SpaceX's latest quarterly financial report shows that with the company's significant expansion in AI computing infrastructure, its AI department's revenue for a single quarter has increased to $2.6 billion, more than tripling year-over-year, successfully surpassing the space launch segment and becoming the core source of the company's business value. However, due to the dual impact of computing power expansion and investment in aerospace R&D, the company remains in a loss-making position overall.
The financial data shows that SpaceX's business is mainly divided into three segments: aerospace, artificial intelligence, and network connectivity primarily through Starlink. This quarter, the aerospace business generated $962 million in revenue, and SpaceX itself remains its largest customer for rocket launches; the Starlink network connectivity business contributed $4.2 billion in revenue, still the only segment that is currently profitable for the company.
Computing power leasing transactions drive growth, with Anthropic and Google both collaborating
The explosive growth of the AI business mainly stems from computing power leasing transactions. In May and June this year, SpaceX successively reached cooperation agreements with Anthropic and Google, providing AI computing power support, which directly made it compete with new computing cloud service providers such as CoreWeave.
Even though its Grok large model faced setbacks in development and market competition, the company quickly adjusted its business strategy by renting out computing power from its previously built data centers and planning to acquire the enterprise-level AI product company Cursor. From "building models itself" to "selling computing power to others," SpaceX's role shift on the AI track can be described as decisive.
Capital expenditure of $18.37 billion in a single quarter, with Starship R&D also increasing efforts
However, rapid expansion has also brought a heavy financial burden. The capital expenditure of SpaceX reached $18.37 billion in this quarter, with the AI department's loss reaching $1.5 billion in a single quarter. Musk stated at an investor meeting that the company is building large-scale AI computing centers at a speed exceeding its competitors and continuously optimizing related models.
R&D investment in the aerospace field increased by $389 million year-over-year, mainly focused on the development of the heavy-lift rocket Starship. At present, Starship development is crucial for deploying the next generation of heavy Starlink satellites. Only by increasing the payload capacity per launch can the profit scale of the network connectivity business be further expanded. Considering all aspects of business performance, SpaceX's net loss for this quarter has narrowed to $143 million, which is better than market expectations. However, given the huge investments in space data centers and the extensive computing power network, as well as the fluctuating stock price after hours, the market remains cautious about the company's high-tech roadmap—when the largest growth engine of a space company becomes AI computing power, Musk's story line may be undergoing a fundamental rewrite.
