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SpaceX stock jumped 10% Wednesday after the company reported surging revenue growth in its third quarter, and owner Elon Musk floated a potential SpaceX-Tesla merger. The space company, which made its debut on the Nasdaq in the biggest initial public offering ever in June, reported third-quarter revenue on Tuesday of $14.6 billion, up 161% from the previous year, and beating LSEG consensus estimates of $12.72 billion. Meanwhile, its operating income came in at $2.8 billion, with net income of $4.4 billion, after reporting a net loss of $1.05 billion in the same period a year earlier. On an earnings call, Musk said he's considering a combination with Tesla — which would mark the largest merger in history — and that the boards of both companies have created specific committees to discuss a consolidation. "I do think there's a lot of merit to combining the companies as we are pretty much in the superintelligence singularity, and there's a lot to be gained from cooperating," Musk said on the call. Tesla is set to report third-quarter earnings after the closing bell on Wednesday. Shares of other space stocks, including Rocket Lab, Intuitive Machines and AST SpaceMobile climbed on Wednesday. SpaceX forecasts first-quarter 2027 revenue between $33 billion and $37 billion, beating the average analyst estimate of $22.2 billion, according to LSEG. "We delivered another strong quarter in Q3. Revenue grew an impressive 161% year-over-year, fueled by continued momentum in Connectivity and a clear inflection in our Super Intelligence business," SpaceX's chief financial officer, Bret Johnsen, said in the earnings release. Johnsen pinned the strong results on recurring revenue from its satellite internet business, Starlink, and significant expansion of its Super Intelligence [SI] infrastructure. The company has dived into artificial intelligence this year, which it's now calling SI. The segment is its largest business unit, with revenue soaring ninefold to $7.56 billion from $813 million in the same quarter last year. Bull case for AI cloud providers Commentary on computing during the earnings call supported "continued pricing power and shorter payback periods" for AI cloud providers, Truist Securities analysts said in a Tuesday note. "Despite market concerns relating to financing for AI cloud providers this past week, we believe SpaceX's third-quarter 2026 represents the first data point during the earnings season to support the bull case for AI cloud providers," they added. They explained that demand appears "insatiable," with SpaceX noting that it could rent out its capacity several times over. The analysts said Coreweave and Nebius are set to benefit and capture demand as "pricing power will more than offset higher rates." The shares of neoclouds Nebius and Coreweave traded marginally lower, while Iren and Applied Digital climbed in early trading on Wednesday. — CNBC's Lora Kolodny contributed to this report. Correction: Bret Johnsen is chief financial officer at SpaceX. An earlier version misspelled his name.
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