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SpaceX Q2 2026 Earnings Preview

SpaceX reports its first-ever quarterly results on August 4. Here's what to watch as shares sit roughly 50% below their post-IPO high, with a major lockup expiry two days out.

Source: Bloomberg images

Written by

Farah Mourad

Farah Mourad

UAE Market Analyst

Publication date

SpaceX reports its first quarterly results as a public company – nearly two months after its $85.7B IPO. Shares have lost half their value since topping out in June, and a historic lockup expiry lands just two days after this print. Here's what today's results need to show.

SpaceX's Q2 2026 Earnings Date and Time

Tuesday, August 4, after the US close. Call at 4:30pm ET / 12:30am UAE time (August 5).

Q1 2026 Recap: The Only Baseline Investors Have

  • Combined Q1 revenue ~$4.7B across three segments - the sequential base this quarter is measured against
  • Starlink (Connectivity): $3.26B revenue, $1.19B operating income - the profit engine
  • AI Infrastructure (SpaceXAI): $818M revenue, $2.47B operating loss - the biggest drag
  • Space (Rockets/Launch): $619M revenue, $662M operating loss - still investment-phase

No prior public-quarter comp exists since this is SpaceX's first report as a listed company - Q1's segment data from the S-1 prospectus is the only reference point the Street has.

Q2 Preview: Steep Growth Expected, Capex is the Swing Factor

Strong top-line growth, AI story front and center, but capex and debt trajectory are what the market is really pricing. Bullish revenue setup, wide estimate dispersion, lockup cliff two days out.

The Numbers That Matter

Metric

Consensus

Q2'26 Revenue $6.8B – $6.9B
Q2'26 Adjusted Loss/Share -$0.19 to -$0.35
Q2'26 EBITDA $2.0B – $2.1B
Q2'26 Capex $13B – $14B
Q1'26 Revenue (actual) ~$4.7B
Implied Growth +68% y/y, +~45% q/q

Source: FactSet – LSEG / Refinitiv - An unusually wide estimate skew given SpaceX operated privately for over two decades.

Under the Hood: Segment Economics (Q1'26)

Segment

Revenue

Operating Income / (Loss)

Connectivity (Starlink) $3.26B $1.19B
AI Infrastructure (SpaceXAI) $818M ($2.47B)
Space (Rockets/Launch) $619M ($662M)

Segment

Revenue

Operating Income / (Loss)

Connectivity (Starlink) Revenue:
$3.26B
Operating Income / (Loss):
$1.19B
AI Infrastructure (SpaceXAI) Revenue:
$818M
Operating Income / (Loss):
($2.47B)
Space (Rockets/Launch) Revenue:
$619M
Operating Income / (Loss):
($662M)

Source: VisibleAlpha / S&P Global.

Starlink funds the business. AI is the growth story and the largest loss-maker. Space is still pre-profitability. Whether the AI loss narrows this quarter is the single number that matters most.

Visible Alpha projects capex scaling from $48.7B this year to $118.4B by FY2028, with total debt growing over 5x - from $41.7B to over $218B - over the same period. That trajectory is the real tension, the same one hanging over Oracle, Alphabet, and Meta's AI buildouts.

Core Operational Catalysts

  • Global Subscriber Profitability: tracking whether average internet metrics can finally establish a firm floor at $66/month after wide international rollouts expanded active user terminals to 10.3 million by late March.
  • Compute Run-Rate Revenue: if the Anthropic data center lease (~$1.25B/month) is scaling fast enough to shrink the division's $2.47B launch deficit.
  • Military Contract Backlog: Operational focus is shifting toward the specific revenue recognition timelines and hardware deployment schedules tied to the newly awarded $1.6B Space Force national security contract.
  • Starship Structural Reusability: The primary technical gauge for the core launch division remains Deutsche Bank’s late-summer flight manifest target, which seeks to pull off the program's first-ever upper-stage mechanical catch.

Valuation Check: No Single Clean Peer

SpaceX spans three genuinely different businesses, so no single public company offers a like-for-like comparison - valuation has to be built division by division.

Peer Comparison: How SpaceX Stacks Up by Division

Division

Peer Group

Multiple

Rationale

Starlink / Connectivity ASTS, Viasat, EchoStar/Hughes ASTS ~104x–138x fwd rev. Viasat ~10.4x EV/EBITDA Starlink is profitable and growing fast, so it trades closer to ASTS's high multiple than to older, slower satellite companies
AI Infrastructure CoreWeave, Nebius, MSFT/GOOGL/META ~3x–5x fwd revenue Priced strictly as an AI hardware infrastructure utility based on compute capacity scaling and contracted backlog velocity.
Space / Launch Rocket Lab, L3Harris, Northrop Grumman RKLB ~32x CY27E rev. Primes ~1.5x–2.5x rev. Rocket Lab is the nearest public comp; the big defense contractors set the floor for the value of government contract work

Division

Peer Group

Multiple

Rationale

Starlink / Connectivity Peer Group:
ASTS, Viasat, EchoStar/Hughes
Multiple:
ASTS ~104x–138x fwd rev. Viasat ~10.4x EV/EBITDA
Rationale:
Starlink is profitable and growing fast, so it trades closer to ASTS's high multiple than to older, slower satellite companies
AI Infrastructure Peer Group:
CoreWeave, Nebius, MSFT/GOOGL/META
Multiple:
~3x–5x fwd revenue
Rationale:
Priced strictly as an AI hardware infrastructure utility based on compute capacity scaling and contracted backlog velocity.
Space / Launch Peer Group:
Rocket Lab, L3Harris, Northrop Grumman
Multiple:
RKLB ~32x CY27E rev. Primes ~1.5x–2.5x rev.
Rationale:
Rocket Lab is the nearest public comp; the big defense contractors set the floor for the value of government contract work

Fundamentals

  • Market Cap: $1.51tn
  • EPS (12-month trailing): -$0.72
  • 12-month high / low: $225.64 / $104.83

The Chart: Where Price Action Stands

SPACEX has been in a clean, sustained downtrend since its June debut high, now trading around $115.

SpaceX Technical Chart Source: IG Platform

Resistance: $120 - local resistance and mid-range pivot -Next level: $140 - upper Bollinger band 

Support: $100 - psychological level and lower band

Sentiment Check

  • TipRanks Smart Score: 7/10 – Neutral
  • Analyst consensus: Buy – 23 Buy, 7 Hold, 2 Sell (32 analysts)
  • IG clients: 84% long / 16% short, 501+ open positions
  • Trading activity: 59% sells this week, 59% sells this month - longs staying positioned but trimming into the print

The Wildcards

Lockup expiry August 6 frees roughly 900M+ insider shares (~$100B) - a technical supply shock landing two days after this report. First-ever formal guidance is also in play; the Street doesn't know yet whether Musk will issue one.

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