SpaceX Reports Its Second Public Quarter on October 20: What to Watch in Revenue, Losses and Starlink
Four months after its stock market debut, SpaceX is about to publish its second quarterly report as a public company, and the results will say a lot about how a rocket and satellite business pays for its own ambitions. For ordinary readers, it is a rare chance to see the books of a company whose products reach well past Wall Street.
In this article, we will explore the reporting schedule, the second-quarter baseline, how to read revenue and losses, the Starlink segment, and the lockup rules.
The Tuesday Evening Schedule
This article was written on October 19, the day before the report, so none of the third-quarter results had been released and nothing here is a forecast. What is known is the logistics. SpaceX, which trades on Nasdaq under the symbol SPCX, said it will release its third-quarter 2026 results after the market closes on Tuesday, October 20. A live audio webcast follows at 3:30 p.m. Central, which is 4:30 p.m. Eastern. According to Tesla North, the webcast will run on the company’s investor site and on X, and investors were able to submit questions ahead of time.
Why the Timing Matters
Reporting after the closing bell is a long-standing habit among listed companies. It gives every investor the same moment to read the numbers before the next regular session opens. Trading does continue in the evening, but fewer people take part and prices can swing on small orders, so a first price reaction in those hours is a noisy signal. A calmer read comes from the documents themselves.
What the Package Usually Contains
A quarterly report is more than a headline number. Expect a press release or shareholder letter, a set of financial statements, and notes that split the business into segments. The statements normally include an income statement showing revenue and the profit or loss, a balance sheet listing what the company owns and owes, and a cash flow statement tracing the money that really moved.
Companies that trade in the United States also file a formal quarterly report with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and that filing often carries detail the press release leaves out.
Why a Second Report Matters More Than a First
This is SpaceX’s second report since going public, and the first came in August. A first report is a snapshot. A second begins to show direction, because readers can finally compare one public quarter with the one before it and ask whether the story told in August is holding. That comparison is the real subject of Tuesday night.
A practical tip for anyone short on time: read the press release or letter first, then the segment table, and only then listen to the question-and-answer portion. Executives choose their words carefully on a call, and the tables are harder to spin than the talk around them. If you cannot watch live, the recording and transcript are usually posted afterward.
The advance questions are worth a word. Companies that invite them can choose which ones to answer, so the list of topics covered says as much as the answers do. If a subject you care about, such as spending on Starship or the pace of Starlink growth, goes unmentioned, the written filing is the place to look for it, since the notes are written to a stricter standard than a conversation. Also check the time zone before you set an alarm: the webcast starts in the afternoon in Texas but already in the late afternoon on the East Coast, and in the evening in much of Europe.
Where the Second Quarter Left the Story
Any look ahead starts with the last set of numbers, because a report means little without a baseline. According to reports on SpaceX’s second-quarter 2026 results, revenue came in at $7.8 billion, up 92 percent from a year earlier. The company posted a net loss of $541 million. Starlink, its satellite internet business, brought in $4.3 billion and was the largest segment, which by simple division is more than half of that quarter’s revenue.
The sources reviewed for this article did not include published analyst estimates for the third quarter, so there is no agreed yardstick to quote here.
| Second-quarter 2026 item | Reported figure | Note |
| Revenue | $7.8 billion | Up 92 percent from a year earlier |
| Net loss | $541 million | About 6.9 percent of revenue by simple division |
| Starlink revenue | $4.3 billion | The largest segment |
| Reporting history | Second report as a public company | The first report came in August |
Revenue Growth and the Base Effect
A growth rate of 92 percent means revenue nearly doubled compared with the same quarter a year before. That year-over-year comparison strips out seasonal patterns, which is why it usually leads the headlines. The other comparison is sequential, third quarter against second, and it shows momentum but can be bent by one-off events such as a cluster of launches in a single month. Careful readers look at both and check whether the company describes the comparison the same way each time.
