Shares of SpaceX climbed after the closing bell, with Elon Musk’s rocket and artificial intelligence (AI) company blowing past Wall Street’s earnings expectations.
Meanwhile, Musk said SpaceX is discussing a possible merger with Tesla, the electric vehicle giant he also leads. Both companies have formed special committees at shareholders’ request to consider the potential merger, he said.
The $2 trillion company reported 161 percent revenue growth in the third quarter, fueled by Starlink subscriber growth and its AI business.
SpaceX said its earnings per share were $0.35 and revenues reached $14.58 billion.
By comparison, analysts penciled in earnings of 14 cents per share on $12.74 billion in revenue.
Like other tech giants, SpaceX’s capital expenditures were in the spotlight, especially as the company tries to raise $40 billion to buy advanced Nvidia AI chips.
It reported $19.59 billion in capex, slightly below the consensus estimate of $19.6 billion.
This was driven primarily by its AI unit—SpaceXSI—which totaled a lower-than-expected $16.44 billion.
AI spending continues to climb, driven by investments in data centers such as Colossus and AI offerings including Grok and its autonomous agent, Grok Bot.
“We delivered another strong quarter in Q3,” SpaceX CFO Bret Johnsen said in a statement.
“We are building the infrastructure of the future with discipline—focused on capital efficiency, strong returns on invested capital, and maintaining a robust, investment-grade balance sheet—while moving with the velocity to capture the opportunity in front of us.”
In an earnings call with analysts, Musk said that a long-discussed SpaceX–Tesla merger would be a good idea.
Both companies, according to Musk, formed special committees of independent directors to talk about joining the two businesses.
“Some people out there assume that a SpaceX and Tesla merger is a certainty, and I think that would be overstating it,” Musk told analysts.
“The special committees have not reached agreement on the terms of any transaction. And obviously there’s no guarantee that they will.”
Because he is a conflicted party, he will not participate in the discussions. At the same time, Musk says there is some merit to merging SpaceX and Tesla “as we are pretty much in the super intelligence singularity.”
“There’s a lot to be gained from cooperating on developing super intelligence software, chip design, the Terafab, obviously robotics, mass to orbit with the Starmind constellation,” he said.
“So, I think it would be a good idea.”
Shares rose more than 6 percent to above $157 in after-hours trading.
Headline News in Q3
It was a headline-driven quarter for SpaceX.
Most notably, SpaceX said it would purchase Grain Management’s nationwide low-band 800 MHz spectrum portfolio, a deal that would give Starlink Mobile the spectrum needed to strengthen indoor coverage and expand into a wireless carrier.
But according to the company’s third-quarter filing, the agreement was signed on Oct. 8, 2026, after the quarter ended, and is not expected to close until the first half of 2027.
The move comes as the Federal Communications Commission approved SpaceX’s plans to construct a 15,000-satellite constellation.
SpaceX completed its $60 billion purchase of AI coding startup Cursor.
It has turned to the bond market to help cover the costs of building the AI infrastructure.
SpaceX unveiled a $25 billion inaugural bond issuance in June, and experts anticipate the company will continue selling debt to keep up with spending.
A key challenge might be borrowing costs.
Neoclouds—a special type of cloud infrastructure provider—has been a new addition to SpaceX.
It is not a massive component of its business, but financial markets have become increasingly cautious about cloud computing technology due to rising interest rates.
CoreWeave and Nebius have tanked close to 30 percent this year, and IREN has declined about 35 percent.
The primary fear is that the challenges these companies face will bleed into the broader tech trade, says Brian Stutland, portfolio manager at Equity Armor Investments.
“They need to borrow at a certain margin and a certain interest rate level in order to finance the purchase and buildout of the data centers that they say they’re going to do,” Stutland told The Epoch Times in an emailed note.
“That now raises the uncertainty over whether these guys like OpenAI and Anthropic are going to come and deliver the types of spending that they say they’re going to do.”
Watching SpaceX Stock
SpaceX stock, meanwhile, has been on a roller coaster ride since its June 12 debut.
It climbed to an intraday high of $225 shortly after going public.
Shares then tanked to around $105 in early August before clawing back and returning to around its debut price.
“The weakness has been partially driven by concerns about overgrowth around AI and data centers,” S&P Global Market Intelligence strategists said in a research note.
“There is increasing concern in the market that AI infrastructure investments will not be able to generate a return in line with the level of cash needed.”
While the company’s fundamentals are on the radar for market watchers, traders are also monitoring the unlock dates.
To date, 48 percent of shares have been released, and investors will eye Oct. 26, Nov. 5, Dec. 9, Dec. 9, and June 14 as the next dates for shares to unlock.
Musk announced on Oct. 19 that he plans to donate one share of SpaceX stock to every kid in America next year.
Bill Pan contributed to this report.
Correction: An earlier version of this article misstated the when SpaceX’s purchase of nationwide 800 MHz spectrum portfolio will close. The Epoch Times regrets the error.
