The Ratings GameThe recent Starship launch helps SpaceX with a number of priorities that could help its stock reach $900 over the long run, an analyst says
Numerous analysts covering SpaceX have floated astronomical valuations for the company, and one now says that the company’s latest rocket launch moves SpaceX closer to a lofty target.
Citi analysts led by John Godyn on Tuesday wrote that the successful 14th flight of Starship, the world’s largest and most powerful rocket, is a ”step” toward SpaceX shares SPCX being worth $900 or more. That would value the company at roughly $12.2 trillion, or more than twice the size of Nvidia NVDA today. SpaceX currently has a market capitalization around $2 trillion.
SpaceX's Starship just cleared a milestone that directly funds its most profitable business, but the flight also exposed how much the company still needs to prove before investors can trust its biggest numbers.
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“First orbital flight of Starship successful!” Elon Musk posted on September 28, 2026, after the launch he designated Flight 14 reached orbit on its first orbital attempt and released a batch of next-generation Starlink satellites. For SpaceX (NASDAQ:SPCX | SPCX Price Prediction), which began trading on Nasdaq in June 2026, the flight moves its most expensive development program closer to its biggest paying business.
Investors reacted modestly. Shares traded at $146.88 Tuesday morning, up 0.97% on the session, while still down 3.27% over the past week and 8.74% below the $160.95 close on June 12. The company carries a market value of roughly $1.13 trillion. Retail attention spiked: a single r/wallstreetbets thread drew 1620 upvotes and 927 comments by 9 p.m. ET Monday.
What Musk Actually Posted on Launch Day Musk described the mission on his X account. At 8:14 a.m. ET he wrote “Starship Flight 14 launches in ~30 mins”, according to SpaceX. Shortly after 10 a.m. ET he declared the orbital flight a success, then added “All 26 Starlink V3 operational satellites deployed and operating nominally”, confirming that Elon Musk counted 26 V3 units working in orbit.
He also amplified SpaceX’s own framing that the company is building “the infrastructure of the future, from supercomputers to Terafab to Gigasat to a new Starbase in Louisiana.” That list covers all three segments: Space, Connectivity (Starlink and Starshield) and AI (cloud compute, Grok and X).
Why Starlink Investors Should Care Most Here is the mechanism. Bigger, more capable satellites need a bigger rocket. On the August earnings call, Musk said “The Starlink V3 satellite is about an order of magnitude more capable than the Starlink V2 satellite.” More capacity per satellite means more bandwidth to sell to households, airlines, ships and governments without a matching rise in launches.
Connectivity already carries the company. According to the Q2 2026 earnings release filed with the SEC, Connectivity revenue reached $4.29 billion, up 66% year over year, with Enterprise and Government up 108%, according to SpaceX. Starlink has over 12 million subscribers, though ARPU slipped from $85 to $66 as cheaper plans pulled in new users. Extra V3 capacity gives SpaceX room to keep adding subscribers while pushing higher-value enterprise contracts.
Management said a meaningful service upgrade requires about 1,000 V3 satellites, a threshold it expects around the second quarter of next year.
What Flight 14 Proved and What Remains Unproven, according to SpaceX Proven: Starship reached orbit and deployed a working V3 payload. Still unproven: catching the ship, reflying it quickly and doing so repeatedly. Musk said in August that SpaceX would attempt a tower catch of the ship on the next flight, subject to regulatory approval, and claimed “We do not see any technical obstacles at this point to achieving full and rapid reusability.” That remains a forecast.
Costs remain heavy. Space segment adjusted EBITDA was a loss of $205 million on Starship R&D. Quarterly capex hit $18.37 billion, with $15.83 billion going to AI compute, and management guided the next two quarters to similar levels. Filings can be tracked on SpaceX’s investor relations site.
Does Flight 14 Change the SPCX Story, according to SpaceX? Yes, for Connectivity. An orbital Starship carrying V3 satellites is the delivery system for Starlink’s next capacity jump, and Starlink already has the paying base to monetize it. Near-term valuation still leans on AI compute, which drew most of the capex, so one flight alone is unlikely to re-rate the whole stock.
The trigger to keep an eye on: SpaceX said it planned to attempt catching both Starship stages this year. A successful ship catch before December 31, 2026 would prove the reuse economics, according to SpaceX. A slip into 2027 would signal the 1,000-satellite V3 target is at risk too.
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Megan Brantley of @LikeFolio shows how Starlink leads consumer interest for SpaceX (SPCX) through the company's Google search growth. "This is the first time we're really seeing the company go mainstream," says Megan, who makes the case SpaceX's satellite business ramp shows a long-term story forming for the company.
When Starship splashed down in the Pacific Ocean and caught fire, headlines focused on the hardware loss. For investors analyzing SpaceX NASDAQ: SPCX, the actual story unfolded quietly in orbit.
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Flight 14 successfully deployed 26 next-generation Starlink V3 satellites before its early termination, a critical step for SpaceX's only profitable operating segment. At a valuation of about $1.92 trillion, the market is not pricing in experimental rocket tests; it is pricing in a future global telecommunications monopoly.
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As the dust settles on this mixed orbital demonstration, investors are weighing the long-term cost-saving impact of V3 against the risk that SpaceX won't live up to its demanding valuation.
Understanding how these new satellites affect the unit economics of the Starlink constellation is key to determining whether today's stock price presents a buying opportunity.
Starship's Flight 14 Delivers a Financial PayloadStarship Flight 14 achieved several operational milestones, reaching an altitude of about 170 miles and speeds of approximately 17,500 mph. A Raptor engine shutdown in space forced mission control to cut the planned 10-hour orbital test to just three hours. The vehicle executed a controlled burn for atmospheric reentry but ultimately tipped over and was destroyed upon splashing down north of Hawaii.
While the image of a destroyed spacecraft grabs attention, the mission's financial weight lies entirely in the payload. Successfully deploying 26 Starlink V3 satellites secures hundreds of millions of dollars in projected forward revenue for SpaceX.
Starship is fundamentally a delivery mechanism built to scale Starlink. The shortened mission and lost ship suggest that cheap, fast reuse requires further testing. However, getting the V3 units operational changes the math for Starlink, offering a glimpse into SpaceX's path toward margin expansion.
Unit Economics Reach Escape VelocityTo understand why the payload matters more than the rocket, we look at recent quarterly filings. In the second quarter of 2026, SpaceX reported $7.8 billion in total revenue, marking an approximate 92% year-over-year increase.
