Grok Bot summary: SpaceX Q3 2026 Earnings

- This is SpaceX's Q3 2026 earnings webcast, streamed live on X from the Starlink factory and future StarMine production site in Bastrop, Texas.
- The speakers were Andrea Williams (head of investor relations), Elon Musk, Gwynne Shotwell (President and COO) and Bret Johnsen (CFO), followed by questions from analysts and retail investors.

Headline numbers (Q3 2026 vs Q3 2025)
- Revenue was $14.6 billion, up 161% from $5.6 billion.
- Net income was $4.4 billion, compared with a net loss of $1.1 billion a year ago. That's a $5.5 billion swing.
- Adjusted EBITDA was $8.8 billion, up 306% from $2.2 billion, growing faster than revenue again.

Elon on Starship
- Flight 14 was a critical milestone. Starship reached orbit for the first time and deployed working Starlink V3 satellites.
- On Flight 15, expected next month, SpaceX will try to catch both the booster and the ship. If it works, it will be the first time an orbital rocket has been fully recovered.
- Elon called full reusability the only way to extend consciousness beyond Earth for the long term. Success on the first tries isn't guaranteed, but he thinks it's more likely than not. He expects a steady stream of flights through the end of the year and more next year.
- The new Louisiana spaceport could eventually have 20 or more launch towers and move millions of tons a year to orbit and beyond.
- Starship should fly weekly at some point in the first half of next year, and twice a week or more by the end of next year. Early flights will need some refurbishment, but the goal is to land and relaunch like an airplane.

Elon on Starlink
- Flight 14 deployed 26 terabits per second of Starlink bandwidth while only about half loaded. That equals 10 Falcon 9 launches.
- In about three years he expects roughly 100 times the bandwidth of today's network. That means around 100,000 satellites, each with more than 10 times the bandwidth of current ones.
- Starlink revenue should grow roughly in line with the bandwidth it delivers. Fast direct-to-cell service and ground networks are being added too.
- He expects demand for about 1,000 times more bandwidth in three to five years. AI agents will each use far more bandwidth than a person, and there will be far more of them than people.

Elon on SpaceX superintelligence
- The main limits on rolling out superintelligence are now power, cooling and infrastructure, more than chips.
- SpaceX carries almost 90% of all mass sent to orbit, versus about 6% for China and about 4% for the rest of the world, including other US companies. The same team is now building computing infrastructure on the ground. Elon compared it to "the New York Yankees playing in Little League."
- He has often been spending four days a week in Memphis getting the supercomputer clusters running.
- SpaceX is on track to bring about 200,000 GB300 chips online each month for the rest of this year. It plans to keep that pace next year, mostly with Vera Rubin chips. In the Q&A he put the current rate at 220,000 GB300s a month.
- His computing power targets:
- About 2.5 to 3 gigawatts (GW) online by the end of this year.
- He's fairly confident of an extra 10 GW in 2027, and would be surprised by anything under 13 GW total by the end of next year.
- SpaceX is aiming to add 20 GW of power and cooling next year so that power isn't the bottleneck. That makes it small but possible that compute grows by more than 20 GW next year.
- The most powerful training cluster is planned for the end of Q2, with 440,000 Vera Rubin chips. Elon said it should make Grok extremely competitive, possibly the best model.

Elon on Grok Bot
- It's the fastest-growing product Elon has ever seen.
- The more people use it, the more they keep using it over time.
- It's in early rollout with trusted business customers. A wide business rollout is expected within a few weeks, so companies can use it in teams "as though it were a virtual human."
- He thinks Grok Bot may end up using most of SpaceX's superintelligence computing power.
- His bottom line: SpaceX's annual recurring revenue (ARR) at the end of 2027 could be "somewhere between 500 billion and a trillion" dollars. He joked he didn't want to give Bret a heart attack.

Gwynne on launches and space operations
- SpaceX had 35 launches in Q3:
- 21 Starlink flights on Falcon 9
- 2 Starship flights
- 12 major customer missions, including a Falcon Heavy carrying NASA's Roman Space Telescope into deep space
- 6 national security launches
- New business won:
- Three more crewed Dragon missions, filling the schedule through 2028
- The Starlink communications contract for NASA's Artemis 3
- 18 new national security launches
- A contract to land a payload on the Moon with Starship
- Three new Starfall missions on Starship
- Starfall is SpaceX's capsule for regular, fairly low-cost research in zero gravity, such as cancer and diabetes studies. A Starfall mission flew on Falcon 9 the day of the call.
- On October 1, SpaceX flew three Falcon missions from its three Falcon pads in just 13 hours. They were Crew 13 to the space station, a Falcon Heavy mission for the National Reconnaissance Office, and a rideshare carrying 130 payloads.
- Starship goals:
- Catch both stages at the tower this year
- Refly the upper stage by early next year
- Attempt refueling in orbit early next year
- Start flying Mobile V2 and StarMine satellites in 2027
- After helpful talks with the FAA, SpaceX expects the Flight 15 license to allow both stages to return to the launch site and be caught by the tower.
- She called Starship's move to Louisiana "the second Louisiana purchase."

