The satellites rolling off the road in Redmond, Wash., are paying for Elon Musk’s AI ambitions — and he says the corporate’s satellite tv for pc web enterprise is barely getting began.
SpaceX’s Starlink connectivity division posted $1.7 billion in working earnings for the second quarter, sustaining its standing as the corporate’s solely worthwhile enterprise, based on numbers launched Tuesday afternoon as a part of its inaugural earnings report as a public firm.
The AI division, constructed across the Grok mannequin and the X social media and expertise platform, misplaced $1.3 billion whereas spending $15.8 billion on capital initiatives. That capital spending amounted to greater than thrice Starlink’s quarterly income of $4.3 billion (up 66%).
Musk, the corporate’s founder and CEO, used the primary SpaceX earnings name to make the case that traders are badly underestimating Starlink.
He stated a brand new era of satellites might enhance Starlink income tenfold, and the community might ship “a majority of the world’s web” in lower than 10 years. Musk stated AI and robots will drive demand for bandwidth far past something folks generate on their very own.
“I believe Starlink is the one factor that may really service that bandwidth,” he stated.
Amazon is getting within the race, constructing its personal satellite tv for pc web community at a manufacturing unit in close by Kirkland, Wash. Its Leo constellation has “near 400 satellites in orbit, sufficient to start preliminary satellite tv for pc web service this yr,” CEO Andy Jassy advised analysts final week.
Total, SpaceX topped Wall Avenue expectations with income of $7.8 billion for the quarter, up 92% from $4.1 billion a yr earlier. It additionally narrowed its web loss to $541 million from $1 billion.
SpaceX shares closed at $125.33, up 9.4% on the day, then fell almost 5% in after-hours buying and selling following the report, apparently on considerations in regards to the firm’s capital spending.
SpaceX builds its Starlink satellites at a Seattle-area manufacturing unit that produced about 70 per week from December 2025 to April 2026, based on the corporate’s IPO submitting. The output has put roughly 9,600 Starlink satellites in orbit, about 75% of all lively maneuverable satellites circling the planet.
For the second quarter, SpaceX reported 12 million Starlink subscribers, double the quantity a yr earlier and a rise of 1.7 million from the primary quarter. The income enhance within the Starlink division (formally referred to as “Connectivity”) was pushed by a 108% leap in enterprise and authorities enterprise, which now accounts for greater than 40% of the section’s gross sales.
The subscriber complete was slightly below the 12.19 million Wall Avenue had projected, however the section’s income exceeded expectations by about $460 million, greater than every other a part of the corporate.
Starlink now brings in $66 a month per subscriber, down from $85 a yr in the past because it expands abroad and provides cheaper plans. The excellent news for SpaceX: the determine stopped falling, holding flat from the primary quarter, regardless of the corporate’s warning to IPO traders that it might preserve sliding.
