SpaceX on the stock market: revenue +92%, losses of $541 million, and the plan for orbital data centers
The first quarterly report as a publicly traded company divides Wall Street. Musk bets everything on AI and announces 'Starmind,' a network of data centers in space with Nvidia.
SpaceX published its first quarterly report as a public company last Tuesday — the IPO had taken place in June — and the figures produced exactly the kind of reaction that markets reserve for stories too big to ignore and too expensive to love without reservation.
The second quarter 2026 figures
| Item | Q2 2026 | Year-over-year change |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue | $7.8 billion | +92% |
| Net loss | $541 million | — |
| Q1 2026 loss | $4.3 billion | — |
| H1 2026 capex | $28.5 billion | 4× vs H1 2025 |
| Q2 capex only | $18.4 billion | >2× the quarter’s revenue |
Revenue beat analysts’ estimates. The loss decreased compared to the first quarter. But capital expenditures spooked the market: $28.5 billion invested in just the first six months of the year, four times the previous year’s pace. The stock lost more than 8% in after-hours trading. Since its debut in June, SpaceX has lost about $1,000 billion in market capitalization compared to its post-IPO peak.
The AI bet
The crux of the problem is the AI segment. SpaceX incorporated xAI — Grok’s company — in May 2026, creating the SpaceXAI division. Today it operates three business lines: rockets and launches (Space), Starlink satellite connectivity (Connectivity), and artificial intelligence (AI). The third segment is burning cash without yet generating significant profits.
Musk has promised annual recurring revenue of $100 billion by December, calling it “not an open question.” He also defended the investments with an unusual argument: his aerospace engineers are so good at building rockets that applying their expertise to terrestrial data centers produces “an extraordinary result.”
“We’re taking a small part of our missile expertise and applying it to terrestrial data centers.” — Elon Musk, investor call, August 4, 2026
Starmind: data centers in orbit with Nvidia
Today’s most significant news, on August 6, is the announcement of a partnership between SpaceX and Nvidia for the “Starmind AI1” project: the first of a network of satellites designed to run artificial intelligence workloads directly in space. SpaceX and Nvidia are co-designing the satellite’s “compute payload” — the computing module. The stated goal is to maximize energy efficiency by harnessing the abundant solar energy in orbit, where sun-tracking solar panels produce more power than on Earth’s surface.
Nvidia has not released official comments on the extent of its involvement. The chipmaker’s stock nonetheless gained 3.43% on the day.
What to make of these numbers
In just a few years, SpaceX has built a company with three potentially giant growth engines: reusable launches, Starlink (9,600 satellites in orbit, coverage in 164 countries), and now AI. The problem is that each of these engines requires colossal investment before becoming profitable at scale. The market trusts Musk’s execution on rockets — it has already been proven — but has no evidence yet that the same magic works with data centers.
Luke Lango, an analyst at Innovation Investor, wrote that “the stock’s negative reaction reflects less a rejection of the fundamentals than the enormous price of growth.” It is an honest summary of the situation: the story holds up, the bill weighs heavily.
Meanwhile, the European AI Act entered its most concrete phase on August 2, requiring chatbots and deepfakes to identify themselves as such. SpaceXAI — with Grok and X — is among the entities potentially affected. A regulatory variable worth watching.
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