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1Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches2Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems3Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteTesla was the much larger business in 2025 and generated positive operating income. SpaceX grew far faster, but its filing-based results still showed an operating loss. The comparison comes down to scale and current profitability at Tesla versus faster, connectivity-led expansion at SpaceX.
2025 comparison at a glance
The figures below use Tesla’s 2025 Form 10-K and SpaceX’s 2025 SEC filing and IPO disclosure. Tesla’s numbers come from a mature public-company reporting history; SpaceX’s figures are filing-based and have a shorter public record. Calculated margins are shown as calculations from the reported revenue and operating-result figures.
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| Metric | SpaceX | Tesla |
|---|---|---|
| Reported revenue | Approximately $18.674 billion in 2025 | $94.827 billion in 2025 |
| Revenue growth | 49.8% year over year | Down 3% year over year |
| Operating result | Approximately $2.6 billion operating loss | $4.355 billion operating income |
| Implied operating margin | Approximately -13.9%, calculated from the filing-based figures | Approximately 4.6%, calculated from operating income divided by revenue |
| Consolidated gross margin | Not stated in the retrieved 2025 disclosure | Approximately 18.0% total |
| Important segment margin | Not stated | Energy generation and storage: 29.8% gross margin |
On reported revenue, Tesla’s 2025 business was roughly five times the size of SpaceX’s. On growth, the order was reversed: SpaceX expanded rapidly while Tesla’s consolidated revenue contracted. Profitability also favored Tesla on an operating basis, although the companies do not disclose identical levels of detail.
Why the numbers are not perfectly apples to apples
Tesla provides public-company detail
Tesla’s figures come from its 2025 Form 10-K, an audited annual filing that reports consolidated revenue, operating income, gross margin and segment information. That reporting framework gives investors a consistent basis for comparing 2025 with prior years and for separating automotive, energy-generation-and-storage, and services activity.
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SpaceX’s disclosure is more limited
SpaceX’s 2025 figures come from SEC filing and IPO-disclosure materials rather than a long sequence of public-company annual reports. The reported revenue and operating loss are therefore useful indicators of scale and direction, but they should not be treated as if they were a multi-year audited series identical to Tesla’s 10-K history. The available disclosure does not provide a directly comparable consolidated gross-margin line.
What an operating margin does and does not tell you
Operating margin is operating income or loss divided by revenue. It reflects the result after operating costs such as research, development, sales and administration, but before interest and taxes. Gross margin is calculated earlier in the income statement, after the direct cost of producing goods or delivering services. A company can have a healthy gross margin and still post a weak or negative operating margin if overhead, research or expansion costs are high.
Where each company’s revenue comes from
SpaceX: space systems plus a growing connectivity business
SpaceX combines launch and space activities with connectivity and related businesses. The 2025 filing attributes the year’s revenue increase primarily to connectivity, including enterprise and government connectivity. Mobile and government components also contributed. That mix matters because connectivity can produce recurring service revenue, whereas launch activity is generally tied to individual missions and contracts.
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Random freezes, missing sound and display glitches usually trace back to one bad driver. Find and replace yours safely.Free scan · under a minuteStarlink is the clearest recurring-revenue engine identified in the available materials. Its growth can come from additional subscribers, enterprise agreements, government demand and expansion into more geographic markets. Those sources of demand are different from selling a single launch and can make revenue less dependent on the timing of individual missions. The disclosure does not, however, establish a consolidated margin for Starlink or prove that connectivity is already the sole or dominant source of profit.
Launch and other space businesses remain strategically important to SpaceX. The 2025 materials do not show a segment-level profit table that would support assigning a specific margin or declaring one activity the company’s definitive profit center. Any analysis that gives a precise launch, satellite or connectivity margin would go beyond the disclosed figures.
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Tesla: vehicles remain central, while storage is expanding
Tesla reports three economically distinct activities: automotive, energy generation and storage, and services. Automotive is still the largest part of the company, so changes in deliveries, pricing and incentives have an outsized effect on consolidated results. Energy storage is smaller but grew more quickly in 2025, changing the company’s revenue mix.
Tesla’s energy-generation-and-storage revenue reached $12.771 billion in 2025, an increase of 27%. The filing attributes that growth primarily to higher Megapack and Powerwall deployments. The segment’s gross margin was 29.8%, up from 26.2% in 2024. Tesla linked the prior-year improvement to cost reductions, manufacturing credits and a higher mix of storage products.
Why SpaceX grew faster in 2025
Connectivity created a recurring growth channel
SpaceX’s 49.8% revenue growth was driven mainly by connectivity demand. Subscriber additions support monthly service revenue, while enterprise and government contracts can add larger accounts with different purchasing patterns. Geographic expansion provides another route to growth when a new market becomes commercially available or receives regulatory approval.
This model can scale differently from launch services. A launch produces revenue when a mission is completed, but a connectivity customer can continue paying over multiple periods. That does not make the revenue risk-free: subscriber acquisition costs, network investment, capacity constraints, pricing and government-contract timing still affect results. It does explain why the company could post a much higher growth rate than a mature manufacturer with a very large existing revenue base.
Growth did not yet equal operating profitability
SpaceX’s rapid top-line expansion occurred alongside an operating loss in the 2025 filing-based figures. Building and operating space and connectivity infrastructure requires substantial ongoing spending, and the available disclosure does not separate those costs cleanly enough to identify which activity caused the loss. The correct conclusion is narrower: revenue was growing quickly, but the consolidated operating result remained negative.
