SpaceX's Earnings Speak Louder Than Merger Talk — but the Capex Bill Is Mounting
Published on 10/26/2026 at 10:31 | Editorial boerse-global.de
SpaceX has just delivered the kind of quarter that makes its own case. Revenue for the third quarter of 2026 came in at $14.575 billion, up 161% year on year, with net profit of $4.404 billion — a sharp reversal from a net loss of $1.05 billion in the same period a year earlier. Adjusted EBITDA reached $8.8 billion. Those are the figures the company filed on October 20, and they landed ahead of expectations.
The results matter more than the speculation swirling around a possible tie-up with Tesla. On Wednesday, Elon Musk confirmed that both companies have set up special committees to explore a merger, while cautioning that a deal is far from assured. According to Axios, Musk sits on neither of the independent panels. A committee can examine a combination; its creation proves neither economic benefit nor an imminent agreement. Investors who read extra value into SpaceX on the back of that news are getting ahead of the review itself.
What the Numbers Actually Show
Growth alone doesn't tell the whole story — the quality of earnings does. And on that front, the swing from a billion-dollar loss to a multi-billion profit is the strongest argument SpaceX has put forward in some time.
Analysts took note. John Blackledge of TD Cowen reiterated his Buy rating on Wednesday and lifted his price target to $224 from $200. Colin Canfield of Cantor Fitzgerald kept his Overweight stance and raised his target to $345 from $246. The gap between the two targets is a useful reminder that even the bulls disagree on how much of the earnings strength is already priced in. A price target is an estimate, not a realized valuation.
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Investment Capacity Is Not the Same as Profit
Beneath the headline profit sits a far larger spending programme. Capital expenditure for the quarter ran to $19.6 billion, and management guided to $35 billion–$40 billion for the fourth quarter of 2026. That is a forecast, not money already committed — but it frames the central question for anyone holding the stock: how quickly do the announced capacities turn into durable, paying revenue?
The scale explains why a pure profit lens falls short. SpaceX has to sell services and simultaneously fund the groundwork for the next round of them. Expansion isn't a sideshow to the valuation; it is the valuation.
Where Engineering Becomes Revenue
The clearest evidence that the spending can pay off arrived on the same day as the quarterly filing. SpaceX's first revenue-generating Starship mission carried 26 Starlink V3 satellites into orbit — a flight that paired transport with a commercial service rather than standing as a technical milestone alone. Rocket development and satellite build-out are not parallel silos; the mission showed how the pieces can reinforce each other economically. It does not, however, prove that every future expansion stage will balance the same way.
As of September 30, 2026, Starlink reported 13.6 million residential customers, with nominal computing capacity reaching 1.7 gigawatts. Those two figures describe different things: a customer count reflects take-up of a service, while nominal capacity describes its technical scale. Treating them as equivalent is the analytical shortcut to avoid.
Spectrum, Financing and the Weight of Uncertainty
The build-out extends beyond rockets and satellites. On October 8, SpaceX agreed to acquire a nationwide portfolio of up to 14 MHz of paired spectrum in the 800 MHz band to push Starlink Mobile forward. The deal is expected to close in the first half of 2027, subject to regulatory and customary closing conditions — agreed, in other words, but not yet completed.
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Financing is the other moving part. Musk said this week that SpaceX has closed a $40 billion debt financing for GPU purchases, describing it as largely callable. Reuters reported that the terms and the pricing arrangement with investors remain unclear, and that even the meaning of "closed" was left open. The size of a financing is not a quality signal in itself; what counts is the obligations it creates and how productively the capital is deployed.
Weighing it all up, the operating improvement deserves more attention than the merger narrative. The profits are reported; the combination is under review. Those are different degrees of certainty, and investors shouldn't blur them. SpaceX offers solid reasons for confidence — but no licence to book every fresh announcement as added value. Earnings quality first; deal hopes after.
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