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SpaceX Spent $18.4 Billion in a Single Quarter -- $15.8 Billion of It on AI. Here's Where the Money Is Going.
Key Points
SpaceX’s capex rose more than sixfold year over year in the second quarter.
It spent most of that cash on AI chips and new data centers.
In the second quarter of 2026, SpaceX's (NASDAQ: SPCX) revenue surged 92% year over year to $7.8 billion, and it narrowed its net loss from $1.01 billion to $541 million. However, its total capex surged more than sixfold year over year, from $2.83 billion to $18.37 billion. It allocated $15.8 billion of that capex to expanding its AI business. Let's see where all that money went.
Image source: Getty Images.
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What AI investments did SpaceX make?
SpaceX originally operated two main businesses: its Starlink satellite internet services and its rocket launch services. But in Feb. 2026, it acquired xAI -- which owns Grok, X, and its other AI assets -- in an all-stock transaction to form its new AI business. It also acquired the AI start-up Cursor earlier this month. Elon Musk believes its AI revenue will jump from $3.5 billion in 2025 to $700-$750 billion in 2030.
To sow the seeds for that expansion, SpaceX spent most of its second-quarter capex on Nvidia's (NASDAQ: NVDA) data center GPUs and other AI accelerators. The rest was used to deploy, acquire, and build more high-power data centers to increase its active capacity from 1.4 GW today to its target of 10 GW by next year.
That would give it a lot more bandwidth to handle its multi-billion-dollar compute hosting contracts with external enterprise clients. However, the expansion of that unprofitable AI business could offset Starlink's profits and keep its bottom line in the red.
Leo Sun has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Nvidia. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.