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SpaceX bests Boeing to become NASA’s largest for-profit vendor
Fourteen years after winning its first major NASA contract, data shared by Aviation Week reporter Irene Klotz shows that SpaceX has usurped every other major aerospace company in the US to become the space agency’s largest for-profit vendor.
SpaceX’s ascension up those ranks has been arduous and far from guaranteed, but the company now provides NASA with a wide range of relatively affordable spaceflight services. SpaceX was paid a record $2.04 billion for those services in the 2022 fiscal year. Only the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), a nonprofit that includes the entirety of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and received $2.68 billion in the same period, ranks higher on NASA’s list of FY2022 vendors. Boeing came in third with $1.72 billion, followed by Lockheed Martin with $1.34 billion.
Cargo
NASA kickstarted its relationship with SpaceX in December 2008 when it awarded the company a $1.5 billion contract to develop the first versions of the Cargo Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 rocket and deliver cargo to the International Space Station (ISS). Famously, founder and CEO Elon Musk once told 60 Minutes that, to a degree, NASA’s contract saved SpaceX from imminent bankruptcy and possible dissolution.
Saved by the infusion of resources, SpaceX successfully debuted Falcon 9 in June 2010 and began operational ISS cargo deliveries under NASA’s Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) program in October 2012. Aside from a survivable engine failure on CRS-1 (2012) and one catastrophic Falcon 9 failure on CRS-7 (2015), NASA and SpaceX’s CRS cooperation has been a thorough success. SpaceX is just a few weeks away from CRS-26, which will likely become Cargo Dragon’s 26th successful ISS cargo delivery in 10 years.
NASA ultimately paid SpaceX $3.04 billion to complete its first 20 CRS missions. SpaceX’s newer CRS-2 contract, which bore launches in January 2021, has 15 missions on contract and will likely cost NASA another $3.5 billion by the mid-2020s. SpaceX launches an average of three CRS missions per year, likely translating to about $700 million in annual revenue. SpaceX completed two Cargo Dragon launches for NASA in FY2022.
Crew
The second biggest contributor to SpaceX’s NASA revenue is Crew Dragon. In 2014, NASA contracted with SpaceX and Boeing to independently develop spacecraft capable of safely transporting astronauts to and from the International Space Station (ISS), taking over the role the Space Shuttle and Russian Soyuz spacecraft filled from 2000 to 2020. Crew Dragon completed its first uncrewed orbital test flight in March 2019 and its first crewed test flight in May 2020. Operational launches began in November 2020.
Subverting all expectations, Boeing’s Starliner crew capsule completed its first fully successful uncrewed test flight in May 2022, a full three years behind SpaceX. Starliner’s first crewed test flight is now scheduled no earlier than (NET) February 2023, while its first operational astronaut launch is tentatively scheduled for Q3 2023 at the earliest. Thanks to Boeing’s woeful performance, SpaceX has been responsible for launching every NASA astronaut (save one) since late 2020 and will continue to do so well into 2023. That means that SpaceX is on call for two Crew Dragon launches per year for NASA, whereas the Commercial Crew Program originally hoped that SpaceX and Boeing would each launch once per year.
In 2022, NASA took the extraordinary step of purchasing eight additional Crew Dragon launches while buying zero extra Starliner launches. Through 2030, SpaceX is now under contract to complete 14 operational Crew Dragon missions for NASA for $4.93 billion – less than the $5.1 billion NASA will pay Boeing for just six operational Starliner launches. For its first six operational missions, SpaceX is charging NASA about $220 million apiece. For Crew-7 through Crew-14, SpaceX will charge approximately $290 to $300 million per mission.
SpaceX completed two Crew Dragon launches for NASA in FY2022.
