Rockets lose money. Artificial intelligence loses more. The one paying for the party is satellite internet, and that is the whole investment thesis in one sentence.
Published on May 27, 2026 · by Alex · SpaceX · IPOs · Artificial intelligence
SpaceX filed on May 20 to list on the Nasdaq, and with it came the picture nobody outside had seen: three very different businesses inside the same company.
There are rocket launches, there is Starlink — the satellite internet network — and there is artificial intelligence, which arrived in February when SpaceX absorbed xAI along with its data centres. The problem is that the business justifying the valuation is not the space one.
| Business line | Situation |
|---|---|
| Starlink | Generates more than half of revenue and carries the rest |
| Launches | Losses of roughly $619 million |
| xAI / data centres | Arrived with $2.5 billion of debt and kept losing money building more capacity |
In one line: Elon Musk's artificial intelligence bet is being funded by satellite internet. That is not necessarily bad — plenty of transitions are funded that way — but it completely changes what needs watching.
If the valuation rests on the AI side, three pressures point straight at it.
The first is price. Models appeared that deliver comparable results for a fraction of the cost, and that compresses the margin of anyone charging a premium.
The second is hardware life. Data centre chips run hard and depreciate fast in accounting terms, so the investment has to be justified over a few years, not fifteen.
The third is pace. Enterprise adoption is growing, but not at the pace at which money is being spent. That gap between spending and revenue is exactly what the market will measure each quarter.
Until now, AI infrastructure spending was discussed using figures from companies that bury it inside enormous balance sheets. SpaceX is the first chance to see that economy almost isolated, with public quarterly results.
And two more are coming: OpenAI and Anthropic. What SpaceX reports will set the bar those two get read against.
Three very different ones: rocket launches, Starlink — the satellite internet network — and artificial intelligence, which arrived in February when SpaceX absorbed xAI along with its data centers. Starlink generates more than half of revenue and is what holds up the other two.
Launches show losses of roughly $619 million. The AI division arrived carrying $2.5 billion in debt and kept losing money as it built more capacity. Put simply: the bet on artificial intelligence is being funded by satellite internet.
Because AI infrastructure spending has so far been discussed using figures buried inside giant balance sheets. SpaceX is the first chance to see that economy almost isolated, with public quarterly results — and OpenAI and Anthropic are next. What SpaceX reports sets the bar those two will be read against.
This article is the written version of the Saturday analysis.
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