Burning billions: SpaceX’s sales are soaring, but its spending even more so

August 5, 2026 — 10:05am

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There was something very familiar about SpaceX’s first quarterly result as a listed company. A near-doubling of revenue was swamped by a massive increase in spending.

After initially soaring more than 9 per cent on the result, SpaceX shares gave up all its gains as investors digested the rate and scale of the increase in capital expenditures, which dwarfed the 92 per cent jump in sales to $US7.8 billion ($11.1 billion).

SpaceX’s capex leapt from $US2.8 billion in the same quarter last year and $US10.1 billion in the March quarter to a whopping $US18.4 billion, with the company flagging it will remain at about that same rate for the rest of the year. That would mean capex of about $US65 billion this year.

While SpaceX isn’t a pure artificial intelligence play – it also has its profitable Starlink satellite business and its unprofitable Starship rockets – that broad narrative of explosive revenue growth being overwhelmed by the scale of investment is consistent throughout the AI sector.

Critical to the fate of AI, or at least of those US companies pursuing their costly proprietary advanced AI models, is whether the trillions of dollars they are investing will ever generate a return commensurate with that investment and its inherent risk. At this point in the sector’s development, that remains an open question.

Revenue from AI is up about 250 per cent. But the capex driving that revenue growth is up by more than 550 per cent.

SpaceX is generating revenue growth beyond market expectations, including growth in its AI revenues, which have risen from $US737 million in the June quarter last year to $US818 million in the first quarter of this year and then to $US2.6 billion in the latest June quarter.

So, revenue from AI is up about 250 per cent. But the capex driving that revenue growth is up by more than 550 per........

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