SpaceX First Profit: Tesla Merger Committees Confirmed

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Last updated: October 21, 2026

SpaceX posted its first profitable quarter as a public company on Tuesday, and Elon Musk used the earnings call to confirm what Wall Street had been speculating about for weeks: the boards of SpaceX and Tesla have each formed special committees to study a potential merger between the two companies.

Business · Market Strategies · October 21, 2026

SpaceX’s First Profit Comes With a Tesla Merger Signal

A 161% revenue surge and the company’s first-ever quarterly profit were only half the story — Musk’s confirmation of merger committees with Tesla is what’s moving both stocks.

Q3 Revenue

$14.6B

+161% year over year

Net Income

$4.4B

First profitable quarter as a public company

Super Intelligence Revenue

$7.6B

+830% year over year

SPCX Premarket (Oct 21)

+8%

Adding to a 6% after-hours pop Tuesday

A Blowout First Earnings Report

SpaceX (Nasdaq: SPCX), which raised $75 billion in the largest U.S. IPO ever just weeks ago, reported third-quarter revenue of $14.6 billion, up 161% from $5.6 billion a year earlier, alongside net income of $4.4 billion — a reversal from a net loss of roughly $1.1 billion in the same quarter last year. It’s the company’s first profitable quarter since going public. The growth was led by the Super Intelligence (SI) segment, the company’s AI compute and infrastructure business, which generated $7.6 billion in revenue, up 830% year over year and now accounting for more than half of total sales. Starlink and other connectivity revenue came in at $5.2 billion, up 69%. The company’s capital spending also surged, with quarterly capex of roughly $19.6 billion — about $16.4 billion of it tied to SI infrastructure — exceeding the quarter’s own revenue as SpaceX continues to pour cash into AI compute buildout.

Musk Confirms Merger Committees With Tesla

The bigger market mover came on the earnings call, where Musk said SpaceX’s and Tesla’s (TSLA) boards have each formed special committees to evaluate a potential merger between the two companies — the clearest confirmation yet of speculation that Barclays analyst Dan Levy raised earlier this month. Levy’s thesis sketches an all-stock deal in which SpaceX, now valued near $2.1 trillion against Tesla’s roughly $1.5 trillion, would be the acquirer, with Tesla shareholders likely receiving a premium. The logic centers on control: Musk owns about 48% of SpaceX but roughly 82% of its voting power through Class B shares, versus a Tesla stake closer to 17-20%. A combined company would reportedly leave him with about 37% of the equity and 56% of the votes — more in line with the roughly 25% ownership stake he has said he wants in order to steer Tesla’s robotics and AI strategy. The pitch to shareholders would frame the deal as an AI and infrastructure integration: Tesla’s Optimus and Robotaxi programs alongside SpaceX’s Starlink, Grok, and the new Super Intelligence business, plus shared funding for Tesla’s planned $3 billion Terafab research campus in Austin. Nothing is finalized — any deal still needs both boards and shareholder bases to sign off, along with antitrust and national-security review given SpaceX’s government contracts and Tesla’s China exposure.

Market Reaction Builds Into Tesla’s Own Report

SPCX shares, which had already jumped as much as 6% in after-hours trading following the earnings release, extended that move with an 8% premarket gain Wednesday as investors digested both the profit beat and the merger confirmation. Tesla shares were more measured, up about 1.2% in premarket trading after closing Tuesday’s regular session up 1.54% near $374 — notably calmer than SPCX’s reaction, though Tesla’s bigger test comes Wednesday after the close, when it reports its own third-quarter results with investors certain to press management for more detail on merger timing on the call. Elsewhere in the AI-infrastructure complex, Super Micro Computer jumped roughly 11% after hours Tuesday on a preliminary fiscal first-quarter revenue forecast of $18.5-19.5 billion, well above its prior guidance and Wall Street’s roughly $15 billion estimate — another data point suggesting AI server and compute demand remains stronger than the market feared after last week’s capex-driven selloff.

Why It Matters

SpaceX’s results and the merger confirmation land in the middle of what was already being billed as Wall Street’s biggest earnings week of the quarter, with Tesla and Meta both reporting Wednesday after the close and Netflix’s own report Tuesday already rattling markets (see our Netflix earnings recap). A completed Tesla-SpaceX combination would be one of the largest corporate mergers in history and would reshape how investors value Tesla’s AI and robotics ambitions against a backdrop of actual AI infrastructure revenue at SpaceX. For now, the special committees mean the process is formally underway, but a deal — if it happens — is still likely months away. For more on the AI infrastructure names benefiting from this same demand story, see our Nvidia fact sheet and the Stock Fact Sheets hub.

Related Coverage on FactSheets.com

For informational purposes only. Not investment advice. Stock prices, merger speculation, and market data cited above are as of the date noted and are subject to rapid change; always do your own research or consult a licensed financial advisor before making investment decisions.