SPCX Stock In Focus: SpaceX Reportedly Pulls Rocket Executives Into Data Centers After Tennessee, Mississippi Problems

The Information reported on Tuesday that SpaceX has replaced several leaders of its data-center team with executives from its rocket and Starlink operations.

• According to the report, the shake-up follows civil engineering problems and reliability issues at existing data center sites.
• The changes add uncertainty to when SpaceX will start new sites beyond its Memphis, Tennessee, hub, including planned capacity in Texas, the report said.
• Joining the AI infrastructure team are Wesley Salandro, former vice president of production for the Falcon and Dragon rockets, and Logan McConnell, who ran product support operations at the Starbase launch site.

SpaceX has reportedly replaced several leaders of its data-center team with executives from its rocket and Starlink operations following issues identified at existing facilities in Tennessee and Mississippi.

The Information reported the development on Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter, and added that the shake-up follows civil-engineering problems and reliability issues at the existing data center sites. During the early AI build-out, the company assembled facilities so quickly that some ran for months without backup cooling and power, raising the risk of outages, the report said.

SPCX stock was trading 0.5% lower at the time of writing.

Expansion Delays And New Faces

The changes add uncertainty to when SpaceX will start new sites beyond its Memphis, Tennessee, hub, including planned capacity in Texas, the report said. Those timelines have already slipped, people told The Information.

Joining the AI infrastructure team are Wesley Salandro, former vice president of production for the Falcon and Dragon rockets, and Logan McConnell, who ran product support operations at the Starbase launch site. SpaceX has also brought in a Neuralink engineer for civil work and is hiring for additional civil engineering roles.

Jake Palmer, who led physical infrastructure for SpaceXAI, left in late July, along with other leaders Zach Wells and Pablo Mendoza. Other recent exits include Brent Mayo, who went to OpenAI, and Liz Balke, now at Anthropic.

What The Data Centers Mean For The Books

Data centers now sit at the center of SpaceX’s financial story. In its first public earnings report since the June IPO, covering the quarter ended June 30, SpaceX said total revenue rose 92% to $7.8 billion. AI revenue jumped 247% to $2.6 billion, driven by compute rentals, including deals with Anthropic and Google. Cloud-service agreements signed in the quarter totaled $14.1 billion in contracted sales and contributed $1.6 billion of incremental infrastructure revenue.

The company ended June with 1.4 gigawatts of nameplate compute capacity, up from 0.4 gigawatts a year earlier. On the August 4 earnings call, management said it expects more than 2 gigawatts by year-end. Chief Executive Elon Musk said that capacity by the end of 2027 could be closer to 10 gigawatts than 5 gigawatts.

That growth is costly. AI infrastructure absorbed $15.8 billion of SpaceX’s $18.4 billion in second-quarter capital spending. The AI segment still posted a $1.3 billion operating loss, though adjusted core profit turned positive at $1.1 billion. SpaceX has also completed a $60 billion all-stock purchase of coding startup Cursor in August as it chases the $26.5 trillion AI opportunity it estimated in its IPO filing — the bulk of a $28.5 trillion total addressable market that includes $2.4 trillion in AI infrastructure and $22.7 trillion in enterprise applications.

How Did SPCX Retail Traders React?

On Stocktwits, retail sentiment around SPCX remained ‘bearish’ over the past 24 hours, while message volume was ‘extremely low.’

A Stocktwits user said the company will have many lawsuits over data center issues.

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Another, more optimistic user said that the company will “own” the AI race, with its hands in every part of the ecosystem.

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SPCX is currently trading at around $143, up from its IPO price of $135, but below its all-time high levels near $225. 

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