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SpaceX shares dropped more than 13 percent on Wednesday, a day after the Elon Musk-run company published its first quarterly earnings as a publicly listed company. The stock closed at $108.10, down 13.6 percent from the previous close, as investors reacted to heavy capital expenditure tied to AI and data centre expansion, Al Jazeera reported.

The sell-off came even as SpaceX reported a loss of $541m, or 9 cents per share, for the three months through June—less than half of what financial analysts had expected—and revenue that jumped to $7.8bn, up more than 90 percent from the same period a year prior, beating analyst forecasts, according to Al Jazeera.

Coverage comparison

Al Jazeera carried two reports that took different angles on the same events. One emphasised the revenue growth, new contracts, and a share price that went up, noting the loss was smaller than Wall Street expected. The other focused on investor anxiety over capital expenditure and the subsequent stock decline, using phrases like "plunged" and "spooked" to describe the market reaction.

Together, the two stories paint a portrait of a company that is expanding rapidly but facing questions from shareholders about the cost and payoff of its massive investments in AI infrastructure.

Key claims

  • Loss smaller than expected: The net loss was $541m (9 cents per share), less than half what analysts had forecast for the first quarterly statement since SpaceX went public, per Al Jazeera.
  • Revenue surge: Sales reached $7.8bn, up more than 90% from the prior year, beating analyst estimates of roughly $6.8–6.9bn, as reported by Al Jazeera.
  • Cash position: The company ended the second quarter with $100bn in cash, according to US Securities and Exchange filings cited by Al Jazeera.
  • Government contracts: SpaceX touted $6bn in new US government contracts for Starshield, its national-security satellite system, plus two successful Starship launches in the last 90 days, Al Jazeera reported.
  • Capital expenditure: Spending rose to $18.37bn, a six-fold increase from last year and above the $13.2bn analysts had forecast. Of that, $15.8bn is earmarked for AI infrastructure, Al Jazeera said.
  • Data centre capacity target: SpaceX has said it wants to expand its data centre capacity from 1.4GW to 2GW by year-end, according to Al Jazeera.
  • Stock decline: The shares fell 13.6% on Wednesday, with the drop attributed to investor concerns over the spending levels.

Perspectives

SpaceX: The company, under Elon Musk, is building an AI-first business beyond renting compute capacity, developing frontier models, software, and eventually data centres in space. It has said its computing capacity serves its Grok models and is also sold commercially, with $14.1bn in cloud-services agreements lined up, Al Jazeera reported.

Industry analyst: Josh Gilbert, lead analyst at trading platform eToro, noted that investors across the technology sector are questioning whether large investments in AI infrastructure will yield returns. "We've watched the same scrutiny land on Big Tech this earnings season... SpaceX faces that test with an added degree of difficulty because it's asking shareholders to bankroll data centres in orbit," Gilbert said, as quoted by Al Jazeera.

These two positions reflect the broader debate: SpaceX sees long-term opportunity, while some market observers worry about the short-term payoff.