SpaceX Doubles Revenue and Investigates Merger with Tesla, According to Elon Musk

SpaceX spacecraft “Dragon” on board a Falcon 9 rocket (October 13)

Tesla and SpaceX, led by Elon Musk, are considering a merger: The car manufacturer and the space company have formed special committees at the request of shareholders, said Musk in a video conference on the quarterly figures of SpaceX. He himself was not part of it because of possible conflicts of interest.

Musk is a major shareholder of both companies – and these shares are the basis of his assets, estimated at around 920 billion dollars (820 billion euros). He is considered the richest person in the world.

Q3 2026 Financial and Operational Results https://t.co/Qrb0qeVG15

A merger of Tesla and SpaceX has been speculated for some time, Musk has been evasive. Now he said that he personally thought that such an association was a good idea. But it would be “exaggerated” to say that it would “certainly” happen. Musk pointed out that such a move would require the approval of at least 50 percent of all Tesla shareholders.

SpaceX is currently worth more than $1.9 trillion on the stock market and Tesla is worth about $1.48 trillion. It would thus be the most important merger of two companies to date. In both cases, the high ratings are largely a bet that Musk can deliver on his promises of future success. He wants to switch Tesla from selling electric cars to self-driving robotaxis and humanoid robots. In both areas, the company encounters strong competition. SpaceX started with rocket launches, but now earns its money mainly with the satellite Internet service Starlink and AI data centers.

Last quarter, SpaceX generated a profit of $4.4 billion (€3.9 billion). For comparison: In the third quarter of the previous year, there had been a loss of a good one billion dollars. The trigger for the billion-dollar profit was mainly strong growth in the business with Internet from space and with AI data centers.

Sales jumped from around $5.58 billion a year ago to $14.58 billion, the company said. Analysts had on average expected a turnover of 12.7 billion dollars.

For the Starlink satellite service, year-on-year sales increased by 69 percent to $5.2 billion. As of September 30, Starlink had 13.6 million customers. Meanwhile, the service is available, among other things, in 3800 aircraft. Ukraine also depends on it to defend itself in the Russian war of aggression (more on this here). The operating result of the business unit was roughly doubled to just under $2.37 billion.

AI revenue rose from $813 million a year ago to $7.56 billion last quarter. Musk’s AI company SpaceXSI built large data centers, which are now leased in part for billions in payments to AI rivals like Anthropic. The AI division generated an operating profit of $ 431 million. A year earlier, she had recorded a loss of 1.7 billion dollars.

Revenue in the rocket launch business increased by six percent year-on-year to $1.77 billion. SpaceX has become indispensable for the US space program in recent years. Currently, the company is investing in the big rocket Starship. It should make it much cheaper to bring payload into space.