breaking / Space

🚨 SpaceX Just Made $4.4 Billion in Three Months — and Its AI Arm Now Outsells Starlink

SpaceX posted $4.4bn net income on $14.6bn Q3 revenue, up 161%, as its AI segment overtook Starlink for the first time.

By Tech Arcade··2 min read

SpaceX Just Made $4.4 Billion in Three Months — and Its AI Arm Now Outsells Starlink — Tech Arcade
Photo: SpaceX / Unsplash

SpaceX just posted $4.4 billion in net income for the third quarter, on revenue of $14.6 billion, up 161% from a year ago (SpaceX).

The numbers landed after the US market closed on Tuesday, 20 October. Wall Street had pencilled in about $12.7 billion of revenue (Reuters via Investing.com) and earnings of 15 cents a share. SpaceX delivered 35 cents (investingLive).

The biggest surprise isn’t the rockets. It’s the AI business.

⚡ What Happened

  • Super Intelligence (SI), the AI segment, brought in $7.56 billion, up from $813 million a year ago and $2.56 billion last quarter. That made it the largest segment for the first time, ahead of Starlink (SpaceX).
  • Connectivity, mostly Starlink, made $5.25 billion, up 69%. Starlink reached 13.6 million consumer subscribers, adding 1.6 million in the quarter. That’s short of the 2.29 million analysts expected (Fortune).
  • Space, the launch business, made $1.77 billion, up 6%. Starship Flight 14 became the first orbital Starship flight and carried 26 Starlink V3 satellites.
  • Operating income came in at $2.8 billion, against a $143 million loss last quarter.

One detail matters here. Net profit was larger than operating profit thanks to about $1 billion of “other income”, net interest income and a $390 million tax benefit. Only about $2.8 billion came from running the business.

🧠 Why It Matters

A year ago, SpaceX lost $1.1 billion in the same quarter, and it was still in the red for the first nine months of 2026 as a whole. The AI segment itself swung to a $431 million operating profit, after losing $1.26 billion the quarter before. That’s the first sign the huge AI spending is paying back.

Part of that jump was bought, though. SpaceX closed its $60 billion acquisition of Cursor, the AI coding company, on 14 August. Cursor added $608 million of revenue in about six weeks.

The spending is still enormous. Capex reached $19.6 billion in the quarter, and $16.4 billion of it went into AI infrastructure. SpaceX says its compute capacity reached 1.7 GW by 30 September.

🔜 What To Watch

  • The outlook: the release gave no full-year forecast, so watch what management says on tonight’s webcast (it started at 21:30 London).
  • Starlink’s slower growth: the subscriber miss sits awkwardly next to a 69% rise in revenue.
  • The capex bill: analysts at S&P Global project spending of about $70 billion this year (Fortune).

The share-price reaction is still settling and isn’t confirmed yet.

Sources

❓ Quick answers

How much money did SpaceX make in Q3 2026?

SpaceX reported net income of $4.4 billion on revenue of $14.6 billion for the quarter ended 30 September 2026, according to its results released on 20 October 2026.

Did SpaceX beat earnings expectations?

Yes. Revenue of $14.6 billion beat the roughly $12.7 billion analysts expected (LSEG data via Reuters), and earnings of 35 cents a share beat a 15-cent consensus.

How many Starlink subscribers does SpaceX have?

SpaceX said it had 13.6 million Starlink consumer subscribers as of 30 September 2026, up 1.6 million in the quarter, below the 2.29 million additions analysts expected per Fortune.