Gwynne on Starlink
- Starlink now operates in 174 countries and territories. Vietnam and Uganda were added this quarter.
- It added 1.6 million home customers in the quarter, reaching just under 14 million (Bret gave 13.6 million). That doesn't count hundreds of thousands of business and airline customers.
- It helped in 25 disasters in Q3, including the Venezuela earthquake, an earthquake in western Colombia and Hurricane Lowell in Hawaii. In Venezuela alone it donated more than 1,400 kits, connecting over 250,000 people.
- Airlines:
- About 12,000 planes are under contract, almost a quarter of all eligible aircraft.
- Starlink has deals with three of the four biggest US airlines.
- Lufthansa, Swiss, Copa, Korean Air, Austrian and Asiana flew their first Starlink-equipped planes in Q3.
- Production of aviation equipment has quadrupled since January and should double again by the end of the year.
- Flights with Starlink tend to be fuller.
- Starshield, the government version of Starlink, keeps growing. Business revenue and government revenue are each on pace to pass home-customer revenue in the future.
- Starlink Mobile:
- Service started with new phone carriers in Uganda, DR Congo, Kazakhstan and Costa Rica.
- It passed 22 million monthly users, up 37% from last quarter.
- The FCC approved launching 15,000 Mobile V2 satellites.
- SpaceX agreed to buy a set of low-band airwaves, which it says opens the way to becoming a major US mobile carrier.
- The plan is to launch the V2 satellites through next year and turn on service in early 2028.

Gwynne on the superintelligence business
- Grok Bot, the AI assistant that can take actions for you, launched in August. Earlier this month it reached 800,000 paying weekly users, more than doubling in a month.
- Businesses are its fastest-growing group of customers. They use it in sales, marketing, IT and engineering as an always-on teammate.
- New Grok models are coming out faster, with big performance jumps expected soon.
- Bringing in Cursor is going well and gives SpaceX a large business sales team.
- The number of Grok business customers spending more than $1 million a year, including Cursor's customers, rose 50% from last quarter on a combined basis.
- Last week SpaceX announced a single plan that bundles Grok, Grok Bot, Cursor and X Premium.

Bret on results by business
- Space:
- Revenue was $1.8 billion, up 84% from last quarter and 6% from last year, helped by a good mix of customers.
- Spending continues on Starship, Raptor engines and vehicle production, Gigabay construction, and several launch pads at Starbase and Cape Canaveral, plus the new Louisiana site.
- Connectivity:
- Revenue was $5.2 billion, up 69% from last year and 22% from last quarter.
- There are 13.6 million home customers, with 1.6 million added in Q3, mostly in wealthier countries.
- Making more V5 kits eased the stock shortage. Kits went to stores ahead of the holidays, which should boost Q4 sign-ups.
- Average revenue per home customer rose 5% from last quarter to $69 a month.
- Business and government revenue grew 91% from last year and 18% from last quarter, driven by Starshield and airlines.
- Gross profit doubled from last year. Gross margin was 55%, including a one-time boost of about 3 points, mostly from tariff refunds. Without one-time items, the adjusted EBITDA margin rose about 2 points from last year.
- Each Starship launch is working toward carrying more than 20 times the download capacity of a Falcon 9 launch today. Mobile V2 satellites start flying on Starship from 2027.
- Superintelligence:
- Revenue was $7.6 billion, up $5 billion from last quarter and $6.7 billion from last year. Most of that came from growing contracts to rent out computing power.
- SpaceX ended Q3 with 1.7 GW of rated computing capacity, and more data halls came online in early October.
- Revenue from AI products and infrastructure was $7 billion. Of that, $608 million came from Cursor, whose purchase closed around the middle of the quarter. Without Cursor, this line still grew 192% from last quarter.
- New computing capacity is paying for itself in less than a year. Pricing is running slightly above the top of the $30 to $50 per watt range discussed last quarter.
- Advertising revenue grew 19% from last year, helped by the new ad technology platform launched in Q2.
- The segment's adjusted EBITDA was $5 billion, up $3.8 billion from last quarter and $5.4 billion from last year.
- Operating income was $431 million, or $1.6 billion without $1.2 billion of Cursor-related stock pay.
- Of Cursor's $60 billion equity value, $23 billion went to keeping key staff and replacing their stock awards. That cost will be spread over about three years.
- Company-wide:
- Capital spending in Q3 was $19.6 billion, mostly on AI computing, Starship facilities and satellite production.
- The order backlog was $63 billion as of September 30. Of that, $17.5 billion has already been paid in advance, and about $42 billion should be counted as revenue within a year.

Guidance
- SpaceX is on track for $100 billion in annual recurring revenue by the end of 2026, based on December revenue times 12.
- Rated computing capacity should reach nearly 2.2 GW by the end of October and 2.5 to 3 GW by the end of Q4, with sites in Memphis and Southaven.
- Q4 capital spending is now expected to be $35 to $40 billion.
- Q4 gross margin should be closer to Q2's level, because Q3 had one-time boosts and a favorable mix.
- New guidance for Q1 2027 is total revenue of $33 to $37 billion.
- Spending is focused on three areas: AI computing, Starship, and next-generation Starlink broadband and mobile. SpaceX says it will keep a strong investment-grade balance sheet.

