SpaceX posts $4.4B profit as AI lifts revenue

Bloomberg Podcasts said space x reported third quarter revenue of $14.58 billion topping expectations of $12.87 billion, with net income of $4.4 billion against an estimate of $1.8 billion.

The outlet said capital expenditures came in at $19.6 billion, essentially in line with the $19.59 billion estimate, and earnings were 35 cents a share versus 15 cents expected, the company's second report as a public company after two quarters public.

Bloomberg Intelligence global head of aerospace, defense, and airline analysis George Ferguson said profitability flowed through stronger than expected in both the connectivity and spacex ai businesses, pointing to economies of scale inside Starlink where revenue grew without a similar rise in costs.

That scale helps explain the push to buy spectrum and terrestrial assets for direct to cell service.

The report said SpaceX has moved aggressively in the last 90 days to position space x as a more complete carrier, guaranteeing coverage in wilderness and urban blind spots, while executives including president Gwyn Shotwell have framed the ambition as taking customers from T-Mobile, Verizon and AT&T, and the constellation has grown to more than 11,000 satellites from about 10,000 last quarter.

On the long running Tesla merger question, the outlet said retail investors upvoted "when will SpaceX merge with Tesla" to No. 2 before the call but investor relations did not put it to management and sellside analysts did not ask, a contrast to Tesla's last call where elon musk offered prepared remarks that the companies work closely together; Barclays has said a merger could be announced before December with SpaceX as the more likely acquirer in an all-stock deal, reported by Yahoo Finance, not confirmed by either company.

The outlet also described elon musk meeting administration officials for about 18 months on the Trump accounts program and committing after 70 million auto account setups, with between 72 and 73 million eligible children in the U.S. by census data, and Ferguson said Starship remains the gating catalyst for orbital data centers and larger Starlink generations, with faster turnaround and heat shield performance still to be proven.