Analysis
SpaceX delivered its first earnings report as a public company this week, and the numbers told two different stories depending on which line investors focused on. Revenue came in at $7.81 billion for the second quarter, up 92% from $4.1 billion a year earlier and about 13% above the $6.93 billion Wall Street expected. Adjusted EBITDA of $3.5 billion beat the $2.0 billion consensus by 75%, and the company's net loss narrowed sharply to $541 million from $1 billion in the prior-year quarter.
The Capex Number That Spooked the Market
The stock's reaction told a different story. Shares rose as much as 9.4% during the regular session on the headline beat, then reversed to fall roughly 7-8.6% in after-hours trading once investors zeroed in on capital expenditure: $18.37 billion for the quarter, with $15.83 billion of that specifically directed at AI infrastructure -- about 39% above the $13.22 billion analysts had modeled. CFO Bret Johnsen told investors on the call that SpaceX is targeting $100 billion in annualized recurring revenue by year-end, raised guidance for the first time since its IPO, but the capex figure dominated analyst questions regardless.
This is the first genuine test of how public markets price SpaceX now that private-market storytelling has to hold up against quarterly disclosure -- the same dynamic Cerebras has faced since its May listing, and the one Anthropic and OpenAI are both about to face with their own pending IPOs. A revenue beat this large getting overshadowed by a capex line is a preview of the scrutiny every AI-infrastructure-heavy public company should expect from here.
What to watch: whether the AI segment's 247% year-over-year revenue growth to $2.6 billion continues to outpace the capex ramp funding it, and how the stock trades into the roughly 1-billion-share lockup expiration landing just two days after this capex-driven pullback.
