SpaceX's stock is getting a Grok-fueled boost

By William Gavin

The company is best known for rocket launches but has big revenue goals for its AI business

SpaceX has invested heavily in artificial-intelligence, including by acquiring the startup Cursor to improve its Grok models.

SpaceX on Wednesday unveiled its latest artificial-intelligence model, which could help it achieve CEO Elon Musk's revenue goals.

The company - which houses rocket-launch, connectivity and AI businesses - on Wednesday launched Grok 4.6, with the release coming nearly a month after it introduced its Grok 4.5 model. In a blog post, SpaceX said the new model was designed with a focus on long-running AI agents and complex tasks.

Artificial Analysis, one of several groups that compares and ranks AI models, said Grok 4.6 scored five points higher on its "Intelligence Index" than Grok 4.5.

"This brings SpaceXAI back to the intelligence frontier alongside OpenAI, behind only Anthropic," Artificial Analysis said in a post on X.

Grok 4.6 achieved a score in line with OpenAI's GPT-5.6 Sol model, but not quite as good as Anthropic's Claude Opus 5 and Fable 5 models, according to Artificial Analysis. However, the firm noted that Grok 4.6 appears to be cheaper than its rivals.

"Grok 4.6 is out now," Musk wrote on X. "Smart, fast & amazing bang for buck."

SpaceX shares (SPCX) rose 9.7% on Wednesday as investors cheered the release of the new model and other recent AI announcements. The company on Tuesday opened a beta program for Grok Bot, which it says provides users with "AI teammates" that can perform tasks with limited supervision.

SpaceX also published a presentation from Musk to employees where he said AI revenue will "exceed all other SpaceX revenue probably" by September. Much of that revenue will likely be tied to SpaceX's deals to provide compute to companies like Alphabet (GOOGL) (GOOG) and Anthropic.

In a note to clients, bullish Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas said that for SpaceX to valued as more than a neocloud company, it would need to show evidence that it can ship products that compete with frontier model offerings.

"Longer term, we expect a wide range of products outside of pure code generation co-developed by both the Cursor and SpaceXAI team," wrote Jonas, who sees room for SpaceX shares to more than double from current levels.

SpaceX in June agreed to acquire Cursor, an AI coding startup, in a $60 billion deal expected to close in the current quarter. SpaceX employees have already been helping Cursor churn out its latest products.

In July, Musk said that the next version of Grok would be released "a few weeks" after Grok 4.6 was launched. That model, Grok 4.7, "will be better than 4.6 in every way, except slightly slower to serve, albeit with even better token efficiency," he wrote in a post on X.

-William Gavin

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08-12-26 1759ET