Musk Says SpaceX AI Compute Could Pay Back in Six Months in 2027

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk raised the possibility of a six-month payback on some AI compute investments in 2027, as Super Intelligence became the company’s largest division by quarterly revenue.

Chief Financial Officer Bret Johnsen said current rental prices would let SpaceX recover the cost of newly deployed computing capacity in less than a year. Musk described the shorter period next year as possible, not assured. He said SpaceX favors short rental contracts priced near prevailing market rates and that rates have risen when those contracts were renewed.

Super Intelligence generated about $7.6 billion of SpaceX’s roughly $14.6 billion in revenue for the quarter ended Sept. 30, more than half of the total. The figure includes $608 million in revenue from Cursor, which SpaceX acquired during the third quarter.

SpaceX had 1.7 gigawatts of nameplate compute capacity at quarter-end, up from 1.4 gigawatts at the end of June. Musk said the company aims to use roughly half its capacity internally and rent half to customers, though that split may change.

SpaceX expects nameplate compute capacity to reach 2.5 to 3 gigawatts by year-end. It projects fourth-quarter capital spending of $35 billion to $40 billion as it expands that infrastructure.