SpaceX’s AI business is beating expectations

SpaceX’s data centers and Grok agents were more profitable than investors expected in third quarter of the year, as the company leaves its roots as a space company behind to focus on artificial intelligence, which now makes up 52% of its income.

CEO Elon Musk’s deep tech conglomerate reported $14.6 billion in third-quarter revenue on Tuesday, according to its regulatory filing.

That number was driven by growth in all segments, but especially its renamed “Super Intelligence” business line, which generated $7.5 billion in revenue from the recently acquired Cursor coding tool, Grok bot, and most importantly, the company’s burgeoning neocloud business, which now boasts 1.7 GW of compute. The AI business generated $431 million in profit, which would have been higher without $1.2 billion in one-time stock-based compensation expenses related to the Cursor acquisition.

The top-line revenue number was also boosted by about $1 billion in income related to the recovery of Bitcoin prices and unspecified related-party income that might be attributed to a SpaceX investment in another company.

The growing revenue is balanced against total capital expenditures of $19.6 billion, as SpaceX continues to build out a second data center project, Colossus II, and increase investment in Starship, the heavy-lift rocket it sees as vital to deploying a new generation of Starlink satellites and developing orbital data centers. CFO Bret Johnsen said the company would spend $35 billion to $40 billion on new capital investments in the fourth quarter.

During a discussion of the results, Musk said he was spending four days a week in Memphis, Tennessee, the site of Colossus II, working to bring the data center online.

SpaceX also saw growth in subscribers to its Starlink space internet network, reaching 13.6 million consumers, with Musk predicting that the growth of AI agents would lead to more demand for connectivity.

This is a developing story. TechCrunch will update.

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