SpaceX posted an earnings-per-share loss of 9 cents, comfortably beating consensus estimates of a 26-cent loss. Of that total revenue, Starlink generated $4.3 billion, cementing its status as SpaceX's largest and sole profitable operating segment.
The V3 satellites introduce a structural improvement in data throughput. Each unit delivers about 1 Tbps of downlink capacity, which is roughly 10 times the capacity of a standard Falcon 9 Starlink payload and 22 times the uplink capacity of the older V2 mini-satellites. This capacity upgrade lowers the cost per bit of delivering internet access to each customer, which allows SpaceX to run customer-acquisition strategies that competitors cannot easily match.
The scale of this moat becomes clear when viewed against the broader market. SpaceX operates a constellation of around 11,000 active satellites. By comparison, legacy competitor Eutelsat OneWeb OTCMKTS: EUTLF maintains a fleet of about 650 active units. As the V3 units come online, that gap in capacity and pricing power widens, making it increasingly difficult for peers to compete on unit economics.
Priced for Perfection in a Retail OrbitPricing a telecommunications infrastructure company at roughly $1.92 trillion requires flawless execution. Trading around $146, SpaceX stock retains a premium over its June 2026 initial public offering price of $135, but it also trades below its post-IPO highs. At current levels, SpaceX commands a trailing price-to-sales multiple of about 104x, based on roughly $18.67 billion in trailing annual sales.
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While the valuation multiples look high, the company's balance sheet shows structural discipline. SpaceX maintains a low debt-to-equity ratio of 0.29 and a current ratio of 5.12, providing ample liquidity to fund ongoing testing and manufacturing cycles without requiring immediate debt issuance in a tight lending environment.
The high multiples leave little room for delays. Current daily volume sits around 81.4 million shares against a 103.3 million average, signaling a lack of aggressive institutional accumulation following the recent launch. Institutional ownership offers minimal downside protection at this stage, as the largest institutional holder, SC US Ttgp LTD, controls just 0.94% of outstanding shares. This creates a float heavily influenced by retail sentiment and insider selling.
On that front, President and Chief Operating Officer Gwynne Shotwell recently filed to sell 342,170 shares, valued at roughly $52 million. While executives sell stock for various personal financial reasons, large sales at a near $2 trillion valuation naturally warrant investor caution. Without an institutional bedrock, the market absorbs these insider sales differently than it would for a mature equity with heavy institutional ownership.
Wall Street analysts generally maintain a favorable outlook, with a consensus Moderate Buy rating and an average 12-month price target of $219.24. Recent coverage initiations, such as CLSA's Outperform rating and $250 price target, suggest analysts are modeling for a steep revenue ramp by 2027, provided Starship can enter regular commercial rotation.
Tracking the Trajectory of Flight 15The investment thesis for SpaceX hinges on fully realizing Starship's reusability. Until the vehicle achieves routine and intact landings, launch costs will remain a headwind to Starlink's profitability projections. Investors tracking this narrative will want to monitor the timeline and testing parameters for Flight 15, as well as sequential subscriber growth metrics in the upcoming third-quarter earnings report.
Secondary market effects are also worth watching across the sector. SpaceX is prioritizing deploying its Starlink constellation, which is tightening Falcon 9 launch availability for third-party satellites. This restricted capacity is beginning to shift pricing power to alternative launch providers like Rocket Lab NASDAQ: RKLB and Firefly Aerospace NASDAQ: FLY, while also pressuring margins for satellite operators like Planet Labs NYSE: PL that rely on affordable orbital access.
The V3 network deployment strengthens SpaceX's core economic engine. While the fiery splashdown of Flight 14 grabbed the public's attention, the resulting satellite capacity acts as a deflationary force on delivery costs. Investors who can look past the hardware losses to the company's growing telecommunications moat may find clarity in how to position as SpaceX scales its next-generation infrastructure.
Should You Invest $1,000 in SpaceX Right Now?Before you consider SpaceX, you'll want to hear this.
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Google and Anthropic are among the customers for SpaceX's terrestrial compute Summary
TD Cowen initiated SpaceX at Buy with a $200 target, expecting terrestrial AI compute leasing to become its fastest-growing revenue stream.
TD Cowen initiated coverage of SpaceX SPCX with a Buy rating and a $200 price target, arguing that leasing terrestrial AI computing capacity will become the company's fastest-growing revenue stream. The target implies about 37% upside from Monday's closing price of $145.47. SpaceX shares were up 1.03% in premarket.
TD Cowen expects AI compute leasing, whose customers include Alphabet's GOOGL Google and Anthropic, to make up the majority of SpaceX's revenue by the first quarter of 2027, driven by a ramp in terrestrial gigawatt capacity. The firm built a gigawatt capacity model covering 2024 through 2031 and a utilization model for the leasing business, alongside a Starlink valuation model and a 90-country analysis sizing Starlink's global opportunity. It also valued the space segment on a standalone basis, assuming all launches are sold as external payloads.
The call joins other bullish views after Starship's recent Flight 14, the first to insert satellites into orbit. Clear Street reiterated a Buy rating with a $217 target after the rocket deployed 26 Starlink V3 satellites, and Mizuho holds a $200 target, matching TD Cowen's.
Disclosures I am/we currently own positions in the stocks mentioned, and have NO plans to sell some or all of the positions in the stocks mentioned over the next 72 hours.
Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SPCX +1.97%) went public in June, and while it's been a bit of a bumpy ride since then for the space stock, its valuation still hovers around $2 trillion, which is massive given that the company, which more commonly goes by just SpaceX, remains unprofitable.
While it's known for its rockets and ambitions in space, artificial intelligence (AI) is a massive focus for the business. In the company's S-1 filing, it outlined AI as accounting for the bulk of its total addressable market, as it totaled an estimated $26.5 trillion, versus just $370 billion for space.
AI is a huge focus for SpaceX. That includes sending data centers into space and also developing AI models. And when it comes to the latter, CEO Elon Musk recently made a very bold prediction.
Image source: Getty Images.
