InvestmentNews reported on Wednesday that SpaceX's AI business now produces more than half of the company's revenue, with segment revenue growing more than 800% in the third quarter. The outlet's headline and summary also flagged an upcoming Starship launch and renewed talk of a merger with Tesla as the next items for investors to track. The full article was not available for this summary, so the details below are drawn from the company's SEC filing and from other outlets that reported on the results.
According to SpaceX's Form 8-K for the quarter ended September 30, 2026, total revenue was $14.6 billion, up 161% from a year earlier, with income from operations of $2.8 billion and net income of $4.4 billion. Other outlets reported that the Super Intelligence segment, the renamed AI business that includes advertising on X, generated $7.56 billion in the quarter, up from $813 million a year earlier, or roughly 52% of total revenue. Segment operating income was $431 million, compared with a loss of $1.7 billion a year earlier, according to the same reporting. According to the filing, roughly $6.7 billion of the segment's year-over-year gain came from cloud service contracts, the Cursor deal and expanding AI models and software. One outlet reported that Cursor contributed $608 million after its August 14 closing, and another said about $7 billion came from renting computing power and selling AI software such as Grok, with ads on X contributing just over half a billion dollars.
The connectivity segment, which includes Starlink, also grew. Other outlets reported that its revenue rose 69% to $5.2 billion and its operating income rose 99% to $2.4 billion, and that consumer subscribers reached 13.6 million, compared with 7.2 million a year earlier. Capital expenditures were $19.6 billion in the quarter, with 84% directed to Super Intelligence, according to one outlet's reporting. The filing also says the company made its first revenue-generating Starship mission, delivering 26 Starlink V3 satellites, and reports compute capacity of 1.7 gigawatts as of September 30.
Total revenue beat the LSEG consensus of about $12.72 billion, and Super Intelligence revenue beat analyst expectations of $6.47 billion, according to reporting by Qz and Fox Business. CNBC reported that SpaceX shares rose about 10% after the results were released. On the earnings call, CEO Elon Musk said a merger with Tesla would be a good idea and that both boards have formed special committees of independent directors. Musk told listeners on the call that he has a conflict of interest and is sitting out those committee talks, and he added that the committees have yet to settle on terms. Musk also cautioned that no agreement is assured and that any proposal would require shareholder sign-off, according to TechSpot.
SpaceX became a public company in June 2026. Its initial public offering priced at $135 per share, raising about $75 billion in gross proceeds, according to reporting by Axi and MEXC, and shares began trading on Nasdaq under the ticker SPCX on June 12, 2026. Earlier in 2026, SpaceX took in xAI through a stock-only transaction that put the merged business at around $1.25 trillion; according to TechSpot, the move was linked to Musk's idea of putting AI data centers in orbit. CNN reported that Musk owns nearly half of the company's stock. Musk had earlier floated combining SpaceX and Tesla, citing overlap in robotics and chip design, according to Fox Business. CNBC reported Tesla's market capitalization at about $1.2 trillion in early June.
Reuters, citing Barclays, reported that a deal could be announced as early as December, according to Fox Business. Bloomberg reports that a combination would be the largest corporate merger ever, according to TechSpot. According to TechSpot, Musk added that next month's flight will attempt to recover the Starship booster and ship using mechanical arms. Neither company has announced agreed terms, and both sets of independent directors remain in discussions.