SpaceX Swings to Third-Quarter Earnings Amid AI, Connectivity Revenue Boost

04:36 PM EDT, 10/20/2026 (MT Newswires) -- SpaceX (SPCX) swung to third-quarter earnings year on year as revenue surged past Wall Street's expectations, driven by sharp gains in its artificial intelligence and connectivity divisions. The rocket and satellite company reported earnings of $0.35 per share in the September quarter, compared with a $0.36 loss a year earlier. Analysts polled by FactSet expected $0.14 in EPS. Revenue surged 161% year-over-year to $14.58 billion, topping Wall Street's view of $12.87 billion. Revenue at the "super intelligence" division, which houses the company's AI unit, rallied 830% to $7.56 billion, buoyed by new cloud services agreements, the acquisition of Cursor and increased Grok adoption, SpaceX said. Earlier this month, SpaceX Chief Executive Elon Musk said on X that he would rename the company's AI unit to SpaceXSI, Reuters reported. That followed US President Donald Trump's push to use the "super intelligence" term instead of "artificial intelligence." The connectivity segment's revenue soared 69% to $5.25 billion. The company's capital expenditures jumped to $19.59 billion in the third quarter from $6.88 billion a year ago. Shares of SpaceX were up 1% in after-hours trading, and have gained 20% over the last three months. The company went public in June in a record initial public offering. Oppenheimer said in a note Tuesday that SpaceX's results would likely beat the brokerage's conservative revenue and core profitability estimates, but the most important milestone is the company hitting its target of $100 billion in annual recurring revenue by year-end. SpaceX is on track to meet that target, supported by large, short-term AI compute contracts, the brokerage wrote. Its four deals, including one each with Anthropic and Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL) unit Google, account for about $46 billion in annualized revenue, according to Oppenheimer. Earlier in October, SpaceX agreed to acquire a nationwide low-band spectrum portfolio from investment firm Grain Management as it seeks to establish Starlink Mobile as a major US mobile carrier. The company is likely to continue sharing "ambitious" updates across the business amid increasing investor interest around a potential merger with Tesla (TSLA), RBC Capital Markets said in a note e-mailed Monday. "We anticipate positive commentary from (SpaceX) management, with a continued sense of urgency and further pull forward out-year goalposts," RBC said.