Could SpaceX end up leading the AI race?There's tremendous competition in AI with many companies developing their own AI models and chatbots. Musk's company owns Grok. And he believes that it may not be too long before his efforts pay off and his company's AI rivals the best models available. "I am cautiously optimistic that SpaceX will have a Fable/GPT-6 level model in 2 to 3 months," he posted on X, his company's social media platform. Even further out, Musk believes that it may become the best one. "If our second derivative remains strong, SpaceX will reach pole position in about 6 months"
Musk has been heavily involved in AI and co-founded OpenAI in 2015, the company behind ChatGPT, with Sam Altman. Musk ultimately left the company and has now been investing heavily in SpaceX's AI efforts. Earlier this year, SpaceX acquired Cursor, an AI start-up, for $60 billion. SpaceX has been securing compute deals with tech companies, and analysts project that by 2030, its AI revenue will total a whopping $275 billion.
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SpaceX has loads of potential, but its valuation means it also carries a lot of riskMusk has an optimistic vision for where SpaceX will be in the future, with Starlink, space, and AI expected to be fast-growing areas for SpaceX. But Musk can also be a bit too optimistic at times, which can lead to inflated expectations and disappointment later on.
Investors should consider the risks that come with investing in a business at such a high valuation and where so much depends on future growth panning out, because while SpaceX can spend and invest heavily on AI and other growth opportunities, those will be highly costly endeavors to pursue, and if its losses mount, the market may begin to lose its patience.
SpaceX is an intriguing growth stock to buy, but investors who decide to buy it will need to brace for plenty of volatility ahead.
TD Cowen initiated coverage of Space Exploration Technologies Corp (NASDAQ:SPCX) on Tuesday with a Buy rating. The firm argues that leasing AI computing capacity will soon become the company’s biggest business.
Analyst John Blackledge set a $200 price target, implying about 37% upside from Monday’s close of $145.47.
SPCX stock is moving. See the real-time price action here. AI Leasing Takes the LeadAccording to CNBC, Blackledge expects “SpaceX’s terrestrial AI compute leasing (with customers including Google and Anthropic) to comprise the company’s fastest-growing revenue stream and majority of overall SPCX revenue by 1Q27, driven by ramping terrestrial GW capacity.”
Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) (NASDAQ:GOOG), Google’s parent, is one of those customers. He forecasts SpaceX’s capacity will climb from 2.1 gigawatts in 2026 to 6 gigawatts by the end of 2027, close to triple.
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“The biggest near-term driver of SPCX revenue is leasing terrestrial AI compute capacity to frontier labs and other companies given the current AI supply and demand imbalance,” Blackledge said, per CNBC.
“SPCX currently has four customers leasing or starting to lease AI compute capacity in ’26, including Anthropic and Alphabet. We estimate SPCX will generate AI compute leasing revenue of ~$8.1BN in 4Q26, exiting 12/26 with a $41BN [annual recurring revenue].”
Starship Adds Another LegThe analyst also named Starship as a growth driver after SpaceX’s giant rocket reached orbit on Monday.
“Starship opens up the opportunity for more complex government missions (e.g., lunar missions, Mars, etc.), and thus Launch and Development revenue should exceed Launch Services revenue (circa Q1:30),” he said.
Shares Still Well Off HighsSpaceX went public in June at $135 a share in the largest IPO in history. The stock rallied as high as $225.64 and then quickly gave up much of the move.
Monday’s close was about 35% below that peak and about 8% above the IPO price. Shares were up 0.7% at $146.46 early Tuesday.
Wall Street Leans Bullish on SPCX Most of the Street shares TD Cowen’s view. Benzinga data shows 26 of the 32 analysts covering SpaceX rate the stock a Buy or Strong Buy, for a consensus rating of Buy. Of the rest, five rate it Hold and one rates it Sell.
The average price target of $226 implies about 54% upside.
SPCX Stock Price Activity: SpaceX stock was up 1.99% at $148.36 at the time of publication on Tuesday, according to data from Benzinga Pro.
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This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.
SpaceX stock SPCX gained 1.7% on Tuesday after UBS said the company’s third-quarter results could exceed Wall Street expectations, supported by growth in artificial intelligence, Starlink connectivity, and commercial launches.
UBS reiterated a Buy rating on SpaceX and a $210 price target, according to TheFly.
The target implies more than 71% upside from current levels.
The bullish view comes as SpaceX continues to invest heavily in AI computing infrastructure, Starlink and its launch capabilities.
The company is also attracting positive analyst attention following the first orbital flight of its Starship vehicle and the deployment of next-generation Starlink V3 satellites.
UBS expects SpaceX to report third-quarter revenue of $13.8 billion, around 7% above Wall Street's $12.9 billion estimate.
The brokerage also forecasts adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) of $7.5 billion, roughly 9% above consensus.
The firm's estimates point to AI as the largest contributor to SpaceX's revenue during the quarter.
UBS expects the AI business to generate $7.6 billion in revenue, helped by the expansion of the company's agreement with Anthropic, according to Investing.com.
Connectivity revenue is forecast to increase 59% to $4.9 billion, while Space revenue is expected to reach $1.3 billion, supported by an increase in commercial launches during the year.
Analysts currently expect SpaceX to generate approximately $44.82 billion in full-year 2026 revenue, according to Fiscal.ai.
UBS estimates that SpaceX will spend $19.3 billion on capital expenditure in the third quarter as the company expands its AI computing infrastructure, Starlink network and launch operations.
UBS is not the only brokerage expecting significant growth from SpaceX's AI operations.
TD Cowen initiated coverage of SpaceX on Monday with a Buy rating and a $200 price target.
The firm cited growth opportunities across AI and space and expects AI compute leasing revenue to increase from $14 billion in 2026 to $66 billion in 2027 and $133 billion in 2028.
The forecasts underline the growing importance of AI computing to SpaceX's business alongside its established connectivity and launch operations.
Starlink is also expected to remain an important source of growth.
UBS forecasts a 59% increase in connectivity revenue during the third quarter, while Space revenue is expected to benefit from increased commercial launch activity.
The analyst optimism comes shortly after SpaceX's Starship completed its first orbital flight and deployed 26 next-generation Starlink V3 satellites during Flight 14.
The mission was shortened after an engine shut down prematurely, although the flight still achieved its key orbital and satellite-deployment objectives.
Morgan Stanley described the flight as a “major accomplishment” but gave it a B+ grade, citing recurring issues with the V3 propulsion system.
The firm said Flight 15 could be important, with a successful Starship catch potentially becoming a major catalyst for the stock following its IPO.
Morgan Stanley maintained its Overweight rating and $300 price target.
