SpaceX Q3 2026: revenue +161%, the valuation moves $2

Allen Yan · 21 October 2026 · 4 min read

SpaceX reported its second quarter as a public company after the close on 2026-10-20. Revenue grew 161% Y/Y, after 92% in Q2, and the company earned its first operating profit since listing in June. The shares closed at $147.79 and traded near $159.7 after hours, up about 8%.

Today at a glance:

• Revenue: $14.58 billion, +161% Y/Y, $1.70 billion above consensus.
• Super Intelligence (SI): $7.56 billion, now the largest segment.
• Starlink: 13.6 million consumer subscribers, up 1.6 million in the quarter.
• Cash burn: $48.1 billion of capex in nine months against $13.1 billion of operating cash flow.
• Our base case: $24.67 a share on June's numbers, $26.74 rerun on September's.

SpaceX Q3 2026: revenue +161% Y/Y to $14.6 billion

All figures are for the third quarter of 2026 (July to September). I use FMP's consensus throughout.

• Revenue +161% Y/Y and +87% Q/Q to $14.58 billion ($1.70 billion beat; consensus $12.87 billion).
• Operating income $2.79 billion, against −$273 million a year earlier and −$143 million in Q2. Operating margin 19.1%.
• Diluted EPS $0.35 against $0.13 consensus and −$0.36 a year earlier.
• Net income $4.40 billion, $1.61 billion above operating income: $1.03 billion of other income and $873 million of interest income outweighed $675 million of interest expense, and taxes were a $390 million benefit.
• Adjusted EBITDA $8.81 billion, +306% Y/Y.

Key developments

• SI tripled in a quarter. The segment the company used to call AI took in $7.56 billion, up from $2.56 billion in Q2. Solutions and infrastructure revenue was $7.02 billion. Cursor, acquired on August 14, contributed $608 million. Without it the line still rose from $2.19 billion to $6.41 billion, on new cloud services contracts. Nameplate compute reached 1.7 GW, from 1.4 GW in June.
• SI turned an operating profit. It earned $431 million, after a $1.26 billion loss in Q2. That is after $1.2 billion of stock compensation tied to the Cursor deal.
• Starlink grew faster. Connectivity revenue rose 69% Y/Y to $5.25 billion, against 49% in the first half. Operating income was $2.37 billion, a 45% margin. Enterprise and government revenue was up 91%. Consumer ARPU was $69 a month, up from $66 in Q2 and down from $83 a year earlier.
• Space barely grew. Revenue rose 6% Y/Y to $1.77 billion, and the segment lost $7 million from operations as Starship R&D rose to $1.23 billion. Customer launches fell to 12 from 15. Flight 14 was the first orbital Starship flight, carrying 26 Starlink V3 satellites.
• Capex keeps outrunning cash. Q3 capex was $19.59 billion, $16.44 billion of it for SI. Over nine months, operating cash flow of $13.10 billion less capex of $48.07 billion leaves −$34.97 billion. Cash and marketable securities were $89.9 billion at September 30, against $38.8 billion of debt.
• Cursor came with stock. Shares outstanding rose to 13,579 million from 13,182 million on July 28. Another $23.4 billion of awards to Cursor staff will be expensed as they vest.

Takeaways: two of the three businesses accelerated. The quarter's capex was larger than its revenue.

Our valuation: what Q3 does to the sum of the parts

Our sum-of-the-parts page values each segment on its peers' EV/sales, adds net cash, and treats compute in orbit as an option on 2030. Built on the twelve months to June, its base case is $24.67 a share.

I reran it on the twelve months to September with every multiple and assumption unchanged:

The segments add $44.9 billion. Lower net cash and the Cursor shares take back part of it. On Q3 alone annualised, the base case would be $37.20.

At $147.79 the stock is overvalued by 453% vs model, on the rerun base case. What closes the gap is orbital compute: at our base economics, the price implies about 148 GW in orbit by 2030. The company's own goal is 100 GW launched a year.

My read: Q3 is better than I assumed for Starlink's growth and for what SI earns per kW of compute. Neither moves the part of the price that rests on satellites not yet launched. The page itself will move to these numbers when the 10-Q is filed.

Can SI keep a $7 billion quarter while spending $16 billion a quarter to build it?

Sources and data

• SpaceX, Q3 2026 earnings release, 2026-10-20, furnished as Exhibit 99.1 to the 8-K on EDGAR.
• SpaceX, Q2 2026 10-Q (0001628280-26-052535) and IPO prospectus 424B4 (0001628280-26-042639), for Q2 2025 and FY2025.
• FMP earnings calendar (consensus revenue and EPS) and after-hours quote, read 2026-10-20.
• SweetValueLab, SpaceX sum of the parts and business metrics, closes through 2026-10-20.