SpaceX posted its first quarterly report as a public company, and the key numbers came in well ahead of expectations. For the quarter ended June 30, 2026, revenue rose 92% year over year to about $7.8 billion, while adjusted EBITDA increased about 192% to $3.5 billion. The AI business also showed better-than-expected progress on loss reduction, though capital spending remained high and management said spending in the next two quarters would stay roughly in line with the second quarter.
SpaceX released the results after the U.S. market closed on Tuesday, Aug. 4, Eastern Time. Based on different sell-side estimates cited in the report, Bloomberg’s compiled consensus for revenue was about $6.81 billion, while LSEG had expected $6.93 billion. SpaceX beat both by more than 10%. Adjusted EBITDA of $3.5 billion was also far above the roughly $2 billion expected by the market, making it one of the clearest highlights in the release. On $7.8 billion of revenue, the adjusted EBITDA margin was close to 45%.
Earnings per share came in at -$0.09 for the quarter. The report noted that this figure cannot be directly compared with the average analyst forecast of a $0.26 per-share loss, but in absolute terms the loss was clearly better than many investors had feared. Net loss narrowed to about $541 million from roughly $1 billion in the same period a year earlier, an improvement of about 46%.
Revenue and EBITDA beat expectations, while net loss narrowed
Even with the improvement, SpaceX remained loss-making on a net basis. The quarter’s numbers laid out the company’s current mix in simple terms: Starlink is generating profit, while the space and AI divisions are still consuming it.
Capital spending stayed at the center of the debate. Media cited in the source said second-quarter capex totaled $18.4 billion, broadly in line with the analyst average of about $18.5 billion. In other words, the earnings report did not show any meaningful easing in spending pressure. For a company with a high valuation and simultaneous investment in Starship, Starlink expansion and AI infrastructure, that was enough to keep investors cautious.
The business model is also visible in the segment breakdown. Satellite connectivity delivered the largest share of revenue and all operating profit. AI produced meaningful revenue but remained deeply unprofitable. The launch and space segment carried strategic value, but not near-term profitability. All three business lines posted revenue above expectations in the quarter, which was the most constructive part of the report. Still, on profit structure, SpaceX is not yet a company with broad-based profitability across segments. It remains a high-growth, high-capex company using Starlink cash flow to support spending in space and AI.
Starlink remains the profit center as users double to 12 million
The clearest earnings pillar at SpaceX is still Starlink. The company said the core driver behind growth in the connectivity division was user expansion, with Starlink subscribers doubling year over year to 12 million by the end of the quarter.
Connectivity revenue rose about 66% to $4.29 billion, above the market expectation of $3.83 billion. Operating profit increased 79% to $1.66 billion, implying an operating margin close to 39%. The segment includes Starlink satellite internet services and serves individual consumers as well as government and military customers.
At this stage, Starlink has moved beyond being just a space infrastructure story. It has become a scaled connectivity business with real revenue and profit across consumer, enterprise and public-sector demand. It sells satellite internet access directly to users and also provides connectivity services to governments, the military and corporate customers.
In its first shareholder materials as a listed company, SpaceX also gave unusual prominence to Starshield. The company disclosed that the business has secured more than $6 billion in multi-year U.S. government contracts. That disclosure underlined the role of government and defense demand in the company’s broader commercial model.
Those contracts improve visibility on future revenue and reinforce SpaceX’s position in national security, military communications and low-Earth-orbit satellite networks. The report also pointed out the tradeoff: government contracts bring stable demand and strategic relevance, but they also make part of the growth profile more sensitive to policy, budget cycles and regulation. At least this quarter, Starlink and Starshield remained the parts of the company that investors could value most directly.
Space business beat on revenue but stayed in the red
The launch and space segment showed the same two-sided pattern of stronger sales and ongoing pressure on profitability. Revenue in the division rose nearly 29% to $962 million, above the expected $835 million. Operating loss, though, widened nearly 47% to $542 million.
That means SpaceX’s launch and space operations are producing solid top-line growth, but they are still some distance away from standing on their own financially. The result is not especially surprising. Reusable rockets, Starship development, NASA missions, deep-space projects and launch infrastructure all require continued investment.
On the operating side, SpaceX said it completed two third-generation Starship test flights over the past 90 days. That marked an important milestone. Starship is one of the central assets in SpaceX’s long-term valuation case because its core promise is full reusability. If both the booster and upper-stage spacecraft can be reused at high frequency, launch costs would drop sharply, supporting Starlink deployment, lunar missions, deep-space exploration and even longer-range ideas such as space-based data centers.
What investors still want, however, is a clearer path to commercialization. The current earnings report showed a business line that outperformed on revenue but remained loss-making. In practical terms, Starship progress is a positive, but not yet a reliable support for the income statement.
