Hey everyone, Hirokichi here.
On August 4, 2026, SpaceX (ticker: SPCX) released its first quarterly earnings report since going public on Nasdaq this past June. Revenue jumped 92% year-over-year, yet the stock fell after the report came out. In this post, let’s dig into the numbers behind this seemingly odd combination of “revenue beat, stock drop.”
SpaceX’s stock price since its IPO
SpaceX went public on June 12, 2026, at an IPO price of $135 per share. Shares opened around $150, about 11% above the offer price, and even spiked as high as roughly $225 at one point.
As of the close on August 3, 2026, though, the stock had fallen to $114.53 — about 15% below the IPO price. Some reports say the drop from its peak wiped out more than $1 trillion in market value. In other words, the stock has swung wildly in less than two months of trading.
I’ve written before about why I think the U.S. stock market stays strong over the long run in my post “Why the U.S. Stock Market Should Stay Strong for the Next 30+ Years” — worth a look if you’re curious.
Q2 2026 earnings highlights: revenue up 92%, net loss shrinks
Let’s get into the actual numbers. Revenue for the April-June 2026 quarter came in at $7.814 billion, up 92% year-over-year. Net loss was $541 million, narrowing sharply from a $1.008 billion loss in the same quarter last year (figures per Nikkei and Jiji Press reporting).
This tells a clear story: revenue nearly doubled while the net loss shrank by close to half. This wasn’t just a “loss-making company” story — profitability is clearly improving under the hood.
Two growth engines: Starlink and the AI business
Two segments drove the growth: the Starlink satellite internet service, and the AI (artificial intelligence) business.
Starlink subscribers reached 12 million, doubling year-over-year and up 17% from the prior quarter. Starlink revenue itself grew by roughly $1.7 billion year-over-year.
The other engine is AI. SpaceX now rents out compute capacity to companies like Anthropic and Google, and this AI segment’s revenue surged 247% year-over-year, contributing roughly $2 billion of the overall growth. SpaceX increasingly looks less like a pure rocket company and more like a business built on two pillars: satellite communications and AI infrastructure.
Why the stock still dropped: an 18-billion-dollar AI capex shock
So if revenue and profit both beat expectations, why did the stock fall? The answer lies in capital expenditure (capex, or spending on future infrastructure).
Capex for the quarter hit roughly $18.37 billion (about ¥2.9 trillion), more than six times the year-ago level. Of that, $15.83 billion went toward AI — mainly building out “Colossus II,” SpaceX’s large-scale AI compute infrastructure. That’s over 86% of total capex going to AI alone — far more than what’s being spent on the core rocket and satellite business.
Other tech giants like Google, Meta, and OpenAI are pouring similarly massive sums into AI infrastructure, and SpaceX appears to be shifting its center of gravity from “space company” toward “AI infrastructure company” as well. The market’s cautious reaction suggests investors aren’t yet convinced this spending will pay off in profit. Sharp swings in AI chip stocks have been a recurring theme lately — I covered one such selloff in my post “Nikkei Plunges as AI Chip Stocks Tumble,” worth a read for more context.
Earnings summary table
With so many numbers flying around, here’s a side-by-side comparison of the two quarters.
| Metric | Q2 2025 | Q2 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue | ~$4.0B | $7.81B (+92%) |
| Net loss | $1.008B | $0.541B (~¥85B) |
| Capex | ~$2.9B | $18.37B (~¥2.9T) |
| Starlink subscribers | ~6 million | 12 million |
Following the earnings release, SpaceX shares fell roughly 5-8% in the immediate aftermath, according to several U.S. outlets. The headline numbers were well received, but concerns that the scale of AI spending may be “too much, too fast” weighed on the stock.
What I’m watching next
Personally, here’s what I’ll be keeping an eye on going forward:
(1) How fast the AI infrastructure business turns into actual profit — will deals with Anthropic and Google keep piling up, or plateau?
(2) Starlink subscriber growth from here, and how ARPU (average revenue per user) trends.
(3) The upcoming lock-up expiration — reports mention roughly $116 billion worth of shares becoming eligible for sale, which could add supply pressure on the stock.
My take is that investor sentiment is caught between “AI spending will eventually pay off” and “this spending is too heavy and it’s crushing margins.” Whether AI revenue growth outpaces capex growth in the next report will likely be the next turning point for the stock.
That’s it for this one. Let’s keep at it, slow and steady. See you next time!
* This article is for informational purposes only and does not recommend any specific investment. Please make investment decisions at your own responsibility.
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