agreement with American Airlines.
Meanwhile, SpaceX’s launch business posted a wider quarterly loss of $542 million, compared with a $369 million loss in the same period last year, as the company continued investing heavily in development of its Starship rocket. SpaceX has spent roughly $15 billion on the program to date.
Despite the increased spending, revenue from the launch segment rose 29% year over year to $962 million, supported by continued demand for the Falcon 9 rocket, which remains the industry’s leading commercial launch vehicle.
SpaceX’s artificial intelligence segment generated $2.56 billion in revenue during the quarter, up from $737 million a year earlier. The unit also narrowed its loss to $1.26 billion from $1.52 billion a year ago, outperforming analysts’ consensus estimate for a $2.39 billion loss.
During the earnings call, Elon Musk said the company plans to release a new version of its Grok large language model by year-end that will incorporate “all the data that SpaceX has ever produced,” describing it as an enormous dataset accumulated over nearly 25 years.
In June, SpaceX signed a cloud services agreement to provide AI computing capacity to Google in a deal valued at approximately $920 million per month through mid-2029. The company has a similar arrangement with Anthropic.
While the quarterly results offered reassurance to investors, the stock slipped in after-hours trading, surrendering much of its gains from the regular session.
Since its June 12 initial public offering, SpaceX shares have struggled to maintain their early momentum. The stock was priced at $135 per share and finished its first day of trading nearly 19% higher before retreating in the weeks that followed.
