SpaceX (SPCX) shares are recovering. As of 1:56 p.m. ET on Friday, November 6, the stock was up 7.3%, after two consecutive trading days of declines had pushed it below its $135 IPO price. Over the same period, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite rose 0.8% and 1.4%, respectively.
Democrats won a major midterm election victory on Tuesday, and over two trading days, shares of the rocket, satellite and artificial intelligence company fell about 13%. Those victories included winning a U.S. Senate seat and the governorship of Texas, where SpaceX is headquartered, raising the possibility of greater scrutiny for Musk’s company. The CEO donated as much as $474 million to Republican campaigns across the country, including $224 million in Texas. Crucially, data center construction is essential to SpaceX’s growth plans, and the candidate just elected governor of Texas made a pause on new data center construction one of his campaign platforms. Today’s rebound appears to come from investors who believe the previous two days’ reaction was overdone, but the factors unsettling investors have not disappeared.
Musk said on Friday that SpaceX’s reliance on U.S. government procurement contracts will continue to decline. Responding to users on the social media platform X, he said payments from government agencies will account for less than 10% of revenue this quarter, compared with 16.6% in the most recent quarter. In the past, contracts with NASA and the U.S. Department of Defense underpinned SpaceX’s most profitable business partnerships, and it now relies more on a small number of customers renting computing power from its data centers.
In 2025, contracts from all government agencies partnering with SpaceX accounted for about one-fifth of revenue, but Anthropic PBC has become the company’s largest customer, contributing more than one-third of revenue last quarter. However, reports say Microsoft (MSFT) is gradually ending its arrangement to rent AI computing power from Oracle (ORCL), highlighting the fragility of such contracts. SpaceX has continued to adjust its revenue structure in recent quarters, shifting from reliance on government contracts to AI and Starlink satellite businesses, and has contracts with technology companies such as Alphabet’s Google (GOOGL). Musk also said he would be willing to acquire a major wireless carrier if there is an opportunity to obtain spectrum resources.
On the same day, Musk gave an optimistic growth forecast at the Baron Capital investment conference, saying fourth-quarter revenue will grow about 70% from the previous three months, and reiterating that annualized revenue is expected to reach $100 billion this year and exceed $500 billion by the end of 2027. SpaceX closed up 8.62% on Friday.
