SpaceX Shares Fall as Surge in AI Capex Distracts From Q2 Revenue Beat

SpaceX shares dropped as much as 8% in extended trading on Tuesday as a sharp surge in second-quarter capital spending overshadowed revenue growth that surpassed Wall Street projections in the company’s first earnings report since going public.

Capital expenditures for the quarter reached $18.4 billion—far exceeding the $13.2 billion expected by analysts and up from $10.1 billion in the first quarter. Nearly $16 billion of that total was funneled directly into artificial intelligence compute infrastructure, escalating market concern over the immediate costs of building out hardware clusters.

The after-hours sell-off adds momentum to a post-IPO decline that has erased approximately $500 billion from SpaceX’s valuation since its June debut at $2 trillion. Downward price pressure could intensify on Thursday, when an initial lock-up period expires and frees roughly 1 billion insider-held shares for potential sale.

Addressing analysts on an post-earnings call, Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk attempted to refocus attention on long-term expansion, bringing forward the company’s internal timeline for reaching $1 trillion in annual revenue to 2030 from 2031, with a target as early as 2029.

“The stock is down because the capex for the AI segment was more than double what was expected,” said Melissa Otto, global head of Visible Alpha research at S&P Global. While describing the $1 trillion annual target as an ambitious “show-me story,” Otto noted that sustained top-line acceleration could make the milestone reachable.

For the quarter, SpaceX posted total revenue of $7.8 billion, beating average consensus estimates of $6.9 billion and nearly doubling its figure from a year earlier. Adjusted EBITDA tripled, while net losses shrank by almost 50% year-over-year.

Despite the overall losses, all major operating divisions beat consensus figures. Starlink satellite connectivity generated $4.3 billion in revenue, up 66% from the prior-year period. Total subscribers reached 12 million after adding 1.7 million users during the quarter, aided by new airline connectivity deals with American Airlines, Southwest Airlines, Virgin Atlantic, Iberia, and Aer Lingus.

“I think people are really underestimating Starlink,” Musk told investors, predicting the satellite division could process a majority of the world’s internet traffic in accessible markets within a decade.

The company’s AI division posted $2.6 billion in revenue—a 247% year-over-year increase—supported by cloud-hosting contracts with Google and Anthropic, alongside Grok subscriptions and advertising on X. SpaceX secured $6.7 billion in additional cloud contracts for the second half of the year and aims for a $100 billion annualized revenue run-rate by December. Active compute capacity reached 1.4 gigawatts, up from 400 megawatts a year ago, with Musk pledging to source future GPU chips exclusively from Nvidia.

Revenue from rocket launches came in at $962 million. Musk projected that SpaceX could begin launching its Starship vehicle daily within a year, expanding annual orbital payload capacity from 2,500 tons to over 1 million tons.