Fast growth also gets harder to repeat as the base grows. Here is an illustration with invented round numbers. A business that sells $100 million in one year and $150 million the next has grown 50 percent. To grow 50 percent again it must add $75 million, not $50 million, so the same percentage demands a bigger dollar push every year. A lower growth percentage in a later quarter would therefore not, by itself, mean the business is shrinking. It may only mean the starting point got bigger.
Which Parts Are Steady and Which Are Lumpy
Not all revenue behaves alike. A subscription service such as satellite internet tends to produce repeating monthly revenue, so it grows as customers are added and moves gradually. Revenue tied to individual missions or contracts depends on timing, and a quarter can look strong or weak depending on when work is completed and counted. The segment note in the report is where you can see which kind is driving the total, and a shift in that mix can matter as much as the total itself.
The Loss in Proportion
Net loss is the bottom line after every cost has been subtracted, including depreciation, interest and taxes. A loss of $541 million sounds enormous, yet against $7.8 billion of revenue it was about 6.9 percent, or roughly $6.90 for every $100 of sales. That ratio is worth tracking from quarter to quarter, because it lets you compare a small loss on small sales with a larger loss on larger sales.
Basenor, a blog, attributes the second-quarter loss to the cost of scaling Starship and the Starlink constellation at the same time. It calls the third quarter the first real indication of whether that spending is stabilizing. That is one outlet’s view, not a company statement, but it frames the question well. The next section looks at how to test it.
One more caution about the ratio. Because the loss is a small slice of a large revenue number, a swing of a few hundred million dollars either way would change the percentage a good deal without changing the nature of the business. That is why it pays to read the loss alongside the cost lines that drive it, and not to treat the percentage as a score.
Losses, Spending and the Cash That Matters
A net loss is an accounting result, and accounting spreads some costs across many years. A rocket or a satellite is a capital asset: the company pays for it up front, then records the cost gradually as depreciation while the asset is in service. That means the cash leaves the building long before the full expense shows up on the income statement. To see how fast money is really going out, the cash flow statement is the better place to look.
Net Loss Versus Cash Burn
Two lines on the cash flow statement are worth finding. The first is cash from operating activities, which shows whether the day-to-day business generates or consumes cash. The second is capital expenditures, the money spent on equipment, launch hardware, satellites and facilities. Subtract the second from the first and you get free cash flow, a rough measure of what is left after the business has funded its own upkeep and growth. A company can report a modest net loss and still burn a lot of cash if its capital spending is heavy, and the reverse can also happen.
Capital Spending and the Starship Question
Basenor ties the second-quarter loss to building out Starship and the Starlink constellation together. Those are two very different kinds of spending. Starship is a development program, where costs arrive before there is a product that earns money at scale. A satellite constellation is a deployment program, where each added satellite is meant to support more customers or better service.
The report may or may not break these apart, so look for any language that separates research and development from production and launch costs, and note whether the company offers a figure for expected capital spending.
What Stabilizing Could Look Like
Because Basenor’s phrase is “stabilizing,” it helps to define it in advance, so that you are not tempted to bend the definition after seeing the numbers. Reasonable signs include a net loss that shrinks as a share of revenue, capital expenditures that level off rather than climb each quarter, and operating cash flow that improves from the prior quarter. None of these is a promise, and none of them can be known before the report is out. A quarter could also show the opposite on every measure, for good reasons such as a new build phase.
One more item to check is the company’s cash position. The offering priced at $135 a share in June raised roughly $85.7 billion gross, according to Tesla North. Gross means before the fees and costs of running the offering, so the report’s balance sheet is the place to see what cash is on hand and how much of it sits in short-term holdings versus longer commitments. A large cushion gives a company time, but it does not change whether spending is stabilizing. Those are separate questions, and the cash flow statement answers the second one.
Interest, Debt and Other Obligations
The net loss also includes interest on whatever the company has borrowed, so the notes on debt are worth a look. A company can fund growth with its own cash, with borrowed money, or with a mix, and each choice leaves a different footprint.