That is why some investors are looking beyond quarterly revenue and EBITDA and paying closer attention to management commentary on commercial Starship launches, NASA milestones, in-orbit refueling and upper-stage recovery and reuse. The strategic value of the space business is high, but until the model is proven at commercial scale, it is likely to keep consuming capital.
AI losses were lower than expected, but the spending story is not over
The AI division was the most complicated part of the quarter. It delivered stronger-than-expected revenue while continuing to post large losses.
Second-quarter AI revenue rose about 247% to $2.56 billion, topping the market expectation of $2.18 billion. Operating loss narrowed 17.5% to $1.26 billion, well below the analyst expectation of a $2.39 billion loss. On an expectations basis alone, the AI unit performed better than many of the market’s more pessimistic assumptions.
That matters for SpaceX. After bringing Elon Musk’s xAI into the company in February, SpaceX has framed space data centers and AI compute infrastructure as part of its long-term growth narrative. Before this report, investors had worried that the AI segment would continue to absorb cash at a heavy pace. The second-quarter numbers suggested revenue recognition came in faster than expected, while cost pressure was not as severe as some had feared.
But that does not mean the cash-burn debate is over. AI remains one of the company’s biggest sources of operating loss. The source report said SpaceX lost $4.9 billion last year, with a large part of that tied to spending on AI infrastructure. In the second quarter alone, the AI segment’s $1.26 billion operating loss amounted to roughly half of its revenue.
SpaceX also disclosed that it signed multiple agreements with leading cloud service companies and added $14.1 billion in new cloud service contract sales, giving the AI compute business more revenue visibility. In July, the company launched its Grok 4.5 large language model and announced a $60 billion acquisition of Cursor, broadening its AI ecosystem.
Even so, the market is still focused on what comes next. The source report noted that contract sales are not the same as recognized revenue, and an acquisition is not the same as profit. The $60 billion Cursor deal is likely to keep investors focused on transaction structure, potential dilution, integration costs and the timeline for returns.
Capex came in above expectations for AI and is expected to stay high
One of the market’s main reservations after the report centered on spending. SpaceX said AI capex was about $15.8 billion in the second quarter, above analyst expectations and far higher than the $1.37 billion and $1.17 billion spent by the connectivity and space businesses, respectively.
Executives told investors on the earnings call that third- and fourth-quarter capital spending would be roughly in line with second-quarter levels. That means the market is not yet getting a signal that the spending curve is about to turn down in a meaningful way.
For a company investing across Starship, Starlink expansion, AI infrastructure and potential space data centers, capex that merely matches expectations does not create a fresh bullish catalyst. Investors hoping for evidence that the peak cash-burn phase had passed did not get that from this set of results.
After-hours reversal points to valuation and risk repricing
The stock reaction was sharp. SpaceX had closed up 9.4% in regular trading on Tuesday before releasing earnings. In after-hours trading, the shares first rose more than 1%, then reversed and at one point fell nearly 9%.
The source report argued that the move did not necessarily signal disappointment with the financial results themselves. Instead, it looked more like a repricing under a mix of high valuation, high expectations, lock-up concerns and persistent worries about cash consumption. In that setup, simply beating estimates was not enough.
The report laid out several reasons. First, the stock had already rallied into the release, suggesting that some investors had already positioned for an earnings beat. Once the numbers arrived, short-term traders sold the news.
Second, SpaceX is still losing money. Net loss improved from a year earlier, but the company still lost about $541 million in the quarter. The space segment lost $542 million, and the AI segment lost $1.26 billion. Only the satellite connectivity business produced operating profit. For a company with a rich valuation, investors want growth, but they also want a clearer path toward narrowing losses.
Third, there was no obvious drop in capital spending. Fourth, valuation and stock-supply pressure remained in focus. As of Monday’s close, SpaceX shares were down more than 15% from the IPO price and nearly 50% from the post-listing high reached on June 16. More than $1 trillion in market value had been wiped out from the peak after listing. The market had also been concerned that the first lock-up expiration, due Thursday, could release a significant amount of stock supply.
Fifth, while the AI segment came in better than expected, the market still lacks confidence in its long-term returns. The additional $14.1 billion in contract sales, the launch of Grok 4.5 and the Cursor acquisition all strengthen SpaceX’s AI narrative. The next question for investors is when those investments will turn into free cash flow.
What Wall Street is watching now
This earnings report showed strong revenue growth, solid profitability at Starlink and AI losses that were less severe than the market had feared. But the after-hours selloff also made clear what investors will be watching next.
- Whether Starlink can keep user growth at a high pace and continue expanding profit in the satellite connectivity business.
- Whether the timetable for Starship commercialization becomes more concrete.
- When the AI business can move from a model defined by high growth and high losses to one marked by high revenue and a sustained narrowing of losses.
For now, SpaceX has shown that its growth engine is intact. The questions around profit structure and cash use have not gone away.