SpaceX<\/a> may be best known as a space company, and its Starlink<\/a> satellite internet business makes up the bulk of its profits, but the company is increasingly becoming an AI infrastructure company. <\/p>\n In the third quarter, SpaceX’s SI, or superintelligence, segment made up more than half of its revenue and accounted for more than 80% of its capital expenditures. <\/p>\n The company is renting out its computing capacity to customers like Google and Anthropic in a similar way to the neoclouds, and it’s seeing demand soar with SI revenue nearly tripling from the previous quarter to $7.56 billion. <\/p>\n CEO Elon Musk also made it clear on the call that there’s no shortage of demand for AI compute. <\/p>\n Image source: Getty Images. <\/p>\n The SpaceX AI build-out is accelerating <\/p>\n Musk maintained his forecast that the company would bring an additional 10 gigawatts of compute online in 2027, which would be an astounding achievement, as that’s roughly the amount of power it would take to power the homes in New York City. <\/p>\n Musk also told investors that current pricing for AI compute is generating a payback period of less than a year on new deployments, adding that pricing is slightly above the high end of the $30-$50 per watt range it had previously given. He called the current dynamics “extraordinary,” and it’s betting on that opportunity with plans to spend on $35 billion-$40 billion in capital expenditures in the fourth quarter, primarily on compute infrastructure, after spending $19.6 billion in the third quarter. <\/p>\n What it means for CoreWeave and the neocloud sector <\/p>\n For CoreWeave, Nebius, and the rest of the neocloud sector, SpaceX’s comments on pricing and fast payback periods are clearly a promising sign. <\/p>\n Those stocks were up after hours on Tuesday, along with SpaceX, but when regular trading opened today, they turned red, indicating that investors may not be so easily persuaded by SpaceX’s comments. By afternoon trading, both stocks were up less than 1%, underperforming the Nasdaq. <\/p>\n Musk’s comments bode well for the upcoming quarterly reports from CoreWeave and Nebius and could indicate that their growth will accelerate. However, that’s only half of the equation for these stocks. <\/p>\n CoreWeave has plunged in recent weeks on concerns about its debt burden and interest payments. Its interest expense has now reached roughly a quarter of its revenue, a level unheard of for a stable company. Growth will help it absorb its debt and interest expense, but the company doesn’t have the same luxury as SpaceX, which raised $75 billion in its IPO, has a highly profitable business in Starlink, and has much more credibility than CoreWeave, in part due to Elon Musk’s role. <\/p>\n Can CoreWeave bounce back? <\/p>\n The good news for CoreWeave is that the company’s revenue growth is expected to accelerate in the third quarter, as it starts to convert its $129 billion backlog into revenue and deploys new data center capacity. <\/p>\n Analysts expect revenue to jump 159% to $3.54 billion, and see its growth rate accelerating again in the fourth quarter. That means the company has a tall task ahead when it reports third-quarter earnings on Nov. 11. It has to hit or exceed that growth number and make progress on the bottom line. <\/p>\n It won’t be easy, but after SpaceX’s comments, the company’s prospects are considerably better than they were a week ago. <\/p>\n Should you buy stock in Space Exploration Technologies right now? <\/p>\n Before you buy stock in Space Exploration Technologies, consider this: <\/p>\n The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks<\/a> for investors to buy now\u2026 and Space Exploration Technologies wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. <\/p>\n Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004… if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $370,440!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005… if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $1,330,110!* <\/p>\n Now, it’s worth noting Stock Advisor’s total average return is 924% \u2014 a market-crushing outperformance compared to 212% for the S&P 500. Don’t miss the latest top 10 list, available with Stock Advisor, and join an investing community built by individual investors for individual investors. <\/p>\n See the 10 stocks \u00bb<\/a> <\/p>\n *Stock Advisor returns as of October 21, 2026. <\/p>\n Jeremy Bowman<\/a> has positions in CoreWeave. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy<\/a>. <\/p>\n<\/a> <\/p>\n