Look for the amount of debt outstanding, when it comes due, and whether commitments to buy equipment or pay for launch services in future years are listed. These obligations rarely make headlines, yet they set the floor for how much spending is already locked in before management makes any new decision.
Starlink and the Segment Table
Starlink is the line most readers know, since it is the service sold to households, businesses and travelers. It also happened to be the largest segment in the second quarter at $4.3 billion, so its behavior pulls the whole company along. The reporting reviewed for this article named only Starlink as the largest segment, so the other segments, and how big each one is, are something to read directly from the new report.
Why Companies Report Segments at All
Segment reporting exists so investors can see how different parts of a business perform. A company with a subscription arm and a launch arm may have very different costs and growth in each, and a combined total hides that.
Rules for public companies require segment information to be consistent from period to period, so you can compare the new table with the August one line by line. If a segment is renamed or regrouped, the report should say so, and that note deserves a careful read.
Share of the Total
Because Starlink is already more than half of revenue by the second-quarter figures, its share of the total is a useful number. If Starlink grows faster than the whole company, its share rises and the company leans harder on one product. If it grows slower, other segments are catching up. Neither outcome is good or bad on its face. It simply tells you how concentrated the business is, and concentration affects how much any single problem or success can move the total.
Customer Measures, if They Are Given
Subscription businesses often disclose measures such as subscriber counts or average revenue per user. Not every company does, and definitions vary, so do not assume a figure is comparable to another company’s. If SpaceX provides them, compare the same definition across quarters, and watch for any change in how the figure is counted. If it does not, revenue growth in the Starlink segment is the main clue, and the report may mention drivers such as new markets or pricing in the discussion section.
Another place to look is wherever the company places Starship-related costs. Some companies keep a development program inside a larger segment, which can make that segment look less profitable than its core business, while others report it separately or in an all-other group. The report may not break it out at all. If the company changes where those costs sit, the segment results for the new quarter may not line up neatly with the old ones, which is the sort of detail a restatement note will explain.
It is worth keeping your own expectations modest on this point. A segment table can show what happened, but it cannot show why unless management explains it, and explanations deserve the same skepticism as any self-description. The question session can fill gaps, yet the cleanest evidence is a number that repeats in the same form every quarter.
Lockups, Share Supply and the Musk Restriction
SpaceX went public on June 12 on Nasdaq at $135 a share, according to Tesla North. On October 9, Nasdaq’s quote page showed a market value of about $2.2 trillion and shares near $162, which is roughly 20 percent above the offering price by simple arithmetic. Market value is just the share price multiplied by the number of shares outstanding, so it moves with the price whether or not the business changes. That is why an event on the calendar, rather than a quarterly result, can matter to share supply.
What a Lockup Does and Does Not Do
A lockup is an agreement that stops insiders and early holders from selling their shares for a set period after a stock market debut. The purpose is to avoid flooding the market with sellers right at the start. Lockups often end in stages rather than all at once. When one ends, shares become eligible for sale, which is a statement about permission and not about action. Eligible shares might be sold, held, gifted or pledged, and the person selling may be doing so for reasons unrelated to how the company is doing.
The Dates in This Case
According to Tesla North, October 9 was a lockup date on which up to 328.4 million more shares became eligible for sale. The word “up to” matters, since it is a ceiling and not a count of shares that traded. Elon Musk’s shares remain locked up until June 2027, per the same report. The report did not say how those two facts relate, so readers should not assume his shares were part of the October 9 figure.
Why This Is Separate From the Earnings Story
It is tempting to mix lockups and results, but they answer different questions. Earnings tell you how the business performed in a quarter. A lockup tells you how many shares could change hands. A strong quarter can coincide with heavy selling by holders who have waited, and a weak one can coincide with calm. If you follow the stock, keep the two in separate notes so that one does not get blamed for the other.
This article does not offer any view on whether to buy, hold or sell, and nothing here predicts how shares will trade. The report’s share count, any disclosures about holders and the filing’s description of lockup terms are the primary documents. Check them rather than relying on summaries, including this one.
