Elon Musk’s space and AI group posted stronger than expected revenue, but a huge capex bill sent shares lower.

SpaceX has posted its first earnings report since going public in June, beating Wall Street’s revenue expectations but rattling investors with the scale of its spending on AI infrastructure.

Revenue for the second quarter came in at $7.8bn, up 92pc year-on-year and comfortably ahead of the $6.8bn consensus according to Bloomberg. The company also narrowed its net loss to $541m, down from $4.3bn in the first quarter.

Despite the progress, shares fell as much as 8pc in after-hours trading once the scale of its AI investment became clear. Capital expenditure jumped to $18.4bn for the quarter, according to Reuters, of which roughly $15.8bn went on AI infrastructure alone, well above the $13.2bn analysts had predicted.

Chief financial officer Bret Johnsen told investors on the earnings call that the group’s AI compute investments were delivering a payback period of less than a year, and that capital spending would likely hold at similar levels for several more quarters.

Elon Musk used the call to defend the group’s ambitions, telling analysts that SpaceX’s internal target of $1trn in annual revenue had moved forward a year, from 2031 to 2030, with a “non-zero chance” of arriving in 2029, according to Bloomberg.

The reaction extends a rocky run for the stock since its record-breaking debut in June, when SpaceX raised $75bn at $135 a share and briefly commanded a market value above $1.7trn. Shares have since fallen well below the IPO price, with the stock shedding more than $1trn in value from its June peak.

Investor nerves are likely to remain on edge as a ‘lockup period’ expires on Thursday, freeing hundreds of millions of insider shares for sale, a moment that will be closely watched for further downward pressure on the stock.

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