It is achieving deep integration of global communications, computing infrastructure, and its self-built energy system through aggressive expansion. With financial growth and computing capacity that have exceeded expectations, coupled with the potential plan to merge with Tesla, Musk aims to build a fully vertically integrated tech "full-stack empire" spanning from "satellites/transmission—electricity—chips/AI models—robots/endpoints," thereby gaining comprehensive control over the industry's core lifelines in the age of artificial intelligence.
$SpaceX (SPCX.US)$It is integrating global communication networks, computing infrastructure, and energy supply under a single corporate umbrella at an unprecedented pace. A quarterly earnings report that stunned Wall Street revealed that the company led by Elon Musk is betting on the lifeblood of the AI era in a more aggressive manner than any other tech giant.
SpaceX reported third-quarter revenue of $14.6 billion, up 161% year over year, surpassing Wall Street's expectations by more than $2 billion and posting positive operating profit for the first time. The company's CFO, Bret Johnsen, forecast that first-quarter 2027 revenue will reach $33 to $37 billion, with annualized recurring revenue exceeding $100 billion by December this year. Meanwhile, Musk confirmed that a special committee of independent Directors from both SpaceX and Tesla is discussing a potential merger between the two companies.
If the merger goes through, SpaceX will simultaneously control satellite launches, global communications, AI computing power, energy supply, as well as Tesla's factories, self-driving cars, and the Optimus humanoid robot. At that point, every layer of the global computing ecosystem will be owned by a single company.
Starlink: Approaching the tipping point that could disrupt the entire communications industry
Starlink's satellite internet service added 1.6 million new subscribers in the third quarter, bringing its total number of subscribers to 13.6 million. However, this figure falls far short of…$Verizon (VZ.US)$147 million wireless connections and$AT&T (T.US)$110 million, yet the growth trajectory is hard to ignore—rising from 2.3 million at the end of 2023 to 4.4 million by the end of 2024, and further to 8.9 million by the end of 2025, with an additional 4.7 million added in the first three quarters of this year.
By contrast, in the same quarter, AT&T added only 379,000 postpaid subscribers, while Verizon added 184,000. In addition, approximately 12,000 commercial aircraft have already connected to Starlink services, and this coverage capability is becoming a key differentiator in airline competition—United Airlines has already joined.$Delta Air Lines (DAL.US)$Not yet connected.
Starlink Mobile represents another growth trajectory. This service eliminates the need for rooftop antennas, enabling ordinary smartphones to connect directly to satellites through partner carriers like T-Mobile. It now boasts 22 million monthly active users, with a 37% increase in the third quarter alone. SpaceX has also recently struck a deal to acquire… for approximately $17 billion.$EchoStar (ECHO.US)$Its wireless spectrum is slated to launch full-fledged mobile operator services in early 2028.
On the technical level,$SpaceX (SPCX.US)$The next-generation V3 satellite boasts a single‑satellite downlink capacity of 1 terabit per second, capable of supporting approximately 200,000 concurrent video streams, while a Starship rocket can carry 60 such satellites in a single launch. During Starship's 14th flight in September this year, the total deployed bandwidth reached 26 terabits per second—equivalent to…$Viasat (VSAT.US)$More than eight times the total capacity of the entire ViaSat‑3 satellite constellation. According to data from the research firm TeleGeography, by mid‑2026 the global total international internet capacity—primarily carried by undersea cables—will be approximately 2,259 terabits per second. With SpaceX's Starship program aiming for one launch per week next year and eventually one per day, Elon Musk's network could potentially surpass the world's total internet capacity.
Computing Power Race: SpaceX Is Becoming the World's Largest Computing Power Provider
Computing power is becoming a critical infrastructure, and Elon Musk aims to take the lead in shaping it. SpaceX currently deploys roughly 220,000 chips per month.$NVIDIA (NVDA.US)$The GB300 chip—Musk stated that this pace will accelerate further next year.
According to Foxconn, it has received an order from SpaceX for approximately 936,000 GB300 chips, valued at about $52 billion, with delivery scheduled through the first quarter of 2027. Industry estimates suggest that NVIDIA's total Blackwell chip production this year will be around 5.5 to 6 million units, with SpaceX accounting for roughly 40%—making it NVIDIA's largest single customer to date.
SpaceX has built Colossus 2, the world's largest AI data center, in Memphis, Tennessee—but this is just the beginning. According to the timeline disclosed by Musk and CFO Bret Johnsen during the earnings call, as of the end of September, SpaceX's computing power had reached 1.7 gigawatts; it is expected to approach 2 gigawatts by the end of October and reach 2.5 to 3 gigawatts by the end of December. By the end of the second quarter of 2027, it will launch the "world's most powerful training cluster," equipped with 440,000 next-generation NVIDIA Vera Rubin chips. The annual target is to add 10 gigawatts of computing power, a goal for which Musk expressed "high confidence," adding that the actual figure "is unlikely to fall below 13 gigawatts."