Reading the Share Count
The cover page of the quarterly filing normally states how many shares were outstanding on a recent date, and the financial statements show a weighted average for the period. These can differ, and the gap grows when a company issues new shares or when employees exercise awards during the quarter.
If the number rises between reports, each existing share represents a smaller slice of the company. That is a plain consequence of arithmetic, and it is worth noticing whether the increase comes from new issuance, from employee compensation, or from something else the notes explain.
Final Thoughts: A Reading Plan for Tuesday Night
The report will be out on October 20, and this piece was written before it, so use the checklist below as a guide for reading and not as a guess about what is coming. The idea is to decide in advance what you want to learn, so the headline does not choose for you. Spend a few minutes now writing down the second-quarter figures from this article and keep them beside you.
If the third-quarter release uses different wording for a line, such as a changed name for a segment, note that too, because the first job on Tuesday night is making sure you are comparing like with like.
| Step | Where to look | What to compare |
| Revenue | Press release and income statement | Third-quarter revenue against $7.8 billion, and the growth rate against 92 percent |
| Loss | Income statement | Net loss against $541 million, and as a share of revenue against about 6.9 percent |
| Cash | Cash flow statement | Operating cash flow and capital expenditures, quarter to quarter |
| Starlink | Segment note | Starlink revenue against $4.3 billion, and its share of the total |
| Spending story | Management discussion and call | Whether the explanation for Starship and constellation costs changes |
| Share supply | Filing and cover page | Shares outstanding and any lockup language |
During the Webcast
Listen for how management answers questions about spending, since that is the question Basenor frames as central. Note whether answers are specific, with numbers and time frames, or general. Also note which questions the company chooses to address among those submitted ahead of time, and which it leaves out. A quiet, plain answer often tells you more than a confident long one.
After the Webcast
Give yourself a cooling-off period. The first hour after a release is crowded with hot takes, many of them written before the filing has been read through. A day later the careful analyses arrive, and the questions that mattered tend to be clearer.
Wait for the full filing before you settle on a view, because first-day summaries sometimes miss details such as restated prior figures or a changed segment definition. Compare what you read with your notes from this article. If you hold SpaceX shares, or are thinking about it, remember that a news explainer is not personal advice. A licensed financial professional can weigh the report against your goals, time horizon and tolerance for swings, and the company’s own filings remain the authoritative record.
Frequently Asked Questions
What Time Does the SpaceX Earnings Webcast Start on October 20?
The live audio webcast is scheduled for 3:30 p.m. Central, which is 4:30 p.m. Eastern. The results themselves are due after the market closes that Tuesday. Check the company’s investor site for any change to the schedule.
Where Can I Watch the SpaceX Third-Quarter 2026 Earnings Call?
According to Tesla North, the webcast will be available on SpaceX’s investor site and on X. Investors could submit questions in advance. A recording is usually posted afterward on the investor site.
How Much Did SpaceX Earn and Lose in the Second Quarter of 2026?
Reports put second-quarter revenue at $7.8 billion, up 92 percent from a year earlier, with a net loss of $541 million. Starlink was the largest segment at $4.3 billion. The third-quarter numbers had not been released when this was written.
What Does a Stock Lockup Expiration Mean?
It means certain holders, such as insiders and early investors, become allowed to sell shares they could not sell before. It does not mean they will sell. According to Tesla North, up to 328.4 million additional SpaceX shares became eligible for sale on October 9.
When Can Elon Musk Sell His SpaceX Shares?
According to Tesla North, his shares remain locked up until June 2027. The lockup terms are described in the company’s filings, which are the best place to confirm dates.
Where Do I Find Starlink Revenue in a SpaceX Report?
Look for the segment information, which is usually in the notes to the financial statements and in the management discussion section. Compare the new figure with the $4.3 billion reported for the second quarter. Check that the segment definitions have not changed.