RBC Capital reiterated its Outperform rating and $225 target, describing Flight 14 as a significant milestone for Starship's launch capabilities and Starlink V3 deployment.
Clear Street maintained its Buy rating and $217 target, saying the mission advanced SpaceX's ability to scale a higher-capacity constellation while noting that the engine issues highlighted remaining execution risks.
CLSA initiated coverage with an Accumulate rating and a $250 target.
Together, the analyst views point to continued expectations for growth across SpaceX's AI, connectivity, and launch businesses, while also highlighting execution risks surrounding Starship's development.
With price targets ranging from $200 to $300, SpaceX is likely to stay a closely watched name on top investment platforms.
Wondering whether a modest investment in Space Exploration Technologies (SPCX +1.06%) can turn you into a millionaire feels like the kind of story finance websites were built to traffic. It's also the kind of analysis that gets sloppy once you stop cheering every hype narrative from Elon Musk and start taking a cold, hard look at the underlying fundamentals.
SpaceX is already priced like a mature empire. As of this writing (Sept. 25), the company boasts a market cap of $1.9 trillion. Turning a $25,000 initial sum into $1 million is a 40-times move. Simple math shows that this increases SpaceX's implied market cap toward $80 trillion. For reference, the value of the entire U.S. stock market as measured by the Wilshire 5000 lives in the mid-$70 trillions.
So before investors become enamored with Grok, Starlink, or Starship, sit with the joke hiding in plain sight: you are not asking whether SpaceX can get bigger. You're asking whether one company can effectively become the whole market.
Image source: Getty Images.
Will launching data centers into space actually work? SpaceX is no longer marketing itself as a rocket launch company that dabbles in software development. Musk is trying to position SpaceX as an artificial intelligence (AI) business with a unique angle.
After acquiring xAI earlier this year, the firm's large language model, Grok, became the consumer and enterprise face of the AI bet. The industrial side of this playbook is launching orbital data centers --satellites that are basically server racks with solar wings that can talk to each other with lasers and cool themselves in an environment that does not send a hefty water bill.
This idea looks genius when sketched out on a whiteboard. After all, hyperscalers are running into bottlenecks here on Earth as it pertains to securing enough power and regulatory permits to build their data centers. The idea behind orbital data centers is that the hardware has access to sunlight almost around the clock and there's no city council up in space. If SpaceX can build this hardware cheaply, it will be in a position to do far more than just sell access to the internet through Starlink subscriptions.
Renting intelligence does not mean that Grok will win the chatbot war over ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini. It really means that SpaceX has a vertically integrated platform across launch cadence, satellite manufacturing, and an in-house model stack. If Musk can pull this off, he's brought SpaceX a closed loop system that no other company would be able to copy quickly or at scale.
The bear case here is pretty simple: no one really knows how latency, radiation, thermal design, and replacement cycles are going to pan out in space. Even if the racks work, the more lucrative profits may still accrue to chip designers, frontier model developers, and the companies already collecting rent on accelerated computing. In other words, being the landlord of the sky is not the same thing as owning the tenant's business.
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Investing in SpaceX can still make you a millionaire Figuring out whether a $25,000 investment in SpaceX can make you a millionaire doesn't require an intense valuation analysis you'd see inside a spreadsheet on Wall Street. Let's just assume the market still awards SpaceX a rich price-to-sales (P/S) ratio two decades from now, say 20 times revenue. This means that an $80 trillion market value on 20 times sales is a business generating about $4 trillion a year in revenue.
Spoiler alert: That type of money won't come from a satellite business and occasional rocket launches. This level of growth implies that SpaceX evolves into a tollbooth on compute, bandwidth, and a large piece of the space economy at the same time and on global scale.
The takeaway here is to understand that markets can pay a premium for a long time. But even so, they won't make one ticker larger than the entire public U.S. economy. While investing in SpaceX stock could eventually lead to game-changing gains, turning a single sum of $25,000 into a seven-figure multibagger is not feasible.
If you are bought into Musk's vision and have high conviction in SpaceX's multi-decade trajectory, a better strategy is to use dollar-cost averaging over a long-term time horizon. Buying fixed amounts of SpaceX stock at different price points over time is a more prudent and practical way of turning a buy-and-hold position into a long-term winner.
Top Wall Street analysts changed their outlook on these top names. For a complete view of all analyst rating changes, including upgrades, downgrades and initiations, please see our analyst ratings page.
Roth Capital analyst Max Masucci initiated coverage on Nautilus Biotechnology Inc (NASDAQ:NAUT) with a Buy rating and announced a price target of $3.5. Nautilus Biotechnology closed at $1.11 on Monday. See how other analysts view this stock. TD Cowen analyst John Blackledge initiated coverage on Space Exploration Technologies Corp (NASDAQ:SPCX) with a Buy rating and announced a price target of $200. SpaceX shares closed at $145.47 on Monday. See how other analysts view this stock. Bernstein analyst Zhihan Ma initiated coverage on O’Reilly Automotive Inc (NASDAQ:ORLY) with a Market Perform rating and announced a price target of $94. O’Reilly Automotive closed at $86.51 on Monday. See how other analysts view this stock. Oppenheimer analyst Colin Rusch initiated coverage on FuelCell Energy Inc (NASDAQ:FCEL) with an Outperform rating and announced a price target of $24. FuelCell Energy shares closed at $16.14 on Monday. See how other analysts view this stock. Evercore ISI Group analyst Daniel Markowitz initiated coverage on Butterfly Network Inc (NYSE:BFLY) with an Outperform rating and announced a price target of $15. Butterfly Network closed at $9.15 on Monday. See how other analysts view this stock. Considering buying SPCX stock? Here’s what analysts think:
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AST SpaceMobile Inc. (NASDAQ:ASTS) is trending Tuesday after disclosing that its Compensation Committee adopted a new Senior Management Change of Control Severance Policy on September 25, alongside a milestone SpaceX (NASDAQ:SPCX) launch that’s being read as a validating moment for the broader space sector.
AST SpaceMobile stock is charging ahead with explosive momentum. Why is ASTS stock up today? Executives Would Get Up to Two Years of Pay in a TakeoverThe policy applies to AST SpaceMobile’s CEO, President, and all Executive Vice Presidents and Senior Vice Presidents, covering all of the company’s named executive officers. It provides eligible employees with severance benefits if they are terminated without “Cause” or resign for “Constructive Discharge” within a year following a change of control, or in certain cases within 180 days before one occurs.
