Elon Musk is positioning artificial intelligence as the next major frontier for SpaceX, arguing that the company’s future success will depend heavily on its ability to lead in AI and robotics.
In a recent internal address, Musk told employees that SpaceX must “win on AI,” as he expects AI to eventually surpass the company’s traditional businesses, including rockets, spacecraft and Starlink, in both revenue and value.
The remarks came in a roughly 29-minute internal all-hands address that SpaceX posted on its X account this week.
Musk stated that AI revenue will exceed every other SpaceX business line, including rockets, spacecraft, and Starlink, “probably in September, like next month,” and will significantly outpace the rest of the company in the fourth quarter of 2026.
He said,
“Probably in four or five years, AI will be 99% of the value of SpaceX. I can say for sure that in five years, AI will definitely make up 99% of SpaceX’s value, and SpaceX’s value will be an astronomical figure. We must win on AI, because the future is overwhelmingly AI and robots.”
He described AI as an extremely important part of SpaceX’s future and projected that within four or five years it could account for 99 percent of the company’s total value, which he said would become “astronomical.”
Musk further framed AI success as vital to funding Starship, Mars efforts, and broader multiplanetary goals, and noted plans to train Grok on SpaceX’s internal knowledge including employees’ contributions, describing staff in effect as “parents” of that AI.
SpaceX currently operates 1.4 gigawatts of AI compute capacity, primarily at its Memphis and Southaven facilities, already among the most powerful training clusters in the world.
Musk set a target of reaching 10 gigawatts by the end of 2027. At an estimated value of $30 to $50 per watt, that scale could generate $300 billion to $500 billion in annual revenue. He emphasized the need for the company’s best engineers to focus on the AI effort to meet the ambitious timeline.
The AI push is framed as essential to funding SpaceX’s long-standing multiplanetary goals. Revenue from AI compute is expected to help accelerate Starship development and the broader Mars program.
Training of advanced models, including Grok, will incorporate the full body of SpaceX knowledge so that the resulting systems inherit the company’s values and focus on humanity’s expansion beyond Earth.
While large-scale training is expected to remain on the ground for now, everyday inference is planned to move into space through orbital compute systems.
Elon Musk’s view that artificial intelligence and robotics will be central to SpaceX’s future reflects a broader shift taking place across the global corporate landscape.
AI is increasingly moving beyond an experimental technology or standalone tool and becoming embedded in how companies develop products, manage operations, serve customers and make strategic decisions.
Across industries, businesses are integrating AI into areas ranging from software development and customer service to finance, supply chains, research and manufacturing.
Microsoft, for example, reported in July that companies across industries were moving from AI experimentation toward deploying the technology for real-world business outcomes, with some organizations embedding AI into their core operating models.
The scale of adoption is also becoming clearer. A 2026 Publicis Sapient survey found that 73% of enterprise decision-makers said AI was being used regularly or across most business processes, although only 10% considered it core to their operations.
This highlights the transition underway: companies are no longer asking whether AI has a place in the business, but how deeply it should be integrated.
Outlook
The growing integration of AI into businesses globally suggests that the technology is moving toward becoming a core component of corporate strategy rather than simply an additional digital tool.
As companies become more comfortable deploying AI across multiple functions, the focus is expected to shift from experimentation to scale, with greater emphasis on autonomous systems, AI agents, robotics and infrastructure capable of supporting increasingly complex workloads.
For SpaceX, this transition could be particularly significant. Musk’s ambition to make AI a dominant contributor to the company’s revenue and valuation represents a much broader bet on the convergence of software, computing and physical infrastructure.






