Forget Mars, SpaceX’s Most Important Business Has Nothing To Do With Space (At Least For Now)
SpaceX just reported its biggest quarter ever, and the segment driving most of that growth has nothing to do with rockets, satellites, or Mars. One business unit is now pulling in more revenue than Starlink, and it may reshape what…
SpaceX (NASDAQ:SPCX | SPCX Price Prediction) made its name with rockets and a long-running Mars dream. Its third-quarter results show that most of the money and growth now go into computers on the ground. Measured by revenue, capital spending and growth, the AI unit that SpaceX renamed “Super Intelligence” is now its most important business.
AI Passed Starlink in a Single Quarter
SpaceX said on its Oct. 20 call that third-quarter revenue was $14.6 billion, up 161%. The SpaceX release put Super Intelligence revenue at $7.56 billion, up 830%, which makes it the largest segment by revenue. Fortune reported that AI revenue of $7.6 billion went “cruising past Starlink.”
| Segment | Q2 Revenue (Longport) | Q3 Revenue (SpaceX Release) |
|---|---|---|
| Super Intelligence | $2.6 billion | $7.56 billion |
| Connectivity (Starlink) | $4.3 billion | $5.25 billion |
| Space | $0.96 billion | $1.77 billion |
24/7 Wall St. calculations show AI rising from 33.1% of segment revenue in the second quarter to 51.9% in the third. Starlink and launch together fell from 66.9% to 48.1%.
Most of the AI revenue comes from cloud computing rentals plus Cursor. The release said the $7.02 billion solutions and infrastructure line came mainly from new cloud services agreements and the Cursor acquisition. Advertising added $538 million. SpaceX said $608 million came from Cursor, a company it valued at $60 billion when it bought it. SpaceX also said the line grew 192% from the prior quarter even without Cursor. By our calculation, AI revenue excluding Cursor was still about $6.95 billion, which is more than Starlink brought in.
Elon Musk said SpaceX took its launch team and “applied that same team to the deployment of terrestrial compute,” and the finance chief called the spending “these terrestrial SI compute investments.”
Capital Spending Is Going to AI
SpaceX spent $19.6 billion on capital projects in the third quarter. SpaceX’s release breaks that into $16.4 billion for AI, $1.6 billion for Space and $1.5 billion for Connectivity, so AI took 83.7% by our calculation. Nine-month capex reached $48.1 billion. SpaceX ended the quarter with 1.7 gigawatts of rated compute, compared with 1.4 gigawatts in June and 0.6 gigawatts a year earlier. SpaceX expects fourth-quarter capex of $35 to $40 billion and 2.5 to 3 gigawatts of compute by year-end. Elon Musk said he expects about 13 gigawatts by the end of 2027.
A large share of that money goes to suppliers. NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA) listed “SpaceXAI to deploy NVIDIA Vera CPUs for agentic AI applications” as a growth initiative in its second-quarter fiscal 2027 earnings release. On the earnings call, NVIDIA’s finance chief said Vera shipments were “already underway” to lead partners, and SpaceX AI was one of them.
Chips are only part of the bill. All that rated compute has to be powered, cooled and networked by somebody, which is the thread we pulled on in a free report on seven AI infrastructure suppliers that aren’t chipmakers.
Mars Slides Down the Priority List
The release shows the Space segment lost $7 million on $1.77 billion of revenue, compared with $1.67 billion a year earlier. NBC News reported that in February 2026 Musk put a “self-growing city” on the Moon ahead of Mars. He now describes Mars as delayed and targets a Mars city in five to seven years. According to NBC News, Musk has also said NASA will make up under 5% of SpaceX revenue this year.
Musk Points to Grok Bot
On the call, Musk said: “On the Grok Bot side, we’re seeing the fastest growth of a product that I’ve ever seen in my life. I’ve never seen anything grow this fast.” SpaceX said Grok Bot launched in August and had 800,000 paid weekly users earlier this month. SpaceX has not disclosed Grok Bot’s revenue. Elon Musk forecast annual recurring revenue of $500 billion to a trillion by the end of 2027.
Starlink Still Earns Most of the Profit
The release shows Starlink earned $2.37 billion of the company’s $2.79 billion operating income, or 84.9% by our calculation. SpaceX reported Super Intelligence operating income of $431 million after $1.2 billion of Cursor-related stock compensation, and $1.6 billion without that charge. Some of the AI growth was bought through the Cursor deal, and capex was larger than revenue. Starlink still grew 69% and reached 13.6 million consumer subscribers, SpaceX said, and Seeking Alpha reported the shares fell 9% on Oct. 22 on capex concerns.
AI’s lead on the ground may be temporary. A Feb. 3, 2026 Storyboard18 report said Musk’s memo named data centers in space as the main reason for combining xAI into SpaceX. The GAO says cooling at that scale is unproven.
Next Quarter’s Guidance Sets a Higher Bar
SpaceX closed Oct. 23 at $147.49, compared with $147.79 before results. SpaceX forecast first-quarter 2027 revenue to $33 to $37 billion, while BigGo Finance reported an analyst average of $22.2 billion. If cloud contracts deliver that guidance, AI’s share of revenue could rise again. The things to track are fourth-quarter capex, how many gigawatts come online and whether SpaceX starts reporting Grok Bot revenue.
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AJ spent 10 years writing about financial markets at The Motley Fool. His coverage centers on technology stocks and the broader macroeconomic trends, from interest rates to geopolitics, that shape where markets are headed next. AJ is drawn to the stories where big-picture economics and individual companies collide.