Under a qualifying termination, the CEO would receive a lump-sum cash payment equal to 2.0 times the sum of base salary and target bonus, while other eligible employees would receive 1.5 times that sum, along with a pro-rated bonus and continued health coverage subsidies for 24 months for the CEO and 18 months for other executives. The policy also provides that outstanding performance-based equity awards granted after its effective date would convert to time-based awards upon a change of control, vesting in full if a qualifying termination follows, while time-based awards granted after the policy’s effective date would fully vest upon a qualifying termination as well.
Payments could be reduced to avoid triggering excise taxes under Section 4999 of the Internal Revenue Code if doing so would result in a greater after-tax benefit for the employee.
A Validating Moment for the Space SectorSeparately, SpaceX’s Starship rocket reached orbit for the first time Monday and deployed 26 new Starlink satellites, achieving milestones in its 14th test flight despite an engine failure that forced the company to cut the mission short, according to Reuters. Wall Street broadly framed the flight as validating for the broader space and satellite industry, with William Blair and RBC Capital both reiterating bullish ratings on SpaceX following the mission, and at least eight analyst notes turning more optimistic on the stock that day.
The successful orbital insertion and satellite deployment are being read as a positive signal for the commercial viability of large-scale satellite operations, a dynamic that extends to other companies in the space sector, including AST SpaceMobile.
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ASTS Shares Trade HigherASTS Price Action: At the time of publication, ASTS shares are trading 4.10% higher at $63.50, according to data from Benzinga Pro.
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As SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX) was undertaking its successful Starship Flight 14 rocket test on Monday, September 28, Wall Street made itself busy revising its ratings and price targets for the firm's equity.
As SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX) was undertaking its successful Starship Flight 14 rocket test on Monday, September 28, Wall Street made itself busy revising its ratings and price targets for the firm's equity.
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If you invested $10,000 into Space Exploration Technologies (SPCX -2.16%) today and left it alone until 2030, you would not be buying the same story from the company's initial public offering (IPO) in June. Shares of SpaceX (as the company is also known) opened on the Nasdaq around $150, implying a $1.77 trillion market cap at the time. This debut made Elon Musk's industrial complex one of the most valuable companies in the world from the get-go.
After months of volatility, and even briefly eclipsing Amazon and Microsoft in market value, the stock now trades back at roughly its opening-day price. Even though shares are 34% off from their high, it's far from a broken business. There is actually a lot to like if you can live with the valuation.
The question is not whether SpaceX is an interesting buy. It is whether investing in a company with a $2 trillion starting point leaves enough room for a meaningful investment to still matter by the end of the decade.
Why investors still care after the IPO sell-off On paper, SpaceX's public offering was historic. It wasn't until gravity showed up that growth investors got a sour taste of reality. A stock that rips more than 50% from its opening price in just a few trading days usually gives some of the gains back. Spoiler alert: Shares plummeted as momentum traders booked easy gains.
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What did not go away is the company's underlying product mix. Connectivity, which is headlined by Starlink, the satellite internet provider, generated $4.3 billion in sales during the second quarter -- up about 66% year over year. What's even more encouraging is that Starlink posted a positive operating profit. For now, connectivity is the only segment generating consistent profits for SpaceX.
Meanwhile, the space exploration division, which features the launch vehicles Falcon, Dragon, and the upcoming Starship, operates more as a research and development (R&D) factory rather than a cash machine. The space business generated $962 million in revenue during the second quarter, with operating losses growing from $369 million last year to $542 million in 2026.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is the opportunity Wall Street is really focusing on. This is the part of SpaceX that includes xAI, Grok, leased computing capacity, and Cursor. During the second quarter, its AI business nearly tripled to $2.6 billion in revenue. However, this build-out consumes a lot of cash. Through the first six months of 2026, the AI segment lost $3.7 billion.
Image source: Getty Images.
Breaking down the $28.5 trillion total opportunity SpaceX's S-1 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission slapped a $28.5 trillion total addressable market (TAM) across the company's three main divisions, calling it the largest actionable market in history. Ironically, almost none of it relates to rockets.
Management places space-enabled solutions into a $370 billion category. Meanwhile, it sees connectivity reaching $1.6 trillion -- split between $870 billion for broadband and $740 billion mobile. The remaining $26.5 trillion was allocated for AI in enterprise apps, infrastructure, consumer subscriptions, and ads.
Here's the big picture: This TAM map is ambitious, not a purchase order. Ambition is expensive. SpaceX had about $20.7 billion in capital expenditures (capex) in 2025, followed by roughly $28.5 billion during the first half of 2026. The majority of the company's infrastructure spending was on AI development.
This is behavior akin to the hyperscalers. Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet, Meta Platforms, and Oracle are on pace to spend almost $800 billion on capex just this year alone. SpaceX is trying to join this club but with far less mature earnings.
The company's balance sheet had about $100 billion in cash and marketable securities and $40 billion in debt following the IPO, but this cash will only cover the burn rate for a few years at its current pace. It does not cover a decade of accelerating investment for orbital factories and gigawatts of computing capacity.
This implies SpaceX cannot wait around to turn a consolidated profit. More debt could very well be on the table, as could a new share sale.
If I start from SpaceX's own near-term forecast of a $100 billion annual recurring revenue (ARR) run rate by year-end, the company could feasibly reach Wall Street's consensus 2030 targets, which fall anywhere between $330 billion and $470 billion.
I think a plausible base case sits in the middle: $400 billion of revenue in 2030. After applying a price-to-sales multiple for a mature, tech-enabled industrial business, say 10 times to 12 times, you get a $4 trillion to $4.8 trillion company. Based on today's $2 trillion market cap, this implies gains of up to 140%. That would turn a $10,000 initial investment in the stock into $24,000.
Overall, SpaceX has the potential to become a multibagger over the next several years. With that said, smart investors should exercise patience and caution, understanding that no stock goes up in a straight line forever. While buying and holding SpaceX stock looks compelling, making life-changing wealth by 2030 is highly unlikely.
Renting out computing power to artificial-intelligence developers is fast becoming a central pillar of SpaceX's business, and a growing number of analysts believe the opportunity is only beginning. Three brokerages issued upbeat notes to clients on Monday, each pointing to the company's data centres as a major source of future earnings.
Anthropic is getting ready to go public, with an offering expected by November.
