Space Exploration Technologies (SPCX) posted SpaceX Q2 2026 results that beat Wall Street estimates, reporting total revenue of $7.8 billion against consensus forecasts ranging from $6.81bn to $6.93bn, according to ETFdb. The headline strength was offset by a net loss of $541 million and a free cash flow deficit of $25 billion, driven by surging AI infrastructure spending.
SpaceX Q2 2026 Results: Revenue Beats, Losses Narrow
Reuters reported that SpaceX’s loss per share came in at $0.09, beating the consensus estimate of a $0.26 loss. Operating losses narrowed to $143 million from $970 million in the year-earlier quarter. Adjusted EBITDA climbed 191% year-on-year to $3.5 billion from $1.2 billion.
The net loss of $541 million still represented a marked improvement on the $1.0 billion net loss recorded in Q2 2025. The company has never posted a GAAP profit, and Reuters noted it does not yet meet S&P 500 inclusion criteria, which require GAAP profitability across the four trailing quarters; the earliest SpaceX could qualify is June 2027.
Connectivity revenues, driven by Starlink, rose 66% to $4.29bn. Starlink ended the quarter with 12.0 million subscribers, double the 6.0 million recorded a year earlier, and added a record 1.7 million net new subscribers in the quarter alone, according to SpaceX’s Q2 2026 earnings release. The service now operates in 167 markets, with enterprise and government connectivity revenues more than doubling year-on-year to $1.8 billion.
Average revenue per user fell to $66 per month from $85 per month a year earlier, as SpaceX expanded into lower-priced international markets, the earnings release disclosed. Space (launch) revenues grew 29% to $960m, even as launch volume slipped to 78 missions in the first half of 2026 from 84 in the same period of 2025, indicating a richer customer mix, according to Payload Space.
AI segment revenues surged 247% to $2.56bn. Quarterly capital expenditure for that segment alone reached $15.8bn, leaving overall free cash flow at negative $25bn. SpaceX shares fell approximately 7% in after-hours trading on 4 August following the release, according to Payload Space.
During the quarter SpaceX was awarded more than $6 billion in multi-year US government contracts for Starshield, its national-security satellite service, the earnings release disclosed.
The Orbital Data Centre Ambition and the Lockup Risk
The AI spending is tied to an ambitious long-term plan. The US Federal Communications Commission formally accepted SpaceX’s application on 4 February 2026 to launch and operate up to one million satellites at altitudes of 500 km to 2,000 km, designed to function as solar-powered orbital AI data centres. SpaceX has said it could begin deployments as early as 2028. By June, SpaceX had unveiled the first hardware for the programme: a prototype satellite called the AI1, described as an orbital supercomputer with a 70-metre wingspan and 150 kilowatts of peak AI compute capacity.
The filing projects that launching one million tonnes of satellites annually could generate 100 gigawatts of AI compute capacity, roughly equivalent to 20% of current US electricity consumption dedicated entirely to AI, according to analysis of the filing cited by Introl. Technical risks are substantial: a million-satellite constellation raises collision hazards, creates complications for ground-based astronomy, and introduces concerns about atmospheric contamination from vaporised metal during re-entry.
A separate near-term pressure: a lockup on hundreds of millions of insider shares was set to expire on 6 August 2026, two days after earnings. Epistrophy Capital’s Cory Johnson noted the locked shares represented roughly triple the then-current tradable float, according to Yahoo Finance.
SpaceX shares opened at $135 on 12 June, hit an intraday high of $225, then fell 50%. They have since recovered to just below $140.
Scottish Mortgage’s Position and UK Investor Exposure
For UK investors who held back from buying SpaceX directly at the float, the Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust has long provided indirect exposure. The trust first invested in SpaceX in December 2018, deploying a total of £151 million. By 31 March 2026 the fair value of that stake had risen to £2.98 billion, approximately 19.7 times the invested capital, according to Scottish Mortgage’s own pre-IPO briefing note.
After SpaceX closed its first trading day above the IPO price, SpaceX represented approximately 25% of Scottish Mortgage’s portfolio as at 15 June 2026, with the trust’s remaining private company exposure at 21%, the briefing note stated. Connectivity revenue of $11.39bn accounted for 61% of SpaceX’s total 2025 sales and was its only profitable segment that year, generating $4.42bn in segment income, according to CNBC, citing the IPO prospectus. SpaceX spent $3bn on Starship research and development in 2025.
Markets.ft.com reported that Scottish Mortgage’s board was advised of an upward valuation adjustment on 1 April 2026, placing SpaceX at 19.3% of total assets at 31 March 2026, up from 15.4% at 28 February 2026. The trust’s net asset value stood at 1316.12p at that date.
Beyond Scottish Mortgage, Morningstar notes that SpaceX is also the top holding in Edinburgh Worldwide and Baillie Gifford US Growth, the second-largest holding in Schiehallion, and represents around 3% of the £3.17bn RIT Capital Partners.
The lockup expiry on 6 August and the sustained free cash flow deficit are the two near-term tests for a stock that has already halved from its intraday peak. How SpaceX manages AI spending in Q3 will determine whether the recovery from $140 holds.
