Business Insider says an internal note lays out a temporary 20% compensation uplift for SpaceX staff sent to two computing sites, as the company adds capacity for its own products and cloud clients.
The outlet identified the locations as Memphis, Tennessee, and Southaven, Mississippi, and said the placements would last six weeks. Workers would receive 20% more than their regular base-salary or hourly-pay rate during the assignment and could qualify for bonuses tied to program results. SpaceX would cover travel and logistics costs, the report said.
Business Insider said an early-October email invited employees to take leadership roles intended to keep the rollout moving. A separate message showed the Memphis premium had been offered since at least August, with that arrangement scheduled to run through Dec. 31, 2026, unless extended, the outlet reported.
SpaceX's filing for the quarter ended Sept. 30 recorded $14.575 billion in revenue, including $7.56 billion from its Super Intelligence segment, about 52% of the total. The company had previously reported the segment as Artificial Intelligence. Its filing split the latest quarter's segment revenue between $7.022 billion from solutions and infrastructure and $538 million from advertising; it did not give a separate compute-rental figure. SpaceX reported 1.7 gigawatts of nameplate compute capacity at the quarter's end.
The reported incentive resembles an earlier SpaceX offer. CNBC reported that in 2022 the company used pay increases of 10% to 25% to encourage salaried employees to move to South Texas during Starship development.
On the Oct. 20 earnings call, CFO Bret Johnsen said SpaceX was building capacity to meet demand from its own products and outside cloud customers. Management expected nameplate capacity to reach 2.5 to 3 gigawatts by the end of 2026. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said he was fairly confident the company could bring an incremental 10 gigawatts of compute online in 2027, on top of the capacity expected by year-end 2026. Musk also said he had been working to bring Colossus II online while spending much of his time in Memphis, often four days a week.
