SpaceX Q3 2026: $4.4 billion net income vs $1.57 billion expected
SpaceX made net income of $4.4 billion in the third quarter of 2026, about 2.8 times the $1.57 billion profit that analysts expected, as reported by Reuters. Revenue also came in above its estimate: $14.58 billion against $12.72 billion, an estimate from LSEG data as reported by Reuters.
SpaceX released these results on October 20, 2026, in an earnings release filed with the SEC on Form 8-K, covering the quarter ended September 30, 2026. The company reports three segments: Space, which is launch; Connectivity, which is Starlink; and Super Intelligence, the segment it called Artificial Intelligence until the second quarter of 2026. A year earlier, in the third quarter of 2025, SpaceX had a net loss of $1.05 billion, and in the second quarter of 2026 it still lost $541 million.
Revenue was $14.58 billion, up 161% from $5.58 billion a year earlier, according to the release. Against the $12.72 billion estimate, it was 14.6% higher, a computed comparison of the two figures. Both estimates come from a single report, Reuters on October 20, 2026: Reuters cited LSEG data for the revenue figure and named no provider for the $1.57 billion profit expectation. Estimates differ from one provider to another, so the size of any beat depends on which estimate is used.
Net income is the last line of the income statement, after every cost, interest item and tax. One line higher sits income from operations, the result of running the business itself, which was $2.79 billion in the quarter, compared with a loss of $273 million a year earlier. The step from $2.79 billion to $4.4 billion came from three items outside operations: other income of $1.03 billion, net interest income of $0.20 billion (interest income of $873 million less interest expense of $675 million, computed) and a tax benefit of $0.39 billion.
That is why the $4.4 billion figure is easy to misread. It is net income, not income from operations, and part of it depends on items such as a tax benefit that can change from one quarter to the next. The other side of the quarter is spending. Capital spending was $19.6 billion in the three months, more than the $14.58 billion of revenue in the same quarter, and $16.4 billion of it, or 84% (computed), went to Super Intelligence. Space accounted for $1.6 billion and Connectivity for $1.5 billion.
Super Intelligence is now the largest source of growth. Its revenue rose from $813 million in the third quarter of 2025 to $7.56 billion, up 830%, and it made up 52% of all revenue (computed). SpaceX credits new cloud services agreements, the Cursor acquisition and increased Grok adoption. Connectivity revenue rose 69% to $5.25 billion. Starlink had 13.6 million consumer subscribers as of September 30, 2026, up from 12.0 million on June 30 and 7.2 million a year earlier. Consumer revenue per user was $69 a month, down from $83 a year earlier and up from $66 last quarter.
The gap between net income and income from operations shows how items below the operating line, here other income, interest and a tax benefit, can lift a quarter's bottom line. Capital spending is a cash outlay that is not charged against a single quarter's income in full, which is how a quarter can show a profit while spending more than its revenue.
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