Elon Musk‘s SpaceX posted a third-quarter profit on Tuesday that blew past estimates as revenue more than doubled thanks to its surging AI business, sending its shares up 2.5% in extended trading.
\n\nCapital expenses nearly tripled as it invested in compute infrastructure.
\n\n“We are in an inflection moment for SpaceX across launch, connectivity and superintelligence,” Musk said on a call with investors.
\n\nStarlink and SpaceX’s broader connectivity operations have been the company’s main financial engine, underpinning Musk’s AI ambitions.
\n\nBut SpaceX’s own AI software, including xAI’s Grok, has so far been overshadowed by rivals OpenAI, Anthropic and Alphabet’s Google.
\n\nRevenue in the third quarter surged 161% to $14.58 billion for the three months ended September 30, compared with analysts’ estimate of $12.72 billion, according to data compiled by LSEG.
\n\nIt reported a net income of $4.4 billion versus a net loss of $1.1 billion a year earlier and analysts’ expectation for a profit of $1.57 billion. On a per-share basis, it earned 45 cents according to IBES calculations, outstripping a 13-cent average estimate.
\n\nAI revenue rose more than ninefold to $7.6 billion, mostly from renting out computing capacity, but AI took $16.4 billion of the company’s $19.6 billion in capital…
Original source: https://www.nbcnews.com/business