The Claude parent just shared some of its key figures with Reuters ahead of its debut. The wire service didn't report any 2026 results, but said that Anthropic's revenue jumped more than 1,000% in 2025 to $4.6 billion. Anthropic also reported a net loss of $42 billion last year, but $34 billion of that was due to an accounting charge related to the increase in the valuation of convertible shares, driven by Anthropic's soaring valuation. Anthropic had an operating loss of $8.06 billion last year, and spent $7.33 billion on compute and infrastructure.
Image source: Getty Images.
Anthropic takes the lead over OpenAIClaude's surging growth came in 2026, as the company unveiled a slew of updates for products like Claude Code and Claude Cowork, and they seemed to hit a tipping point, sending sign-ups soaring and software plunging, as investors bet that those kinds of products would replace traditional software programs.
Also in 2026, Anthropic surpassed rival OpenAI in both revenue and valuation. Anthropic reported revenue of $11.5 billion in the second quarter, up 14-fold from the quarter a year ago, showing how fast the company is growing. It also easily topped OpenAI's revenue in the quarter at $6.7 billion.
More importantly, Anthropic reported a $559 million adjusted operating profit in the quarter, something OpenAI has not yet achieved. In fact, OpenAI had an operating loss of $12.3 billion in the quarter.
Space Exploration Technologies (SPCX -2.16%), the other high-profile AI stock that just went public, was unprofitable in the second quarter, though analysts expect it to turn profitable in the current quarter.
Anthropic's IPO could be pivotal to the AI boomAnthropic is reportedly targeting a valuation of $2 trillion, similar to SpaceX's $1.75 trillion in its debut. However, Anthropic's valuation and growth rate look much more attractive than SpaceX's did.
Based on its second-quarter results, Anthropic would trade at 45 times run rate sales, which compares to the roughly 100 times sales at which SpaceX went public.
Anthropic is also growing much faster than SpaceX, with second-quarter revenue up more than 1,000%, and we're likely to see similarly strong numbers when third-quarter results come out, which should happen before it goes public.
At this point, Anthropic looks like the most important of the trio of big IPOs that includes SpaceX and OpenAI. Unlike SpaceX, it is singularly focused on AI and is at the frontier of model development. It's now bigger than rival OpenAI. It's growing faster, and it's profitable, while OpenAI is still losing billions each quarter.
At this point, the biggest risk to the AI boom is that companies like Anthropic aren't able to turn a profit, which would eventually mean they can't afford to buy chips from Nvidia (NVDA +1.68%) and other semiconductor companies that are reaping the rewards of the boom.
What to watch when Anthropic goes publicAnthropic may not get the level of hype in its debut that SpaceX did in its IPO. Elon Musk's presence at the top of SpaceX helped drive investor interest, and Musk is no stranger to making bold promises. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, on the other hand, has been at the forefront of calls to slow down AI development to ensure its safety.
Still, if Anthropic's IPO is successful and it can achieve a $2 trillion valuation, that will be a significant bullish signal for the AI infrastructure stocks, including chip stocks, and a sign that the AI boom still has plenty of room to run.
For the first time, Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SPCX -2.16%) has put a Starship in orbit. The rocket reached low-earth-orbit (LEO) and successfully delivered a payload of 26 next-generation satellites on Monday, Sept. 28, 2026 after launching from Starbase Texas.
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It's a big deal and a major step forward for a rocket that, until now, has only released satellites on a path that brought them back to Earth. This was Starship's 14th test flight, and while generally successful, there were still several reminders that this was indeed a test flight and the program is still in development.
Starship reaches orbit, but the test ends earlyShortly after the two sections of the rocket separated, one of the ship's engines shut down early before reaching orbit. SpaceX initially said it would bring the rocket back to earth, but decided to continue.
After successfully reaching orbit, roughly 269 kilometers above the Earth, Starship then released 26 Starlink V3 satellites. SpaceX said they appeared to be operating normally.
Because of the engine mishap, flight control decided to bring the ship back after about 3 hours, despite the original plan for a 10 hour journey. The upper part of the rocket made a controlled splashdown in the Pacific, while the lower half, the Super-Heavy booster, splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico.
Why this rocket matters so much to StarlinkStarship is a major operational lynchpin for the company. The rocket is much larger than its current Falcon-9 workhorse, and is capable of carrying the new, larger V3 satellites for Starlink.
Eventually, Starship is intended to be reusable: SpaceX wants to catch both parts of the rocket and use them again without building a whole new vehicle for every flight. That could dramatically reduce the cost of space flight and change the economics of the industry.
But, as today's mission makes clear, there is a ways to go to fulfilling that vision. Serious progress has been made, but Starship still hasn't proven it can run a full mission without incident, let alone reliably do so time and again.
A milestone doesn't settle the financial questionsIn the second quarter, SpaceX brought in $7.8 billion in revenue, up 92% year over year, and narrowed its operating loss to $143 million. Its net loss came in at $541 million.
The Connectivity segment generated $4.3 billion in revenue and $1.65 billion in operating profit. But there's a catch to those numbers. When SpaceX launches its own Starlink satellites, the rocket business doesn't book any revenue for those launches. Instead, Connectivity carries the costs on its balance sheet and depreciates them over time.
That helps explain why the Space segment reported just $962 million in revenue and a $542 million operating loss. If SpaceX charged Starlink market rates for those launches, Space would look much better -- and Connectivity would look less like a financial unicorn.
SpaceXAI is still spending cash hand over fist on data centers, with $15.8 billion in capital expenditures last quarter alone. But deals with Anthropic, Google's parent company Alphabet, and a few others have dramatically changed its revenue picture, and potentially profitability too, once everything is up and running. It expects up to $3.4 billion per month in revenue once that happens.
SpaceX Corp (NASDAQ:SPCX)'s Starship reached orbit for the first time on Monday despite an unexpected engine shutdown, deploying 26 Starlink V3 satellites during a shortened mission.
One of Starship's three main Raptor engines shut down upon reaching space, prompting SpaceX spokesperson Dan Huot to tell livestream viewers the craft would not reach orbit.
Minutes later, Huot reversed course after engineers confirmed Starship could attempt another engine firing, which successfully propelled it into orbit.
Once in orbit, Starship deployed all 26 satellites, which Elon Musk said were operating nominally, while engine trouble reduced the planned 10-hour mission to three hours.
