The company said new AI compute deployments are generating a payback of less than a year at pricing above $50 per watt, and Musk suggested a six month payback period could be possible next year as older Nvidia H100 GPUs rent for more than when they were new. SpaceX is turning on 220,000 Nvidia GB300 GPUs a month and plans to allocate roughly half of its capacity to internal products including Grok, Grok Bot and Cursor while renting the rest to outside customers. Capital expenditures totaled $48.1 billion in the first nine months of 2026, up 247% from a year earlier, resulting in negative free cash flow of $35 billion year to date.
The fourth quarter spending hike follows third quarter capital expenditures of $19.59 billion, including $16.44 billion for AI, as SpaceX reported revenue of $14.58 billion, up 161% year over year, and its first profit at $4.4 billion in net income. On the call, CFO Bret Johnsen guided first quarter 2027 revenue to $33 billion to $37 billion, while Musk projected $500 billion to $1 trillion in ARR and 13 GW of active compute by the end of 2027, an expansion from 1.7 GW in September that would require adding 2.5 GW per quarter next year at an estimated industry cost of $300 billion to $500 billion.