Why Tesla’s revenue fell while energy expanded
Automotive pressure outweighed other gains
Tesla’s total revenue declined 3% in 2025. Automotive revenue fell 9%. The company attributed the automotive decline to an approximately 8% drop in deliveries, lower average selling prices and higher customer incentives. Those factors can reduce revenue even when production capacity or unit volumes in particular markets remain substantial.
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Storage became a larger contributor
Megapack and Powerwall deployments were the principal drivers of Tesla’s energy revenue increase. Storage projects can be sold as large deployments rather than individual vehicles, and the segment’s reported gross margin was higher than Tesla’s automotive-and-services margin. Even so, energy was not large enough in 2025 to offset the automotive decline across the entire company.
R&D spending increased for future programs
Tesla increased research and development spending 41% to $6.411 billion, equal to about 7% of revenue. The company said the increase was primarily for artificial intelligence and other programs. Higher R&D can depress current operating income while funding products or capabilities intended to support later growth. It should therefore be read as a current cost and a strategic investment, not as evidence of a guaranteed future return.
Which company has higher margins?
Tesla has the higher reported operating margin
Tesla reported positive operating income in 2025, producing an implied operating margin of approximately 4.6%. SpaceX’s filing-based operating result was a loss, producing an implied margin of approximately -13.9%. On this operating measure, Tesla was clearly ahead.
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The difference is meaningful because operating income includes the costs required to run and expand the businesses, not just the direct cost of products sold. Tesla was able to cover those operating costs and remain profitable at that level in 2025. SpaceX was not, despite its much faster revenue growth.
Tesla’s gross margin reveals an important mix difference
Tesla’s consolidated gross margin was approximately 18.0%. Its energy-generation-and-storage gross margin was 29.8%, while automotive and services together were at 16.2%. The segment spread indicates that storage was a higher-margin reported activity in 2025, even though vehicles remained the company’s largest business.
SpaceX’s gross margin cannot be calculated from the available disclosure
No directly comparable consolidated SpaceX gross-margin figure was provided in the 2025 materials used for this comparison. It would be misleading to infer one from the operating loss or to compare an invented SpaceX gross margin with Tesla’s reported percentage. Operating margin and gross margin answer different questions, and SpaceX’s available figures support only the operating comparison shown above.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Is SpaceX profitable?
Not on the reported 2025 operating measure: SpaceX showed an operating loss of approximately $2.6 billion in its filing-based disclosure. That means the company’s revenue did not cover its operating expenses for the year. It does not, by itself, provide a complete answer about net income, cash flow, financing, asset values or the profitability of an individual business line.
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The result should also be dated and qualified. SpaceX’s disclosure is not the same as Tesla’s long-established 10-K reporting, and the company’s mix is changing as connectivity expands. A future period could show a different result if revenue growth, pricing, infrastructure utilization or spending patterns change. The 2025 evidence supports “operating loss,” not a permanent judgment that the business cannot become profitable.
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What the growth rates say about each business
SpaceX offers faster expansion from a smaller base
Fast percentage growth is easier to achieve from a smaller revenue base. SpaceX’s connectivity expansion gives it a relatively new recurring-service channel, and enterprise and government demand can add large contracts. The trade-off is that the same expansion may require substantial network, launch and support investment before the revenue stream produces positive operating income.
Tesla is defending a much larger base
Tesla’s 2025 decline occurred on a substantially larger revenue base and reflects pressure in its core vehicle business. Its growth case increasingly depends on a combination of energy-storage expansion, product and software development, and a recovery in vehicle demand or pricing. Because the company is already large, returning to high consolidated growth would require substantial absolute revenue additions.
Recurring revenue is not the same as guaranteed revenue
Connectivity subscriptions and enterprise contracts can be more repeatable than one-time equipment sales, but they remain exposed to churn, competition, capacity, regulation and contract renewals. Likewise, Tesla’s storage deployments can expand rapidly but depend on project orders, manufacturing scale and customer economics. “Recurring” and “higher growth” describe the structure of an opportunity; neither guarantees a margin or a future growth rate.
How to evaluate the comparison
- Start with scale: Tesla generated far more revenue in 2025, so its absolute results and capital needs should not be compared using percentages alone.
- Separate growth from profitability: SpaceX had the faster revenue increase, while Tesla had positive operating income.
- Identify the business mix: Tesla combines vehicles, storage and services; SpaceX combines launch, space and connectivity activities.
- Use the right margin: Tesla’s gross-margin detail cannot be matched with a SpaceX gross margin that was not disclosed. Compare operating margins only with the stated qualifications.
- Look for the source of growth: SpaceX’s increase was led by connectivity, including enterprise and government demand. Tesla’s energy growth came mainly from Megapack and Powerwall deployments while automotive revenue declined.
- Account for investment spending: Tesla’s higher R&D outlay affected current operating results; SpaceX’s operating loss occurred during rapid infrastructure and connectivity expansion.
- Discount false precision: Tesla’s audited 10-K supports more detailed trend analysis than SpaceX’s shorter filing-based public record.
Bottom line: scale and current profits versus growth
Tesla was the larger and currently more profitable operating business in 2025. Its advantages were scale, positive operating income and detailed public-company reporting. Its weaknesses were declining automotive revenue, lower automotive-and-services margin and the need for energy storage and new programs to offset vehicle pressure.
SpaceX was the faster-growing company, with connectivity—especially enterprise and government demand—driving a 49.8% revenue increase. That growth had not yet translated into a positive operating result, and the available disclosure does not support a direct consolidated gross-margin comparison. The fairest conclusion is therefore not that one company is universally “better”: Tesla led on 2025 scale and operating profitability, while SpaceX led on reported growth and the expansion of a recurring connectivity business.
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