SpaceX faces earnings test as shares fall by half

SpaceX is set to publish its first quarterly results since its IPO after markets close on Tuesday, with its share price down around half from a June peak.

The company, led by Elon Musk, has a market valuation of around $1.5 trillion. It was added to the Nasdaq 100 in July, increasing its exposure to investors whose savings track the index.

AFP reported that analysts on average expect SpaceX to post a $1.9 billion loss on $6.8 billion in revenue for the second quarter, which ended in June. That loss would be about 50 percent smaller than in the previous quarter.

The results are expected to show how far SpaceX has moved beyond its original rocket-launch business. Rocket launches now account for about one-fifth of revenue and lose money, while Starlink provides more than half of revenue and is the only profitable segment.

SpaceX's AI division, which includes X, the Grok chatbot and data-center leasing, is expected to become its largest revenue source as early as the current quarter.

Anthropic has been paying $1.25 billion a month since July to use SpaceX's Colossus data center near Memphis, Tennessee. Google is preparing to pay $920 million a month this fall to use SpaceX computing power, and Reflection AI has signed a similar deal.

Those contracts can be ended with three months' notice. Google has described its deal as short-term backup capacity. Phillip Securities, one of the few firms recommending that investors sell the stock, said in an analyst note that SpaceX's AI growth rests on computing contracts that expire by the end of 2029.

Investors are also watching spending. SpaceX invests nearly two dollars for every dollar it takes in, including on data centers and the Starship rocket, which is still in testing. Observers expect the company to keep using tens of billions of dollars in cash for at least three more years.

A lockup period expires on Thursday, allowing some SpaceX employees to sell shares after the IPO. That could more than double the number of shares in circulation, currently around 5 percent.

Bernstein analysts said the quarterly results may matter less than Musk's remarks on capital spending, a possible $60 billion buyout of AI startup Cursor or a rumored merger with Tesla.