Elon Musk told SpaceX employees this week that artificial intelligence, not rockets, will soon carry the company's revenue, outlining projections for AI-driven growth that could dwarf its launch business.

What Happened

In an internal address posted on SpaceX's X account on Tuesday, Musk said AI revenue would pass every other line of business at SpaceX "probably in September" and pull further ahead by the fourth quarter. He gave specific targets: SpaceX currently runs 1.4 gigawatts of AI compute capacity and wants that at 10 gigawatts by the end of 2027. Tying the power capacity directly to revenue, Musk said, "If we bring 10GW of AI online by the end of next year, it will be $300 billion to $500 billion a year in revenue." He told staff that within four or five years, AI would represent "99% of the value of SpaceX." The AI revenue itself is expected to come largely from Starlink serving as the network layer for xAI's workloads, plus SpaceX renting out compute capacity directly. Musk also mentioned Terafab, a joint Tesla, SpaceX and xAI chip plant meant to support this growth.

Why It Matters

The projections mark a significant shift in how Musk frames SpaceX's future value driver. During the company's first earnings call as a public company on August 4, Musk had already moved SpaceX's $1 trillion revenue target up a year to 2030 and said Starlink could someday carry a majority of the world's internet. The all-hands video adds hard deadlines and specific power figures not previously disclosed publicly. For investors and industry observers, the strategy hinges on whether SpaceX can scale from 1.4 gigawatts to 10 gigawatts in roughly 17 months—a buildout requiring substantial capital that the company indicated when it spent roughly $16 billion on AI infrastructure in a single quarter. The approach also ties directly to funding Starship and the Mars program through Terafab, linking the AI ambitions back to SpaceX's founding multiplanetary mission.

The Bottom Line

Musk told employees that helping SpaceX win the AI race would eventually earn them chances to go to the moon or Mars themselves—a pitch aimed at recruiting and retention. Whether the company can turn 1.4 gigawatts into 10 by late 2027 will show up in quarterly numbers long before anyone leaves Earth.