SpaceX founder Elon Musk delivered information on a SpaceXQ3 sales call Oct. 20, outlining revenue earned from hyperscale "super intelligence" data centers and his ongoing presence in Memphis.
The Q3 report shows revenue gained from SpaceXAI facilities, including hyperscale data centers in Memphis and Southaven.
The SpaceX Q3 report notes that previous use of the term "artificial intelligence (AI)" is instead replaced by "super intelligence," or "SI," thus changing references from SpaceXAI to SpaceXSI. The U.S. government has also adopted the term. In a presidential executive order on Sept. 29, President Donald Trump calls for use of the term "super intelligence" in federal documents, ushering in the "Era of Super Intelligence."
Inside SpaceXAI's Mid-South footprint: Land, leases, incentives, jobs
Reports show "SI" is fueling the company's growth.
"SI was the standout growth driver for the quarter," SpaceX CFO Bret Johnsen said. SI drew $7.6 billion, up $5 billion quarter-over-quarter, with cloud agreements contributing to a large portion of the revenue, Johnsen cited.
"There's a robust demand in the market for super intelligence," he said.
SpaceX president and COO Gwynne Shotwell called Q3 "an exceptional quarter," with the company overall generating $14.6 billion in revenue, up 161% year-over-year.
Musk spending time in Memphis, up to 20 GW to come
Musk said he has been spending "a lot of time" overseeing operations at the hyperscale data centers in Memphis.
"I have been spending personally a lot of time in Memphis, mostly four days a week, night and day, just getting the Memphis supercomputer Colossus and Colossus 2 online," Musk said. "We are tracking to be able to bring roughly 200,000 gigabytes ... online per month for every month for the remainder of this year. And continuing that pace next year."
Data centers are located in Shelby County, with Colossus at 3231 Paul R. Lowry Road in South Memphis and Colossus 2 at 5420 Tulane Road in Memphis' Whitehaven neighborhood. Colossus 2 is being powered by a nearby SpaceXSI power plant in Southaven, Mississippi. The company also has plans for two more data centers: Macrohardrr at 2400 Stateline Road in Southaven and Minihard at 5414 Tulane Road in Memphis.
"At this point, I am fairly confident of being able to bring an incremental 10 gigawatts of compute online in 2027, in addition to the roughly 3 to 4 gigawatts we will have online by the end of this year."
Musk emphasized the possibility of having over 20 gigawatts of super intelligence compute online next year, powering the data centers.
In August, during a previous SpaceX quarterly earnings call, Musk announced plans for the company to meet the 20 gigawatts of electricity demand, with 15 gigawatts coming from the SpaceXSI power plant on Stanton Road in Southaven.
Musk repeated the projection during the Q3 call.
SpaceX collecting over $1B a month from leases
Since parent company SpaceX went public, the company's subleasing revenue strategy has been on public display and has drawn increasing revenue.
SpaceX is leasing some of its compute capacity at the Colossus data center to Anthropic. That sublease is generating $1.25 billion a month, according to U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings.
SpaceX is also leasing out capacity to Google and Reflection AI, according to CNBC reports. SpaceXAI's third data center, Macrohardrr in Southaven, is expected to be online in 2027.
Recent acquisition, Grok Bot launch
On Aug. 14 SpaceX acquired artificial intelligence company Cursor, generating $708 million, according to the Q3 call.
"Together with SpaceX, we will push that ambition further. We will have access to the largest fleet of GPUs in the world, giving us the compute to build stronger models that are also more economical to run.," a media release said about the Cursor acquisition.
SpaceXSI powers Grok, an AI chatbot built by Musk and SpaceX, launched in 2023. Its most recent version, Grok 4.6, was launched Aug. 12.
Musk talked during the Q3 call about the emergence of Grok Bot, announced Aug. 11, which furthers Grok's capabilities by operating in the cloud and creating "AI teammates you can give real work to," according to a SpaceX media release.
"Grok Bot is growing the fastest of anything [we've] ever seen," Musk said on the call. "Grok Bot may end up using the most of our super intelligence compute."
Musk addresses power, cooling infrastructure
Musk acknowledged the "power, cooling and infrastructure" demands of the SpaceXSI hyperscale data centers.
"I think people are starting to realize the constraints on and deployment of super intelligence is more in power, cooling and infrastructure than in chips," Musk said.
The aim of 20 gigawatts at the plants would meet the energy needs at the Memphis and Southaven plants.
A lawsuit is ongoing against SpaceXSI, filed by the Mississippi NAACP and NAACP over gas turbine emissions at the Southaven plant, which powers Colossus 2. Thesuit claims the turbines are in violation of air emissions standards. The U.S. government tried to have the suit dismissed, claiming it could threaten national security due to the government's use of Grokin the Iran War.
Also, the company could owe the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality up to $6.1 million after it violated stormwater permits, the company disclosed in an Oct. 22 filing. In August, MDEQ notified the company that it had disturbed land at three sites before it was covered under Mississippi's Large Construction Stormwater General Permit, according to the filing.
MDEQ is seeking civil penalties of up to $25,000 per day, which could add up to a grand total of $6.1 million across the three sites.
Water: Greywater facility uncertain
The City of Memphis confirmed last spring the May close of a 13-acre land deal for an $80 million water recycling center, initially earmarked by CTC Property LLC, an affiliate of xAI. The affiliate purchased 13 acres for $820,000 north of Colossus data center at 3231 Paul R. Lowry Road, intended for a future water recycling center.
In October 2025, a ceremonial groundbreaking was held for the Colossus Water Recycling Plant.
Seven construction permits have been filed since January with the Memphis and Shelby County Division of Planning and Development for the greywater plant, including two 1.5 million gallon tanks. Those permits total more than $17 million in construction costs, according to the permit application.
In April, SpaceXSI said plans for the Colossus Water Recycling Plant were paused as the company focused its priorities on other projects. Musklater confirmed that those priorities included the Colossus 2 data center, and said on X movement on the pant could happen sooner than expected.
Kerri Bartlett is business editor of The Commercial Appeal.
This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Musk spends 'night and day' in Memphis as 'SI' fuels SpaceX growth
