SpaceX CEO Elon Musk Just Delivered Fantastic News for Nvidia Investors

In many ways, Space Exploration Technologies (NASDAQ:SPCX) -- aka SpaceX -- has confounded investors since its record-breaking debut. The company raised $85.7 billion in its initial public offering (IPO) and ended the day with a record market cap of $2.1 trillion. Since then, however, volatility has been the default. After soaring as much as 49% from its IPO offering price, the stock has plunged as much as 46% from its peak, giving shareholders a serious case of whiplash.

Wall Street and Main Street alike were sitting on the edge of their seats when SpaceX delivered its first financial report as a public company after the market close on Tuesday. While the better-than-expected results were met with a collective shrug, Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) was a surprise beneficiary of the report.

Let's review the results and the unexpected benefit to the artificial intelligence (AI) chipmaker.

Image source: The White House.

By the numbers

For the second quarter, SpaceX generated revenue of $7.8 billion, up 92% year over year. The company's net loss of $541 million was much better than the $1 billion loss suffered in the year-ago quarter. This resulted in a loss per share of $0.09, a significant improvement compared to a loss of $0.34.

There was marked improvement from each of the company's operating segments, though each brought something different to the table.

• Revenue for the space segment grew 29% to $962 million, while its operating loss of $542 million worsened from $369 million in the prior-year quarter.
• Revenue for the connectivity segment -- or Starlink broadband satellite -- grew 66% to $4.29 billion, while operating income climbed 79% to $1.66 billion.
• The AI segment captured the spotlight, with revenue surging 247% to $2.56 billion, while its operating loss narrowed to $1.2 billion from $1.5 billion.

Several business developments fueled the financial results. SpaceX reported that it has completed an industry-leading 78 launches to date, delivering 1,041 tons of mass into orbit. Starlink's subscriber base doubled to 12 million, while maintaining its average revenue per subscriber (ARPU) of $66. This was all thanks to 10,200 satellites providing broadband coverage in 167 countries. xAI inked agreements totaling $14.1 billion to provide customers with additional compute capacity, which added $1.6 billion in incremental AI revenue in the second quarter.

While the business and financial improvements suggest a bright future for SpaceX, the company's upcoming lockup expiration has investors on edge. As of 8:00 p.m. ET, the stock is down more than 7% on the heels of the report.

So what does all this have to do with Nvidia?

On the earnings call to discuss the results, CEO Elon Musk announced a tie-up with Nvidia:

We think the [Nvidia] Vera Rubin architecture is the best architecture. We think it's the best AI computer, and we greatly value our close cooperation and partnership on many levels with Nvidia. So we're exclusive to Nvidia.

Musk went on to say that SpaceX will deploy Nvidia's Vera Rubin NVL723 rack-scale AI supercomputer, both in space and on the ground. The company is also partnering with Nvidia to "design the Starmind AI1 satellite compute payload ... each of the Starmind satellites will include Nvidia Rubin GPUs and Vera CPUS for data center class space compute." This is the next step in SpaceX's plans to put AI-centric data centers in orbit.

Perhaps most importantly to Nvidia investors, Musk said the company would be the exclusive supplier for AI chips for SpaceX's space-based data centers.

Despite delivering record first-quarter results, Nvidia stock has been stuck in a holding pattern, up roughly 14% so far this year (as of this writing), trading about even with the Nasdaq Composite.

Furthermore, the stock is selling for less than 24 times forward earnings, which is historically cheap for Nvidia. If SpaceX can make good on its ambitious plans for space-based data centers, Nvidia is in an enviable position to reap the rewards.

Danny Vena, CPA has positions in Nvidia. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Nvidia. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.