Elon Musk Said SpaceX AI Revenue Would Pass Everything Else by September. Did It?
Elon Musk told SpaceX employees in August that AI revenue would overtake every other part of the business by September. The deadline has passed, and the numbers that will confirm or contradict him are weeks away from filing.
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Elon Musk set a date. He released a 30-minute all-hands video on X on August 11, 2026, which Johnny Rice of The Motley Fool reported on. In it, the SpaceX (NASDAQ:SPCX | SPCX Price Prediction) chief told employees: “Probably our AI revenue, not probably, definitely, our AI revenue will exceed all other SpaceX revenue probably in September, like next month.”
Musk opened with “probably,” switched to “definitely,” then returned to “probably in September.” He stated the crossover with confidence but hedged timing. September has ended, so investors can check this forecast against reported numbers.
What the Crossover Required
Johnny Rice cited SpaceX’s second-quarter report: total revenue was $7.81 billion, up 92%. Per Rice, AI contributed $2.56 billion, while Connectivity and Space brought in $5.25 billion combined. AI needed to more than double, assuming the rest of SpaceX stopped growing.
The rest of SpaceX kept growing. The Q2 earnings release filed with the SEC shows Connectivity revenue of $4.291 billion, up 66%. Starlink’s enterprise and government line rose 108%. AI revenue rose 247%, but its $367 million advertising line fell year over year.
On the August 4 earnings call, a SpaceX executive said the company had “contracted an additional $6.7 billion of cloud services revenue over a six-month period that begins ramping starting in October of this year.” That revenue starts after Musk’s deadline.
Musk’s Bigger Number Dwarfs Wall Street’s
In the same video, Musk set a target of 10 gigawatts of AI computing capacity by the end of next year. He valued that capacity at roughly $30 to $50 per watt. From those two figures, he derived annual AI revenue of $300 billion to $500 billion by 2028. On the earnings call, he described the per-watt figure this way: “This is just a guess.”
Musk also said Grok will be trained on SpaceX’s internal information, including employees’ own work: “So in a way, it’ll be trained on you.”
Rice cited a much smaller outside estimate. After SpaceX signed its computing deals with Anthropic and Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL), Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) projected $15.6 billion in AI revenue for all of 2026, according to The Motley Fool.
Three Obstacles Between the Forecast and the Filings
- Power. SpaceX faces public backlash over methane-burning gas turbines powering Colossus 1 and 2 (The Motley Fool).
- Capital. Rice noted SpaceX spent over $25 billion on AI last quarter. The filing shows $15.83 billion of the quarter’s $18.37 billion capex went to AI compute. Capacity stood at 1.4 gigawatts at Q2 end. Rice expects a funding shortfall despite $93.52 billion in cash. Musk said SpaceX expects only “a very small percentage” of NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA) GPUs next year.
- Contracts. Either party can exit the Anthropic and Google contracts with a 90-day notice, according to The Motley Fool. If a customer leaves, SpaceX misses the revenue it built capacity for.
How to Settle the September Question
SpaceX has filed nothing since the August 4 8-K. The third-quarter report, expected in late October or early November, should answer the question. Check SpaceX’s investor relations site for:
- Q3 AI division revenue versus Connectivity plus Space. Look for monthly or exit-rate disclosure if quarterly totals don’t break out September.
- Progress toward the $100 billion annualized run rate targeted for December, which Musk called “not a question mark”.
- Whether any customer has used its exit clause.
The stock has already moved on the AI story. Shares closed at $158.96 on October 2, up 7.35% on the day and 12.97% over the past month. On October 1, SpaceX launched Google AI chips into orbit as part of its space-based data center push (CNBC). If Q3 numbers show AI still trailing Starlink, the stock will be trading on Musk’s forecast ahead of reported results.
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Chris Lange is a financial and geopolitical writer with more than a decade of experience covering a myriad of topics. He has published thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St., with past coverage focused heavily on stocks, IPOs, healthcare, defense, global affairs, and technology.
His work has been quoted, or referenced by a number of outlets including Business Insider, USA Today, Yahoo Finance, MSN, The Motley Fool, and many other publications. A graduate of Southwestern University, he studied business with a focus on investments and has previous experience in banking and startups.
When not reading or writing the news, he is following his passion for Lacrosse, playing chess, or building solar projects with his dad.
