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SpaceX shares surged 8% Wednesday after the company delivered rapid third quarter revenue growth and topped analyst expectations. Investor enthusiasm also drew fuel from owner Elon Musk, who raised the prospect of combining SpaceX with Tesla.

SpaceX reported Tuesday that third quarter revenue reached $14.6 billion, a 161% increase from a year earlier. The result exceeded the $12.72 billion consensus estimate compiled by LSEG and followed the company's June debut on the Nasdaq.

Operating income came in at $2.8 billion, while net income reached $4.4 billion. That marked a sharp reversal from the $1.05 billion net loss SpaceX reported for the same period a year earlier.

During the earnings call, Musk said he was considering a combination with Tesla, a transaction the report described as potentially the largest merger in history. He also said the boards of both companies had established specific committees to discuss a consolidation.

Musk presented closer cooperation as central to his view of a possible transaction. “I do think there’s a lot of merit to combining the companies as we are pretty much in the superintelligence singularity, and there’s a lot to be gained from cooperating,” Musk said on the call.

Tesla was scheduled to report its third quarter earnings after the closing bell Wednesday. The prospect of a combination placed another point of focus on both companies as investors assessed SpaceX's results and Musk's comments.

SpaceX also delivered a revenue forecast that ran far above current expectations. The company projected first quarter 2027 revenue between $33 billion and $37 billion, compared with the average analyst estimate of $22.2 billion, according to LSEG.

Bret Johnsen, chief financial officer at SpaceX, highlighted both the pace and composition of the quarter's expansion. “We delivered another strong quarter in Q3. Revenue grew an impressive 161% year-over-year, fueled by continued momentum in Connectivity and a clear inflection in our Super Intelligence business,” Johnsen said in the earnings release.

Johnsen attributed the performance to recurring revenue from Starlink, the company's satellite internet business, and significant expansion of its Super Intelligence infrastructure. SpaceX has moved into artificial intelligence this year and now refers to that operation as SI.

The SI segment has become SpaceX's largest business unit, according to the report. Its revenue increased ninefold to $7.56 billion from $813 million during the same quarter last year, giving the operation a central role in the company's growth.

Truist Securities analysts said commentary about computing on the earnings call supported “continued pricing power and shorter payback periods” for artificial intelligence cloud providers. Their Tuesday note addressed recent market concerns surrounding financing for those providers.

“Despite market concerns relating to financing for AI cloud providers this past week, we believe SpaceX’s third-quarter 2026 represents the first data point during the earnings season to support the bull case for AI cloud providers,” the Truist analysts added.

The analysts described demand as “insatiable” and said SpaceX indicated that it could rent out its capacity several times over. They also said Coreweave and Nebius were positioned to benefit and capture demand because “pricing power will more than offset higher rates.”

SpaceX's advance spread some optimism across other publicly traded space companies Wednesday. Shares of Rocket Lab, Intuitive Machines and AST SpaceMobile all climbed as investors reacted to the company's earnings and outlook.

Trading among companies associated with cloud infrastructure was more mixed. Shares of Nebius and Coreweave traded marginally lower, while Iren and Applied Digital climbed during early Wednesday trading following SpaceX's report.

The quarter combined faster revenue, a return to net profitability and a forecast above the LSEG estimate. Musk's disclosure that special board committees were discussing a possible Tesla consolidation added another major development to an already closely watched earnings release.

DISCLAIMER: GoldInvestors.news is not a registered investment, legal or tax advisor or broker/dealer. All investment/financial opinions expressed by GoldInvestors.news are from the personal research and experience of the owner of the site and are intended as educational material. Although best efforts are made to ensure that all information is accurate and up to date, occasionally unintended errors and misprints may occur.