Competitors are actively seeking computing power from Elon Musk. Anthropic has pledged to lease roughly $84.5 billion worth of compute from SpaceX by 2029, while Alphabet has agreed to pay SpaceX $920 million per month, from October this year through June 2029, for computational resources. Even Google—despite developing its own chips and operating one of the world's largest supercomputing clusters—has chosen to purchase compute from Musk, with electricity costs being the primary reason.
Energy Bottleneck: SpaceX Chooses to Build Its Own Power Infrastructure as a Workaround
Electricity is the fundamental constraint on data center expansion.$GE Vernova (GEV.US)$It is the largest manufacturer of gas turbines for data centers in the United States, with its order book fully booked through 2030. Current backlog stands at 116 gigawatts, while annual production capacity is only about 20 gigawatts.
SpaceX's solution is to build its own power‑generation system. The company has already constructed a proprietary power plant in Southaven, Mississippi, equipped with 41 gas turbines and an installed capacity of 1.2 gigawatts; at the same time, it has procured five 380‑megawatt units from South Korea's Doosan Heavy Industries. According to Musk, SpaceX's energy solutions are "highly proprietary," with the key lying in the company's advanced casting capabilities—developed through rocket engine manufacturing—which enable it to produce gas‑turbine blades in‑house, thereby shortening the timeline for deploying power infrastructure by 12 to 18 months.
Musk plans to build 20 gigawatts of new power and cooling infrastructure next year to ensure that the expansion of computing capacity is not constrained by energy supply. According to estimates, if SpaceX achieves an installed capacity of 20 gigawatts of gas turbines by the end of 2027, its daily natural gas consumption would reach 3 to 4.5 billion cubic feet—roughly equivalent to most of the increase in U.S. natural gas production projected by the Energy Information Administration for the entire year 2027.
Financial Pressure: The Financing Logic Behind Negative Free Cash Flow
Aggressive expansion has come at a substantial capital cost. In the third quarter, SpaceX generated approximately $9.6 billion in operating cash flow, while capital expenditures totaled $19.6 billion, resulting in free cash flow of roughly negative $10 billion. CFO Bret Johnsen guided fourth-quarter capital spending to between $35 billion and $40 billion—about twice the level previously projected to investors.
Compared with other hyperscale cloud providers, SpaceX's capital expenditure intensity far exceeds that of its peers.$Amazon (AMZN.US)$This year, approximately $0.27 of every $1 in revenue has been allocated to capital projects.$Microsoft (MSFT.US)$It is comparable to Alphabet's level; meanwhile, SpaceX's ratio stands at about $2.50, roughly nine times that of Amazon.
As of the end of September, SpaceX held $89.9 billion in cash and short-term investments, with $38.8 billion in debt. Its quarterly EBITDA stood at approximately $8.8 billion, translating to an annualized figure of about $35 billion. The company's current debt is roughly equal to one times its EBITDA, well below the two-times threshold that S&P considers the upper limit for maintaining an investment-grade rating.
However, if SpaceX is to complete the construction of a 10-gigawatt computing infrastructure and maintain an investment-grade rating, the funding gap means it must raise additional capital through methods such as issuing new shares, securing chip financing from suppliers like NVIDIA, or collecting advance payments from customers. According to reports,$S&P Global (SPGI.US)$It is projected that SpaceX's debt will reach $132 billion by 2028, and free cash flow is not expected to turn positive until 2030.
Tesla Merger: The Final Piece in Building a "Full-Stack Empire"
Musk has confirmed,$SpaceX (SPCX.US)$and$Tesla (TSLA.US)$The special committee of independent Directors is discussing a merger. If the deal goes through, SpaceX will gain Tesla's manufacturing facilities, autonomous vehicle technology, and the Optimus humanoid robot, with its AI computing power sold by the watt to drive both vehicle driving and factory production.
This means a fully vertically integrated chain: SpaceX launches satellites, Starlink transmits signals, in-house gas turbines provide power, proprietary chips run AI models, Grok delivers intelligent services, and Tesla robots perform manual labor—every layer of the global computing ecosystem is controlled by a single company.
This logic upends the fundamental paradigm of industrial division of labor and specialization that has prevailed in the United States over the past century. In the age of AI, when the cost of intelligence is essentially the sum of electricity, chips, and connectivity, vertically integrated incumbents will capture the full margin at every stage of the value chain, while competitors reliant on externally sourced inputs face cost disadvantages at each link—making it difficult to sustain operations even under optimal management.
Judging by its revenue trajectory, SpaceX is on track to report quarterly revenues exceeding $50 billion by the end of 2027—nearly nine times the $5.6 billion it posted in the third quarter of 2025. Whether this bold bet will pay off hinges on two key factors: the continued surge in AI's demand for computing power, and whether Musk can, at an unprecedented pace, bring this sprawling machine—spanning the skies, the ground, and the digital realm—fully online.