Key Takeaways
- SpaceX shares rose nearly 15% over two sessions after Elon Musk said annualized revenue could pass $500 billion by December 2027.
- Third-quarter revenue jumped 161% to $14.6 billion, and the AI unit’s $7.56 billion topped Starlink’s Connectivity segment.
- Anthropic and Google contracts carry most AI revenue, and Bloomberg reported Anthropic can exit starting in early 2027.
- The fourth-quarter report will show whether December hit Musk’s $100 billion pace while capex ran near $40 billion.
SpaceX (SPCX) closed at $142 on Monday, up nearly 15% across two sessions. The trigger was a revenue path from Elon Musk that few companies have ever sketched.
At the Baron Investment Conference on Friday, Musk said SpaceX could pass a $100 billion annualized revenue run rate this December and $500 billion by December 2027.
Hours later, SpaceX disclosed that Google executive Donald Harrison had left its board. That exit matters because Alphabet (GOOGL) owns about 555 million SpaceX shares and pays roughly $920 million a month for SpaceX compute.
Meanwhile, the chip bill keeps climbing. In late October, SpaceX disclosed a roughly $40 billion finance lease covering NVIDIA (NVDA) Vera Rubin chips.
Even after the bounce, the stock sits about 37% below its June 16 high.
A beat that sets the bar
Musk’s targets rest on a quarter that already beat. Third-quarter revenue rose 161% to $14.6 billion, above the $12.72 billion LSEG consensus. Net income reached $4.4 billion, while the year-earlier quarter lost $1.1 billion.
Inside the quarter:
- Super Intelligence, the AI unit built on xAI and Cursor, brought in $7.56 billion, up from $813 million.
- Connectivity revenue rose 69% to $5.25 billion, with $2.37 billion of operating income.
- Capex hit $19.6 billion, and management guided $35 billion to $40 billion for the fourth quarter.
Annualized, the third quarter works out to about $58 billion. So the December target needs a monthly pace roughly 70% above the third-quarter average. Where does Wall Street land?
Yet analyst models still sit well below Musk’s curve.
Two tenants fill Colossus
Most of that AI revenue comes from renting compute. Anthropic agreed in May to pay $1.25 billion a month for capacity at the Colossus campuses in Memphis through May 2029. Google signed in June at $920 million a month for 32 months.
At full rates, those two contracts add up to about $6.5 billion a quarter. That equals about 86% of SI’s third-quarter revenue, which included $608 million from Cursor.
The segment mix flipped in a year…
SI rose from 14.6% of revenue to 51.9%. Starlink still earns most of the profit, though, since SI’s operating income was $431 million after $1.2 billion of Cursor stock compensation.
For scale, CoreWeave guided in August to an annualized run rate of $18.5 billion to $19.5 billion by the end of 2026. Musk’s December goal is more than five times that.
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Spending runs ahead of revenue
Capex reached $48.1 billion in the first nine months of 2026, up from $13.8 billion a year earlier. With the fourth-quarter guide, full-year spending lands above $83 billion. The NVIDIA chip lease, arranged with an Apollo-managed entity, turns part of that into fixed rent, and it should close before year end.
Here is how quickly the quarterly bill has grown.
Third-quarter capex of $19.6 billion exceeded the quarter’s revenue.
Concentration adds risk, because Bloomberg reported that Anthropic can exit its contracts starting in early 2027 with 90 days’ notice. Musk also wrote on X that Harrison left because “there are simply too many conflicts of interest with Alphabet.”
At roughly $1.9 trillion in market value, the stock prices in much of Musk’s path.
My take: The third quarter proved that rented compute can make real money, so I wouldn’t wave off the December target. But two customers and one giant lease carry most of this forecast, and one of those customers gets an exit door within months. I’d rather see the run rate before paying for the 2027 pitch.
The fourth-quarter report, expected in late January, is the test. It will show whether December revenue hit a $100 billion pace while capex ran near $40 billion.
So what is SpaceX stock actually worth?
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Disclaimer:
Please note that the articles on TIKR are not intended to serve as investment or financial advice from TIKR or our content team, nor are they recommendations to buy or sell any stocks. We create our content based on TIKR Terminal’s investment data and analysts’ estimates. Our analysis might not include recent company news or important updates. TIKR has no position in any stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading, and happy investing!
