Musk says SpaceX recurring revenue could hit $1T by 2027

On SpaceX's third-quarter earnings call on Tuesday, October 20, Elon Musk said the company's annual recurring revenue could reach $500 billion to $1 trillion by the end of 2027. He tied the forecast to a fast buildout of AI computing capacity and growing demand for Grok Bot, the company's AI assistant. "In a nutshell, what this implies for SpaceX annual recurring revenue by the end of 2027 is somewhere between $500 billion and $1 trillion," Musk said, according to an Investing.com transcript of the call.morningstar.com

The forecast is ten times SpaceX's existing target. The company said it remains on track to reach $100 billion in annualized revenue by December, based on that month's revenue. Analysts expect full-year 2027 revenue of about $110 billion, according to LSEG data cited by CNBC.news.futunn.com+1

Compute buildout and spending

Musk said SpaceX expects 2.5 to 3 gigawatts of compute online by the end of 2026, up from 1.7 gigawatts at the end of September. He said he was highly confident the company could add 10 gigawatts in 2027 for a total of at least 13. SpaceX is also aiming to add 20 gigawatts of power and cooling infrastructure next year. Musk called total compute above 20 gigawatts possible but less certain. "20 is difficult, but not impossible," he said.tradingkey.com+1

That expansion is expensive. Chief Financial Officer Bret Johnsen said fourth-quarter capital spending would be $35 billion to $40 billion, compared with $19.6 billion in the third quarter. He also guided first-quarter 2027 revenue to $33 billion to $37 billion, well above the roughly $22.2 billion analysts had expected. Musk said SpaceX is "hounded relentlessly by every hyperscaler and by dozens of smaller companies to rent more of our compute." The company said current pricing pays back new capacity in less than a year.cnbc.com+1

Results and market reaction

Third-quarter revenue rose 161% from a year earlier to $14.58 billion, beating estimates. The Super Intelligence segment grew roughly ninefold to $7.56 billion, and net income was $4.4 billion.cnbc.com

SpaceX shares rose about 8% after hours. The outlook also lifted AI-linked stocks in extended trading, including Nvidia ↘ 0.29%, Tesla and Intel ↘ 0.37%, along with cloud providers CoreWeave ↗ 1.65% and Nebius ↗ 0.71%. Musk also said Tesla and SpaceX have formed special committees to discuss a possible merger.morningstar.com+1

The $1 trillion figure is Musk's own projection, not formal company guidance. As recently as August, he had said SpaceX's internal plans showed $1 trillion in annual revenue arriving in 2030.stockanalysis.com+1