SpaceX chief executive Elon Musk appears on the Nasdaq MarketSite, New York, before his company's IPO on June 12. ReutersShow caption: SpaceX chief executive Elon Musk appears on the Nasdaq Marke…Elon Musk's company reports revenue of $7.8bn, beating expectationsThe NationalAugust 04, 2026SpaceX on Tuesday reported a 92 per cent rise in revenue for the April-June quarter – in its first earnings report since ​going ​public – buoyed by strong ​growth in its Starlink satellite-internet and artificial intelligence businesses.Elon Musk’s satellite, space and AI conglomerate reported revenue of $7.8 billion, greater than the $6.8 billion analysts estimated on average.President Gwynne Shotwell said the company had won more than $6 billion in government contracts in the second quarter. The company said it invested $18.3 billion in AI infrastructure, Starship ⁠and Starlink expansion.Still, capital expenditure jumped to about $18.4 billion in the second quarter, from $10.1 billion in the first three months of the year, driven by higher-than-expected spending in its AI unit.Its stock has declined 8 per cent since its record-breaking initial public offering in June that valued the company at about $1.75 trillion. The stock could face additional pressure from the expiry of SpaceX's post-IPO lock-up period starting on Thursday, which could lead to a ⁠wave of insider and early-investor shares on the market.Starlink and SpaceX's broader connectivity operations remain the company's primary financial engine. SpaceX said subscribers in its Starlink satellite-internet service – its only profitable business – reached 12 million by the second quarter, lower than the 12.19 million expected by analysts.SpaceX’s valuation of about $1.6 trillion, which rivals a number of companies with huge market capitalisation and is bigger than Mr Musk’s Tesla, has been fuelled by the billionaire entrepreneur’s ambitions to deliver scale and futuristic technology leaps across its business units. The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying Starlink satellites after its launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on February 26, 2025. ReutersShow caption: The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying Starlink satellites afte…But that view to expansion comes with trade-offs: average revenue per user has dropped as SpaceX has entered more international markets and introduced lower-priced plans.Investors are watching whether SpaceX can maintain growth while improving the economics of its network, particularly as it spends heavily to expand coverage, increase capacity and develop direct-to-device mobile services.SpaceX's AI business, which includes xAI, Grok and social-media platform X, and a rapidly expanding data centre operation, has been its biggest area of investment. The business is generating revenue from contracts with Anthropic, Alphabet's Google and Reflection AI, although some of its recurring revenue has yet to be recognised.SpaceX chief executive Elon Musk speaks from SpaceX headquarters in Starbase, Texas, before the launch of the company's IPO, at the Nasdaq MarketSite in New York. AFPShow caption: SpaceX chief executive Elon Musk speaks from SpaceX headquar…Starship, SpaceX's next-generation reusable rocket system, is yet ​to enter commercial service but is expected to enable higher-bandwidth Starlink satellites ‌and AI-computing infrastructure to be sent into orbit.The company's ability to turn ⁠Starship into a reliably reusable vehicle is central to its ​longer-term strategy. SpaceX ‌has also said that it had linked up with Nvidia to use its chips in the Starmind AI1 orbital computing satellites.Mr Musk said on the conference call that the company expects to receive a "significant percentage" of Nvidia graphics processing units next year.Updated: August 04, 2026, 9:45 PM