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The mysteries of SpaceX are no more. My colleague Cory Weinberg today wrote the second of two stories in four days that pulled back the curtain on the finances of Elon Musk’s space company, which is planning to go public in a couple of months. You don’t have to wait for the formal IPO filing to get the dirt on SpaceX.
The bottom line is that SpaceX as a whole is a money pit, although one of its businesses is not. The Starlink satellite-based internet access business is doing well—it generated $7.2 billion in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization last year. But neither the rocket launch business nor SpaceX’s xAI is producing cash. The AI business is the biggest money-loser, but that’s not surprising given how costly AI development is.
None of this needs to matter to people pondering the SpaceX IPO. After all, this isn’t a normal offering. Elon Musk is asking people to finance his ambitions to compete in AI, to build orbital data centers and to travel into outer space. All are worthy goals for humanity, although they’re not necessarily the building blocks for a profitable company.
As long as investors are clear-eyed about what they’re buying into and the very real chance they will end up losing their money, who can complain? As for the $2 trillion valuation that some bankers want to put on SpaceX, it’s beyond analysis. As far as SpaceX is concerned, the sky is the limit. For investors, it depends on what you’re looking for for.
Google is Still the Biggest Ad Platform
Who is the biggest ad company in the world? A projection by eMarketer, first reported by The Wall Street Journal on Monday, suggests Meta Platforms will surpass Google this year. That would be a first and a striking size of CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s success. But is it right? Not exactly.
The analysis is based on net revenue—the amount of ad dollars that Google keeps after it deducts payments to outside websites and YouTube creators. That’s not the same as assessing which company runs the biggest ad platform in terms of marketer spending. On that basis, Google unquestionably is the biggest, as it draws the most ad dollars. In 2025, Google’s global ad revenue was $294.7 billion, while Meta’s was $196 billion.
Meta is growing twice as fast as Google, though, so Meta is likely to eventually pass Google even on a gross basis, although it will be a while. Assuming Meta’s ad business grows 22% in 2026, in line with its growth rate in 2025, its ad revenue would end up at $239 billion this year. Assuming Google’s business expands 11%, in line with last year, its gross revenue would be $327 billion.
To be sure, Meta and Google are converging on a net basis. Google forks over about 20% of its ad revenue to other websites and companies that help expand its reach in one way or another. In addition, YouTube shares a big chunk of its revenue with creators who post videos on the site. Emarketer estimates that Google’s net ad revenue, after deducting both of these expenses, was $214 billion last year and will be just under $240 billion this year. Emarketer estimates that Meta’s ad revenue will reach $243 billion this year.
The net figure matters to Google shareholders and anyone concerned about Google’s margins, to be sure. But each companies’ growth rate may be more important for understanding the future of both companies, and the ad market. And forecasting their growth is difficult.
Both companies are incorporating AI into their ad operations, a move which could help accelerate both companies’ growth rate. Google, though, is dealing with changes to its search business. Both have to contend with competition from OpenAI in ads. Meta may well pass Google but don’t bet on it.
In Other News
• An OpenAI executive said in a memo to staff Sunday that the company is seeing “staggering” demand for its upcoming joint product with Amazon Web Services and that its exclusive cloud deal with Microsoft had “limited our ability to meet enterprises where they are,” CNBC reported Monday.
• Tether, the world’s biggest stablecoin issuer, has hired Jeremy Pollack, most recently vice president of Kinexys by J.P. Morgan, the bank’s blockchain business unit, as its institutional expansion manager.
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