SpaceX shows strong growth in its first earnings report since going public

SpaceX on Tuesday reported a second-quarter loss of $541 million on revenue of $7.8 billion in its first earnings report as a publicly traded company, offering a window into its performance after executing the biggest ever initial public offering in June. 

Elon Musk’s rocket, satellite and AI provider was forecast to report revenue of $6.8 billion and a loss of 23 cents per share, according to the average estimate from analysts surveyed by FactSet. 

SpaceX shares have slumped since the company’s blockbuster IPO, with the stock losing almost 50% of its value after hitting an intraday high of $225.64 on June 16. Wall Street analysts and retail investors will look to the quarterly earnings report for clues on whether SpaceX can deliver on Musk’s vision for the company, which includes putting solar-powered data centers in space and eventually sending spaceships to Mars.

“In many ways, SpaceX presents a track record of building toward solutions which many industry experts had previously viewed to be implausible,” noted Goldman Sachs analyst Eric Sheridan in a July research report. 

SpaceX’s IPO made Musk, the company’s founder and CEO, into the world’s first trillionaire on paper. He will answer investor questions on a 4:30 p.m. ET conference call with market analysts to discuss the company’s results.

Investors will be focused on the pace of SpaceX’s revenue growth. The company booked $18.7 billion in revenue last year, but reported a net loss of more than $4.9 billion, according to a regulatory filing. 

Analysts will also zero in on Starlink’s subscriber growth and sales, given that the satellite division is the company’s largest revenue segment. The unit was forecast to report second-quarter revenue of $3.8 billion, according to FactSet. 

Musk is also likely to be asked about the timeline for testing SpaceX’s Starship rockets, which NASA hopes to use to put astronauts on the moon again, and the prospects of putting data centers in orbit. SpaceX, which launched its 13th Starship rocket in late July, is targeting a landing on the moon in 2028. However, for now, no Starship has been put into Earth orbit.