Q&A on the chip factory
- These are internal targets, which Elon said could be well off:
- A first working test chip (something like a memory chip) around May or June next year at the research factory in Austin
- Mass production around Q3 2028 at the main Terafab site at Gibbons Creek, possibly Q3 or Q4 2028
- He thanked ASML and other suppliers for delivering equipment faster. He hinted at possible chipmaking breakthroughs but wouldn't share details.
- The goal is for Terafab to eventually make "a terawatt of super intelligence chips per year."

Q&A on power, cooling and funding (Doug Anmuth, J.P. Morgan)
- Close to 3 GW should be done in the next few months. Elon said SpaceX is turning on about 220,000 GB300s a month, and that pace will speed up.
- He has a plan to add 20 GW of power and cooling next year, about 23 GW total, but won't share details. He's highly confident of an extra 10 GW (13 GW total) and says 20 is difficult but not impossible.
- One advantage is that SpaceX casts its own turbine blades and vanes, using the casting skills it built for rocket engines. Suppliers say blades and vanes take 12 to 18 months longer than the rest of a turbine, so SpaceX can bring power online 12 to 18 months sooner.
- SpaceX is also using solar, wind and other power sources. It sees promise in factory-built, modular AI computing units with their own power and cooling, spread across the country.
- Bret on funding: SpaceX has an investment-grade credit rating and a strong balance sheet. It's talking with several groups of lenders and can partner with suppliers and customers. Because the computing equipment pays for itself quickly, it starts funding itself, and cash from operations comes first.

Q&A on a Tesla merger (Edison Yu, Deutsche Bank)
- At shareholders' request, SpaceX and Tesla have each set up special committees of independent board members. Elon has a conflict of interest, so he can't take part.
- He said it would be wrong to assume a merger will happen. The committees haven't agreed on terms, and there's no guarantee they will.
- Tesla would need approval from 50% of all its shares, not just the shares that vote, which he called a high bar.
- He thinks a merger would be a good idea, since the two companies share work on AI software, chip design, Terafab, robots, StarMine launches and connectivity.

Q&A on Starlink Mobile (Evercore analyst)
- Gwynne said 85% to 93% of people's connectivity runs over Wi-Fi.
- S-band airwaves should carry most mobile traffic. The 800 MHz low-band airwaves carry less but are critical for reaching inside buildings.
- Small radios could be added to existing Starlink homes, businesses and towers, building on the equipment already in place.
- Elon sees a clear path to several hundred billion dollars a year in connectivity revenue and suggested a separate, longer presentation on the plan.

Q&A on how computing power is split (Eric Sheridan, Goldman Sachs)
- The rough goal is half for SpaceX's own use and half rented to others. That could swing to 60/40 either way from month to month.
- SpaceX prefers short-term contracts close to current market prices over long-term deals. The bet is that computing power will become worth more per watt as AI models produce more useful work per watt. Even old H100 chips rent for more now than when they were new.
- Contracts are renewing at higher prices per watt. Every major cloud provider and dozens of smaller companies want SpaceX's computing power, and it could rent out its capacity several times over.
- When SpaceX tried to rent outside capacity for running AI models, providers had none at all. Elon compared it to the Monty Python cheese shop sketch.
- He said it's not impossible that computing equipment pays for itself in six months next year.

Q&A from retail investors
- V3 satellites: users will notice faster speeds once a few hundred V3 satellites are up, likely by the middle of next year.
- Starbase Louisiana: the internal goal is a first Starship launch there in 2028. Elon says 2029 is highly likely, with launches at full scale in 2029.

Key takeaways
- Q3 revenue was $14.6 billion (up 161%), net income was $4.4 billion (up from a $1.1 billion loss), and adjusted EBITDA was $8.8 billion (up 306%).
- Superintelligence is now the biggest business at $7.6 billion, ahead of Connectivity at $5.2 billion and Space at $1.8 billion.
- SpaceX expects Q1 2027 revenue of $33 to $37 billion. It's on track for $100 billion in annual recurring revenue by the end of 2026, and Elon floated $500 billion to $1 trillion by the end of 2027.
- Computing capacity was 1.7 GW at the end of Q3 and is heading to 2.5 to 3 GW by year end. Elon is highly confident of 13 GW by the end of 2027 and is aiming for more than 20 GW.
- Computing power is very profitable. It pays for itself in under a year, pricing is slightly above $30 to $50 per watt, and demand is bigger than SpaceX can supply.
- Starlink has 13.6 million home customers paying $69 a month on average, 22 million mobile users, about 12,000 planes under contract, and service in 174 countries and territories.
- Grok Bot is the fastest-growing product Elon has seen, with 800,000 paying weekly users, and a wide business rollout is weeks away.
- Flight 15 next month will try to catch both stages, and weekly Starship flights are targeted for the first half of 2027.
- Capital spending is rising sharply, from $19.6 billion in Q3 to $35 to $40 billion in Q4. The order backlog is $63 billion.
- A Tesla merger isn't certain. The committees haven't agreed on terms, and it would need approval from 50% of all Tesla shares.