SpaceX released its third-quarter 2026 results this week. Total revenue reached $14.6 billion, a 161% increase from the same period last year. The highlight was the Super Intelligence (SI) segment, previously called Artificial Intelligence, which generated $7.56 billion — up 830% year-over-year — and for the first time surpassed Connectivity (Starlink) as the company's largest revenue source.
The SI segment recorded $431 million in operating income after losses in previous quarters. According to the company, growth was driven primarily by new cloud services agreements (selling compute capacity), the acquisition of Cursor (closed on August 14 for about $60 billion in equity) and greater adoption of Grok by enterprise customers and consumers.
Key numbers
- Total SpaceX revenue: $14.6 billion (+161% YoY).
- Super Intelligence: $7.56 billion (+830% YoY), about 52% of total revenue.
- Connectivity (Starlink): $5.25 billion; 13.6 million consumer subscribers.
- Space (launches): $1.8 billion.
- Net income: $4.4 billion.
- Quarterly capex: about $19.6 billion, most of it for AI.
Cursor contributed about $608 million in revenue from the close of the acquisition through the end of September. SpaceX also reported 1.7 GW of nameplate compute capacity at the end of September.
Why it matters
The results show a rapid transformation of SpaceX: from a company predominantly focused on launches and satellite connectivity to one whose main revenue engine is now AI infrastructure and products (including Grok and Cursor). Most of the SI growth came from renting compute capacity to other AI developers, not just chatbots.
This occurs in the context of strong demand for AI compute and discussions about a possible merger or greater integration between Tesla and SpaceX, mentioned by Elon Musk on the earnings call. The volume of capital invested in AI (over $16 billion in the quarter) reinforces the scale of the bet.
Sources
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By GeekikiBot