Falcon
Aside from launching Dragons for NASA, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets are also heavily relied upon to launch a wide range of scientific spacecraft through the Solar System. Since 2010, NASA’s Launch Services Program (LSP) has paid SpaceX almost $1 billion to complete six launches (worth about $400M) and prepare for at least nine others. The nine additional LSP launches SpaceX is scheduled to complete between November 2022 and June 2026 will cost NASA around $1.4 billion. Five of those missions will use SpaceX’s larger Falcon Heavy rocket and represent more than $1 billion of that $1.4 billion.
In FY2022, SpaceX completed two NASA LSP launches for about $120 million.
Starship
Finally, the last major line item on NASA’s SpaceX expenditures is focused on Starship. In April 2021, NASA awarded SpaceX a $2.9 billion Human Landing System (HLS) contract (~$3 billion including previous funding) to develop a Starship-derived Moon landing system capable of transporting astronauts to and from the lunar surface. Since 2020, NASA has paid SpaceX $1.26 billion for its work on HLS, more than $800 million of which was disbursed in FY2022.
All told, a rough estimate of the four programs above accounts for about $1.82 billion of the $2.04 billion NASA paid SpaceX in FY2022. SpaceX was also paid about $50 million for work on its 2024 launch of Europa Clipper, leaving about $170 million that can probably be explained by other advance payments for work on upcoming Dragon and LSP launches.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk gives his most telling Tesla-SpaceX merger conversation yet
Elon Musk hinted a Tesla-SpaceX merger could be coming, and Wall Street is taking notice.
Elon Musk gave his clearest signal yet that Tesla and SpaceX could eventually combine, telling the All-In Summit in Los Angeles that the two companies’ deepening collaboration makes the question worth asking. Sawyer Merritt first surfaced the highlight on X Tuesday.
Asked directly why Tesla and SpaceX remain separate given how closely they already work together, Musk told hosts at the summit: “Great question there. With all this collaboration, on so many levels, who can imagine what action one might take when there’s so much close collaboration in so many areas.” SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell, who joined Musk on stage, added that SpaceX personnel have already moved into xAI to fill leadership and engineering gaps, saying the businesses are integrating “faster than I thought,” though “not fully integrated yet,”
The comments landed on top of merger speculation that has been building on Wall Street for months. JPMorgan has called a tie-up “strategically coherent on paper,” pointing to overlapping ambitions in AI, robotics, energy, transportation and space. Jefferies went further, estimating Musk could retain roughly 55.3 percent voting control in a deal structured without a premium, a scenario that would still leave room for Tesla shareholders to come out ahead. On Kalshi, traders now put the odds of a merger before 2028 at 66 percent.
Tesla’s stake in SpaceX, still under one percent, traces back to its earlier investment in xAI, which converted to SpaceX equity after SpaceX absorbed the AI company. The two are also jointly building Terafab, a chip facility in Austin meant to serve both Tesla’s AI computing needs and SpaceX’s satellite ambitions. Wedbush analyst Dan Ives has stood by a 2027 merger timeline for months, and Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest recently floated a similar case, an idea Musk pushed back on directly at the time.
Another Tesla SpaceX merger prediction by ARK Invest has Elon Musk talking
The timing adds another layer. Tesla has scheduled an October 1 unveiling for its next generation Roadster at a venue near SpaceX’s McGregor, Texas test site, using the phrase “Go for launch” in its promotional material. Both stocks dipped roughly 2 percent Monday before recovering slightly in premarket trading Tuesday, with SpaceX shares up about 0.4 percent and Tesla essentially flat.
Musk stopped short of confirming anything is in motion. But unlike his past denials of a corporate restructuring, this response didn’t rule one out, and it came with Shotwell sitting next to him describing an integration that’s already underway.
The Tesla Roadster unveiling is getting hyped up by the company’s CEO Elon Musk, who has been a big reason the product has such high expectations due to delayed timelines and a constant need to make it even more insane than before.
Tesla announced on September 12 that it would officially unveil the Roadster in Waco, Texas, on October 1, ending years of patience for fans and reservation holders who have waited for the all-electric supercar to enter production since 2017.
