SpaceX shares jumped 5% after hours on a blowout third quarter, with Dan Ives at Yorkville Ives saying Super Intelligence has become the company's largest business by revenue and adjusted EBITDA.
Ives rates the stock Outperform with a $225 price target and says the relationship between launch, Starlink and SI showed up clearly in the reported numbers for the first time.
SI revenue hit $7.56 billion in the quarter, nearly tripling from $2.56 billion in Q2 and comfortably beating the $6.47 billion consensus, with segment adjusted EBITDA of $4.95 billion at a 65.5% margin.
Starlink added 1.6 million subscribers to reach 13.6 million, with enterprise and government revenue up 91% year on year and monthly ARPU edging higher to $69 from $66 in Q2.
The Space segment also surprised, posting adjusted EBITDA of $357 million against an analyst expectation of a $45.6 million loss, completing a clean beat across all three business divisions.
The debate going forward is capital intensity, with quarterly capex of $19.59 billion exceeding estimates and $16.44 billion of that directed entirely to SI infrastructure throughout the quarter.
Free cash flow stays negative through 2030 on Ives' model, and he wants more detail on contracted cloud backlog, new capacity timing and how Apollo-led debt financing fits the plan.
He argues the capital is better deployed now than deferred.
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