SpaceX posted $7.8 billion of second-quarter revenue, a 92 percent jump that sailed past the $6.9 billion consensus by nearly $1 billion in its first earnings report as a public company. The beat came with a $541 million GAAP loss, or 9 cents a share, and adjusted EBITDA that nearly tripled to $3.5 billion. Shares fell more than 7 percent after hours.
The capex number that spooked the room
Capital expenditure hit $18.4 billion in the quarter, $15.8 billion of it from the AI segment. That annualizes to $73.5 billion, well above the $48.7 billion analysts had modeled. The market has shown low tolerance for spending that outpaces revenue acceleration, and the after-hours drop reflects that impatience.
Starlink carries the weight
Starlink generated $4.29 billion, up 66 percent year over year, with a 38.6 percent operating margin against a 35.9 percent estimate. Subscribers doubled to 12 million, adding 1.7 million sequentially. Average revenue per user held at $66 a month. Enterprise and government revenue surged 108 percent to $1.8 billion, backed by airline deals and more than $6 billion in Space Force contracts.
AI segment narrows loss but still burns
AI revenue jumped 247 percent to $2.6 billion on $14.1 billion of new cloud agreements. Compute capacity rose to 1.4 gigawatts from 0.4 a year ago. The operating loss narrowed to $1.26 billion from $2.47 billion in the first quarter. Adjusted EBITDA turned positive for the first time.
The lockup overhang and a trillion-dollar forecast
The earnings release triggers a lockup expiration allowing pre-IPO holders to sell. A larger tranche of roughly 900 million shares unlocks after third-quarter results, a block larger than the entire IPO. Musk said internal projections for $1 trillion in revenue, not run rate, have moved from 2031 to 2030, with a non-zero chance of 2029. The company holds $100 billion in cash and raised $25 billion in bonds.