SpaceX Earned More from AI Than from Space, Stock Plunged 12%
First quarterly results reveal a company rapidly transforming into an AI infrastructure giant, but investors were spooked by massive capital expenditures of $18.4 billion.
First quarterly results reveal a company rapidly transforming into an AI infrastructure giant, but investors were spooked by massive capital expenditures of $18.4 billion.
SpaceX released its first quarterly results as a public company on Tuesday, August 5, 2026, and the headline number wasn't about rockets. The company that launches most of the world's cargo into orbit earned more from selling computing power for artificial intelligence and satellite internet than from its space program. Revenue nearly doubled to $7.8 billion, yet the stock still fell.
According to data cited by The Next Web, the stock dropped as much as 11%, while Le Figaro, citing AFP, reports a decline of 12.23% in early trading on Wall Street, with the share price slipping to $110.00. This erased about $200 billion in market value. The stock now sits below its IPO price of $135 and near half of its June peak.
For a company named after space travel, this is a striking shift in focus. SpaceX's AI division generated $2.6 billion in revenue for the quarter, a 247% increase year-over-year. In comparison, the space business brought in $962 million. The Verge summed it up simply: "SpaceX made more revenue as an AI company than as a space company."
Nearly all of the AI revenue comes from a business SpaceX barely had a year ago: renting out graphics processing units (GPUs). In May, a contract was signed with Anthropic, and in June with Google. One customer, identified only as "Customer B" in the report, accounts for 19.5% of SpaceX's total revenue, pointing to Anthropic. Financial reports now, as Engadget noted, look like "the finances of an AI company in 2026", rapid growth paid for by enormous spending. Indeed, the AI unit is still posting a loss of $1.26 billion.
Beneath the AI story lies a business that actually makes money. Starlink revenue rose 66% to $4.3 billion, and subscriber numbers doubled to 12 million, GeekWire reports. It is the only profitable segment at SpaceX, with operating income of $1.7 billion.
CEO Elon Musk told analysts that people "really underestimate Starlink" and predicted it could deliver "most of the world's internet" within a decade. President Gwynne Shotwell said SpaceX will soon take on the "big three" U.S. mobile carriers, a market she estimated at $600 billion.
None of this calmed investors. Capital expenditures surged more than sixfold to $18.4 billion, largely invested in AI, well above Wall Street expectations. CNBC reported that the figure "rattled" the market, despite management promises that every AI investment pays off within a year.
Additional pressure on the stock comes on Thursday, August 6, when the so-called lockup period expires, allowing the sale of shares worth about $101 billion held by insiders, Bloomberg reports. Already, about 35% of freely available shares have been sold short.
The conference call followed a familiar pattern: Musk made huge claims, and his executives tempered them. When the CFO carefully framed a target of $100 billion in annual revenue by December, Musk jumped in, saying it's "not in question. That's what we'd achieve if we basically did nothing."
He compared his data center advantage to "the New York Yankees coming in and playing against a Little League team," and called their construction a "trivial problem" compared to reusable rockets. He then described building factories on the Moon with robots, which he himself admitted "sounds completely crazy," as reported by Fortune.
The internal target of $1 trillion in annual revenue has been moved up a year, to 2030, with a "non-zero chance" for 2029. That implies roughly a tenfold growth in four years, from a company that is still losing money. The next test is near: this month, SpaceX plans to catch the returning Starship with the launch tower, a true engineering feat. But the market has already valued the company as an AI infrastructure business with a rocket company attached, and the first results only confirmed that picture, just days before the lockup period expires.
