• by Colin Kirkland , Today

While SpaceX's most recent earnings report barely mentions X -- the social media platform previously known as Twitter -- it is clear that the company's advertising revenue has fallen hundreds of millions of dollars since Elon Musk took over in 2022.

Tucked into SpaceX’s “AI Segment” category, X’s second-quarter ad earnings were $367 million between April and June of this year. While this number is an improvement over the previous quarter ($343 million), prior to SpaceX becoming a publicly traded company, it marks an $83 million year-over-year decline.

X's current quarterly ad revenue has dropped even more drastically compared to the last quarter before Musk bought the popular social-media platform. In the second quarter of 2022, Twitter reported $1.08 billion in ad revenue, roughly $713 million more than Q2 2026.

Compared to SpaceX's additional monetization streams, X's ad revenue is miniscule. According to the earnings report, the company made $2.2 billion from its AI division, $4.3 billion from Starlink, and $962 million from its “space” division.

The company’s earnings report and its call with analysts on Tuesday did not mention X’s ad business, aside from SpaceX CFO Bret Johnsen relating X’s quarterly ad revenue boost to a recently “overhauled” ad-tech platform.

There is also a vague reference to X’s subscription revenues, which the report says saw “an increase” as the company continues to push an ad-free Premium+ tier.

Over the past year, X has seemingly tried to reclaim its reputation as a trustworthy place for advertisers and creators.

The platform has rebuilt its Android app and rolled out two stand-alone apps for private messaging and digital payments, while trying to boost original content by cutting aggregator payouts, labeling paid partnership posts, decluttering the main feed, and introducing a million-dollar fund intended to incentivize creators to livestream on the platform via a new video editor. 

Still, the once-profitable social platform has not yet been able to rekindle the advertising dollars as it once did.