SpaceX's First Earnings Report Delivers a Beat — But the Market Can't Look Past the $18.4 Billion AI Spend
Published on 08/05/2026 at 18:42 | Redaktion boerse-global.de
The numbers were supposed to tell a story of triumph. Instead, investors hit the sell button.
SpaceX's inaugural quarterly report as a publicly traded company landed Wednesday with revenue that blew past expectations, a net loss that came in far lighter than feared, and growth metrics across nearly every business line that would make most chief executives giddy. The stock, however, fell more than 8% on the day, sliding to €99.49 after closing Tuesday at €108.80. The sell-off leaves the shares barely above their 52-week low of €91.04, a gap of just 9.28%.
The disconnect between the fundamentals and the market's reaction isn't hard to explain. It comes down to a single, staggering number: $18.4 billion in quarterly capital expenditures — roughly six times what the company spent in the same period a year earlier.
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Of that massive outlay, $15.8 billion went directly into artificial intelligence infrastructure, overshooting the $13.2 billion analysts had penciled in. CEO Elon Musk defended the spending spree, pointing to rising prices for memory chips as supply struggles to keep pace with explosive AI demand. The company's finance chief struck a similarly confident tone, arguing that the investments will pay for themselves in under a year, backed by multi-billion-dollar cloud contracts with partners including Google and Anthropic. He also signaled that the coming two quarters will see a similarly elevated level of investment.
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The market's skepticism is understandable. While the AI business is growing at a remarkable clip — revenue surged roughly 250% to $2.56 billion — it remains deeply unprofitable, posting an operating loss of $1.26 billion. That's the crux of the tension: SpaceX is spending heavily today on a business that isn't yet generating profits, even as its most established revenue engine continues to hum along.
Starlink Carries the Weight
The bright spot remains Starlink, the satellite internet division that is now the company's clear profit center. Revenue there climbed 66% to $4.29 billion, with operating income of $1.66 billion. Subscriber numbers doubled year-over-year to 12 million. The legacy spaceflight business also contributed, growing 29% to $962 million in revenue.
Overall, second-quarter revenue jumped 92% to $7.8 billion, comfortably ahead of the roughly $6.8–6.9 billion consensus. The net loss of $541 million, or 9 cents per share, was less than half what analysts had braced for — some had modeled a deficit in the billions. Operating losses narrowed dramatically to $143 million from $970 million a year ago.
Musk, never one to think small, used the earnings call to double down on his long-term ambitions. He called reaching $100 billion in annualized revenue by December "not a question" and pulled forward the trillion-dollar revenue target to 2030, a year earlier than previously guided, adding that the chance of hitting it by 2029 is "not zero."
A Historic Share Flood Looms
The earnings reaction, however, is only half the story. Thursday marks the expiration of the first lock-up period for insider shares, unleashing up to 911.5 million newly tradable shares — with 20% released immediately and further tranches following in December 2026 and June 2027. The free float, currently under 280 million shares, could more than double overnight.
That supply overhang is compounded by a substantial short position. Short interest stands at 219.3 million shares, equivalent to roughly 34% of the current float — a bet by bears that the stock has further to fall.
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The shares debuted in June at $135 in what was the largest IPO in history, raising $86 billion on the Nasdaq under the ticker SPCX. From those highs, the stock has drifted steadily lower, and the combination of the lock-up expiry and the AI spending trajectory has given skeptics plenty of ammunition.
Analysts Split Down the Middle
Wall Street's response to the quarter reflects the broader uncertainty. Piper Sandler cut its price target from $156 to $140 and downgraded the stock to "Neutral," explicitly citing the swelling share count from the lock-up release and projected capital expenditures of around $65 billion for 2027. JPMorgan, by contrast, sees opportunity, raising its target from $225 to $240 and pointing to potential investments of up to $200 billion in 2027 and 2028 as a sign of aggressive growth. Other firms, including Bank of America, Mizuho and Clear Street, sit in the $200–$235 range, while a handful of more bullish houses have targets as high as $800.
The average analyst target now sits at roughly $233.71 — more than double where the stock currently trades. That wide dispersion underscores the central question facing investors: whether the market's anxiety over SpaceX's capital-intensive AI push is justified, or whether the operational momentum at Starlink and the AI division will eventually win the argument. For now, the bears have the upper hand — but the gap between the stock price and the analyst consensus suggests the debate is far from settled.
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