SpaceX will release its first quarterly earnings report as a public company at 04:00 Beijing time on Wednesday, following the U.S. market close on Tuesday. Analysts cited in the report say the headline profit and loss figures may matter less than one question that sits over the company’s long-term story: how fast Starship moves toward commercial deployment.
Estimates point to steep losses and heavy spending
According to analyst expectations compiled by Bloomberg, SpaceX is projected to post an operating loss of about $1.6 billion for the quarter, alongside roughly $18 billion in capital expenditures. The biggest drag is expected to come from the AI business, a unit formed after Chief Executive Elon Musk folded xAI into SpaceX. That division is expected to record a $2.4 billion operating loss in the second quarter.
For now, satellite internet service Starlink remains the company’s only profitable segment.
The stock has been under pressure since SpaceX’s June 12 IPO. Shares were priced at $135, then climbed as high as $201.80 by the close of the third trading day, giving the company a $1.5 trillion market value. By Monday’s close, the stock had dropped to $114.46, more than 15% below the offer price.
With lockup expirations for early shareholders and insiders beginning on Thursday, the shares may face additional pressure in the near term.
Why some analysts say quarterly numbers do not tell the whole story
Bloomberg Opinion columnist Thomas Black argued that quarterly profit and loss data have very limited value for investors at this early stage of SpaceX’s life as a listed company.
The company’s Space business continues to lose money, but it provides a large volume of launches to the Connectivity business at cost. The AI unit, meanwhile, is the largest drag on earnings right now. Whether it can swing to profit in the fourth quarter as expected will be a major point to watch in the second half of the year.
The report says that shift would mean moving from a $2.5 billion loss in the first quarter to profit, while lifting revenue from $800 million to $8.8 billion.
In Black’s view, the figure that can give investors a clearer sense of direction is not quarterly net performance but the timeline for Starship commercialization.
Starship’s third version has flown, but full reuse is still the key test
SpaceX successfully carried out a test launch of the third version of Starship on July 24. This version was designed for mass production, and the spacecraft completed a soft landing in the Indian Ocean. It has not yet achieved recovery and reuse of the ship section.
That missing step matters. Starship’s core value proposition is full reusability.
If SpaceX can recover both the booster and the ship, while pairing that with the vehicle’s very large payload capacity, launch costs could fall sharply. That would make new businesses such as space-based data centers economically viable, according to the report’s framing.
SpaceX has previously said it wants to turn spaceflight into a routine operation comparable to commercial aviation. The company has also built a new launch pad at Starbase in Texas with the capacity to launch Starship once per hour.
Commercial timing is tied to NASA’s Artemis III schedule
The timeline is tightening. Starship needs to enter commercial operations next year in order to take part in NASA’s Artemis III mission. That mission requires a docking demonstration between the Starship lunar lander and Lockheed Martin’s Orion spacecraft.
After that, Starship is expected to carry astronauts to the lunar surface. It must also complete a critical in-orbit refueling demonstration.
That is why the timing of Starship’s first commercial flight has become the central variable for investors. The issue is larger than one earnings report or one quarter’s margin profile.
Heat shield challenges and lockup expirations add pressure
On the technical side, one of the biggest barriers to Starship reuse is the heat shield system. During atmospheric reentry, the spacecraft must withstand temperatures above 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit, making the reliability of its heat shield tiles crucial. The report notes that damage to the thermal protection system caused the 2003 Columbia space shuttle disaster.
SpaceX is working on a solution, and the market is looking for more detail on the company’s first earnings call.
On the stock side, RBC Capital Markets analyst Ken Herbert wrote that SpaceX’s trading pattern could resemble Meta Platforms in its first year as a public company. Meta also had phased lockup releases, and its shares traded below the IPO price for an extended period.
Herbert said SpaceX’s lockup period runs through June next year, when a large portion of Musk’s own holdings will become eligible for sale. That ongoing supply overhang could keep the stock under pressure for a long stretch, though it could also leave the valuation undervalued.
The main question for investors is what management says about commercialization
Black’s conclusion is that until Starship completes its first commercial launch, SpaceX’s quarterly earnings reports are unlikely to offer investors a clear road map.
The company’s future growth case rests on two ideas outlined in the report: a continued increase in Starship flight frequency, and the gradual retirement of Falcon 9 as the current workhorse rocket.
That leaves investors focused on management’s latest guidance on Starship commercialization, the next testing milestones, and the specific schedule ahead. Those updates, rather than short-term earnings volatility, are presented as the best measure of SpaceX’s long-term value.