The engine problem also increased the importance of a successful deorbit, requiring one Raptor engine to fire in space to position Starship precisely for atmospheric reentry.
The orbital debut marked Starship's 14th flight since 2023, following 13 suborbital tests and a development campaign spanning nearly a decade and costing more than $15 billion.
For Starlink, SpaceX says V3 satellites handle ten times more data than V2 mini-satellites, which Falcon 9 launches in batches of 20 or 30.
Analysts estimate the added customer capacity from Monday's launch represents hundreds of millions of dollars in projected Starlink revenue.
SpaceX plans routine Starship operations starting later this year, with Musk seeking to launch V3 satellites in batches of 60.
With energy prices rising alongside interest rates, investors are growing concerned about a potential market crash. Sell-offs are a normal part of investing and create opportunities for patient, long-term investors.
If a market crash is on the horizon, one space stock I've been watching is Space Exploration Technologies (SPCX -1.04%), better known as SpaceX. The stock has been highly volatile since going public in June, but if the market crashes and takes SpaceX down with it, I'll be adding shares.
Here's why.
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SpaceX's expansive business is racking up massive expenses SpaceX ushered in a new era of space exploration with its reusable rockets and vertically integrated business. By reusing rockets, SpaceX has drastically reduced launch costs. It can also complete several launches in succession, which was unheard of with previous launch technologies.
Thanks to SpaceX's reusable Falcon 9 launch vehicle, the company has built a mega-constellation of satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO) and offers customers internet from space through Starlink. Starlink (along with other satellite connectivity services) are currently SpaceX's main moneymaker. In the first half of this year, this segment generated $7.55 billion in revenue and $2.84 billion in generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) operating income.
Image source: Getty Images.
SpaceX's other businesses are significant but have driven huge losses for the company. Its space segment, which includes launch services, generated $1.58 billion in revenue but had an operating loss of $1.2 billion. This is largely driven by high research and development (R&D) costs around its Starship vehicle and Starbase infrastructure.
Meanwhile, its AI segment has been a real drag on near-term earnings. Over six months, the segment has generated $3.38 billion in revenue while posting an operating loss of $3.73 billion. This comes as SpaceX aggressively scales its compute capacity, resulting in high upfront research and development and infrastructure expenses.
Here's why I'd buy any dips in SpaceX In the first half of the year, SpaceX lost over $2 billion as it spent heavily on R&D and invested in building out its Starship and AI infrastructure. SpaceX stock is not cheap by any means, trading at about 94 times sales as investors price in very strong growth going forward.
With that said, the bull case is compelling. Starship rockets will be fully reusable, which could drive launch costs down even further. It also has a massive payload capacity, over 6 times that of the Falcon 9. In addition, SpaceX is rolling out the next generation of Starlink satellites and is leveraging its satellite constellation to score U.S. national security and defense contracts through Starshield.
SpaceX is a volatile stock with massive capital needs, making it a higher-risk investment today. However, if the market declines meaningfully from here and takes SpaceX down with it, I'd buy the stock, given the long-term bullish outlook for the space economy over the coming decades.
SpaceX Starship Fkight 14 was successfully inserted into Earth's orbit for the first time marking a major milestone for the company. Starship also deployed 26 V3 Starlink satellites adding to the constelation.
Mark Leibovit (@VRTrader) believes it's time for investors to remain cautious and points to Nvidia's (NVDA) $150 billion as a key reason for his stance. That said, he sees trading opportunities across Wall Street.
Elon Musk's SpaceX launched its massive Starship rocket Monday morning on its first orbital flight test. This rocket is carrying 26 satellites that are to be deployed into orbit.
Bernstein reiterated its Buy rating on SpaceX’s (NASDAQ: SPCX) stock on September 28 and maintained its $248 price target, implying roughly 70% upside from the stock’s current price of $146.
The brokerage focused on the long-term growth potential of Starlink’s residential and small-business broadband operation, which analyst Douglas Harned described as a potentially large opportunity for the space company.
Specifically, he expects Starlink’s broadband subscriber base to double again this year after roughly doubling in each of the past four years. That is, the firm estimates that Starlink could reach about 168 million subscribers by 2031, supported by continued expansion into markets where traditional satellite broadband is losing relevance.
“Starlink roughly doubled its broadband subscriber base in each of the past four years and is expected to double again this year. In doing so, it has taken share not only from legacy satellite broadband (SBB) providers, but increasingly from other broadband technologies as well,” Harned wrote.
Furthermore, Bernstein also forecasts approximately $64 billion in consumer and SMB broadband revenue for Starlink in 2031, slightly below its previous $66 billion estimate. This revision, the research note says, reflects an expected decline in average revenue per user as Starlink expands its global footprint and reaches lower-income and less-served markets.
SpaceX stock price 24-hour chart. Source: Finbold SPCX stock will go “Big!”, Bernstein says Bernstein also updated its financial model to account for a faster near-term connectivity buildout. As a result, it raised its fiscal 2026 diluted earnings per share (EPS) estimate to a loss of $0.19 from $0.20 previously and lifted its fiscal 2027 diluted EPS forecast to $1.37 from $1.30.
Despite the unchanged $248 target, Harned highlighted downside risks to its Starlink business case, particularly the potential for lower average revenue per user as the service expands globally.
“While we believe these assumptions are reasonable given Starlink’s long-term plans and compelling operating momentum, there are downside risks, as with any business case,” he added.
Nonetheless, he expects continued subscriber growth and expanding connectivity capacity to support Starlink’s longer-term revenue opportunity, adding that downside risks are present in ever business case.
Featured image via Shutterstock
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SpaceX (NASDAQ:SPCX) launched Starship’s first orbital flight on Monday, and one fund manager who bought during the post-IPO slump says the mission goes straight to the core of his bull case.
Jeff Kilburg, founder and CEO of KKM Financial, wrote in a CNBC op-ed that he added SpaceX to the Mango Growth ETF (NASDAQ:GARY) after shares slid under their $135 IPO price. The stock surged above $225 following its June debut, then sank to roughly $105.
“When shares broke below the IPO price and some of that initial enthusiasm washed out, we saw our opportunity,” Kilburg wrote.
Starlink Rides AlongMonday’s Starship flight is carrying 26 next-generation Starlink V3 satellites. Larger, higher-capacity satellites sit at the center of Kilburg’s thesis.