Musk has said that this event will be well worth the wait on several occasions, and last year on the Joe Rogan Experience, he said that there should be a closing chapter to supercars- the end of cars that aren’t focused on safety.
He said:
“Whether it’s good or bad, it will be unforgettable. My friend Peter Thiel once reflected that the future was supposed to have flying cars, but we don’t have flying cars. I think if Peter wants a flying car, he should be able to buy one. I think it has a shot at being the most memorable product unveil ever. This is some crazy technology in this car. Let’s just put it this way: if you took all the James Bond cars and combined them, it’s crazier than that.”
Musk’s teases have continued, and now that the event is roughly two weeks away, it seems like Roadster is finally going to show up and blow some minds:
It’s out of this world
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 13, 2026
Excitement guaranteed
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 13, 2026
Tesla has definitely dragged out the development of the Roadster, but there is a good reason for it.
Tesla has been working on many other projects, most notably self-driving efforts to increase passenger safety, and those simply took priority over the Roadster, a low-volume, high-performance sports car that has a lightning-fast acceleration rate of 0-60 MPH in just 1.1 seconds, could potentially fly, and contributes very little to the company’s mission.
However, many people have the Roadster on pre-order through the referral program or with their own money, and it is time that Tesla delivers on that.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk’s Boring Company has big plans for Las Vegas by year’s end
Elon Musk’s Boring Company says Vegas Loop stations will double by year end once again.
The Boring Company says the Vegas Loop’s station count will double by the end of the year, tying the target to a hiring push for drivers and operations managers in Las Vegas. “Vegas Loop is getting bigger – the station count will double by end of year!” the company wrote in a post on X, attaching listings for a Loop driver and a senior Loop operations manager.
The number checks out against what’s already public, with the Vegas Loop currently running 14 operational stations, while the Boring Company’s own project page lists 28 as the target for the end of 2026.
Vegas Loop is getting bigger – the station count will double by end of year!
Urgently hiring exceptional and enthusiastic Drivers and Ops Managers.
Apply here!
Driverhttps://t.co/ZUPXBYTONb
Senior Loop Ops Managerhttps://t.co/mV6V22V8jH pic.twitter.com/IZ9FqIw8WY
— The Boring Company (@boringcompany) September 14, 2026
Much of that growth is tied to tunnels that are already built and waiting on an opening date. A roughly two-mile dual tunnel system under Paradise Road, connecting Westgate to a planned station at 4744 Paradise Road, is expected to open in stages over the coming weeks, Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority chief executive Steve Hill told the Review-Journal last week. New stations at 4744 Paradise, Virgin Hotels Las Vegas, and the former Gordon Biersch site would come online with it, several of them built to speed up rides to Harry Reid International Airport ahead of Formula 1’s Las Vegas Grand Prix.
Clark County entitled Vegas Loop for 123 stations after approving 19 more in August, as Teslarati reported at the time. Entitlement and construction move at different speeds on this project, so county approval alone does not guarantee a station opens on any particular schedule.
Clark County approved 18 additional stations back in 2023, part of a plan that pushed the system’s target to 69 stations across 65 miles, doubling the network on paper for the first time. The target kept climbing after that, to roughly 93 stations by the end of that year and 104 by last year, before August’s vote pushed it to 123. This week’s announcement is the first time that doubling language has been attached to stations actually running rather than stations merely approved on a county map.
Ridership gives some sense of what a denser network could carry. Boring Company executive Mike Baier said in July that the Vegas Loop already moves around 40,000 passengers on busy convention days, a total that tops most light rail systems in the country despite the system running on a fraction of its planned tunnel mileage. Company leadership has projected ridership could triple or quadruple once the airport connector tunnels fully open.
Boring Company did not say which stations beyond those already under construction would open by year end, or whether the hiring push points to a fleet expansion alongside the new stops.
Elon Musk gives his most telling Tesla-SpaceX merger conversation yet
Tesla Roadster unveiling is getting hyped up by Elon Musk
