SpaceX will report third-quarter results after the market closes on Tuesday, October 20, in its second earnings release since going public on June 12. The update matters because the company’s shares have recovered from an early drop and are now trading close to their IPO price.

Shares have steadied, but the next test is earnings

According to Seu Dinheiro, SpaceX shares fell almost 30% in the first weeks after the listing, which priced the stock at $150. The same report said the shares recovered in the third quarter and are now near that level again.

A TradingView contributor described the SPCXUSDT.P setup as choppy with a cautious bearish lean ahead of the report. The note said the earnings release is the main catalyst, alongside revenue growth, Starlink performance, AI spending and forward guidance.

Analysts are watching two different earnings forecasts

Forecasts for the quarter differ on earnings per share. Fool.com said Wall Street expects SpaceX to report $0.13 a share. Seu Dinheiro cited Bloomberg consensus for adjusted earnings of $0.15 a share, along with revenue of $12.7 billion and adjusted EBITDA of $6.59 billion.

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Those numbers would mark another step up from the second quarter, when SpaceX reported revenue of $7.8 billion and EBITDA of $3.5 billion. Seu Dinheiro said the company also posted a net loss of $541 million in that period, even after a strong operational improvement.

Starlink remains the clearest growth engine

Starlink, SpaceX’s satellite internet service, remains the business that investors are closest to tracking in real time. Seu Dinheiro said the service reached 12 million subscribers in the second quarter, doubling its base in a year.

Revenue per user, however, is under pressure. Fool.com said average revenue per user was $66 a month in the second quarter, unchanged from the first quarter and down from $85 a year earlier. The article said that lower pricing can help attract customers, but also warned there is a limit to how far that strategy can go.

AI spending and Starship are the longer-term questions

The biggest questions beyond the quarter are whether SpaceX can turn its fast-growing businesses into stronger profitability and how much capital it will keep spending to do it. Seu Dinheiro said the company’s AI division recorded an operating loss of $1.26 billion last quarter, while spending on AI infrastructure jumped to $15.8 billion.

Fool.com said investors will also listen for updates on Starship, SpaceX’s next-generation rocket. The article described the program as central to the company’s long-term prospects, but said there is still a long way to go before it becomes a reliable, reusable part of the business.

For investors, the earnings report is less about a single quarter than about whether SpaceX’s growth is keeping pace with the cost of building the next stage of the company.