“SpaceX is more than a rocket company,” he wrote. “The bigger opportunity is what those rockets allow it to build in orbit, particularly Starlink, its high-speed internet network.”
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Subscribers DoubleStarlink ended the second quarter with 12 million subscribers, double the prior-year total. The surge lifted SpaceX’s Connectivity revenue 66% to $4.3 billion.
The network has about 11,000 active satellites, compared with roughly 650 for Eutelsat OneWeb. Kilburg sees more room to run in direct-to-cell service with mobile carriers and in-flight internet on commercial airlines.
The Launch EdgeFalcon 9 and Falcon Heavy fly dozens of missions each quarter. Rivals including Blue Origin, United Launch Alliance and Arianespace haven’t matched the pace. Reusable boosters keep costs down.
“Another major advantage is that SpaceX is its own customer,” Kilburg wrote. Satellite operators must buy launches from outside providers. SpaceX can use its own rockets to expand Starlink.
A reliable Starship would widen the gap. “Starship’s ability to carry much larger satellites could make it a key part of Starlink’s next phase of growth, while opening up new opportunities in communications and defense,” he wrote.
Levels To WatchThe stock has climbed about 41% from its August low. Kilburg argued the pullback from the post-IPO peak helped establish “a more durable base.”
“The 50-day moving average is also around the $135 IPO price, which is the level I’m watching as near-term support,” he wrote.
Shares newly freed by the latest post-IPO lockup expiration could stir up volatility. Kilburg called it “a near-term technical issue, not a change in the long-term story.”
He also flagged risk around one of SpaceX’s more speculative ambitions. “It’s possible that computing in space may not become as practical or develop as quickly as expected,” he said. “But that’s a risk I’m willing to take given the long-term opportunity I see.”
SPCX Stock Price Activity: SpaceX stock was up 1.32% at $150.64 at the time of publication on Monday, according to data from Benzinga Pro.
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Photo: berni0004 / Shutterstock
This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.
Kosmická loď Starship se poprvé dostala na oběžnou dráhu, uvedla na síti X firma SpaceX. Loď měla problém s jedním motorem, kvůli čemuž bylo nejisté, zda se jí to povede, napsala agentura Reuters s odkazem na mluvčího společnosti. Loď má obletět šestkrát Zemi a vypustit satelity služby Starlink.
"Starship provádí zážeh pro navedení na oběžnou dráhu a vstupuje poprvé na oběžnou dráhu kolem Země," uvedla na sociálních sítích společnost SpaceX.
Let na oběžné dráze má trvat zhruba deset hodin a loď pak má dopadnout do oceánu. První stupeň rakety SpaceX dopadl podle plánu do Mexického zálivu.
Pro Starship se jedná o 14. start do vesmíru. Podle agentury AP provozovatel lodi, společnost SpaceX založená miliardářem Elonem Muskem, velmi usiluje o certifikaci lodě pro lety na oběžnou dráhu, což je jeden z kroků, které je nutné podniknout před možnými lety na Měsíc či Mars.
Tagy: vesmír, SpaceX
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The upcoming launch will be Starship's 14th test flight. SERGIO FLORES/AFP via Getty Images SpaceX's Starship rocket just completed a key milestone in its riskiest launch yet.
The 400-foot-tall rocket lifted off from SpaceX's Texas launch site at around 7:46 am Central Time on Monday, in a landmark launch that saw Starship reach Earth's orbit for the first time.
The launch went smoothly, with Starship's massive booster stage returning to Earth in an apparent soft splashdown. The rocket's upper stage faced a more dramatic ascent, with an engine failure briefly putting Starship's push for orbit at risk.
After SpaceX's team decided to continue the mission, Starship reached orbit at around 8:15am Central Time.
Beyond reaching orbit for the first time, Starship's 14th launch also marks the first time that the megarocket has launched with real, revenue-generating cargo.
Starship is carrying 26 Starlink V3 satellites, the latest version of the low-earth orbit satellites that SpaceX uses to beam its Starlink internet service around the globe.
Starship’s 14th flight is set to launch on Monday, Sept 28. The 75-minute launch window opens at 7:15 a.m. CT. Live coverage of the mission starts ~35 minutes before launch → https://t.co/uQKQvgaTmJ
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) September 27, 2026 The successful deployment of these satellites is a key focus of today's launch.
Unlike previous flights, SpaceX didn't catch Starship's giant booster in the chopstick arms of its launch tower when the rocket returns to Earth. Instead, both the booster and Starship's upper stage are set to splash down in the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean.
While that approach reduces the risk of things going wrong on landing, there are more potential failure points than in previous Starship missions. Starship must enter a stable orbit, deploy satellites, keep its systems working for nearly 10 hours, then reignite an engine to deorbit and survive a controlled reentry.
Why Starship is so important for SpaceXReaching orbit and deploying Starlink satellites is a critical step in Elon Musk's ambitious plans for Starship, which the billionaire has said could launch as often as once a day within the next year.
Launching larger V3 satellites on Starship, which has far greater capacity than SpaceX's Falcon 9, will allow the company to supersize its Starlink constellation.
The satellite internet service has become one of the most lucrative parts of SpaceX's business, and was the source of the majority of the company's revenue last year.
SpaceX has submitted plans to launch 100,000 Starlink satellites in the coming years, up from around 11,000, and Musk has said the satellite internet service could supply the majority of the world's internet in less than a decade.
Meeting those ambitious goals, which underpin the $2 trillion market cap SpaceX secured after a record-breaking public listing in June, hinges on Starship flying regularly.
Starship's 10th launch in August 2025. RONALDO SCHEMIDT/AFP via Getty Images SpaceX executives have estimated that Starship, which, unlike the company's Falcon 9 rocket, will be fully reusable, could reduce the cost of launching cargo into space by up to 10 times compared to the Falcon 9.
That will be critical in enabling SpaceX to build and service massive satellite constellations while still turning a profit, and opens the door for some of Musk's science fiction-inspired plans.
SpaceX has indicated it aims to launch as many as 1 million satellites functioning as orbital data centers, with Musk betting that training large language models in space will give the company an edge in the AI race.
The company has also made Starship a central part of its long-term plans to build a human (and robot) presence on the moon, and eventually settle on Mars.
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Back in June, Space Exploration Technologies (SPCX +0.44%) became the biggest initial public offering (IPO) in history. In October, it might lose that title to Anthropic.
The company filed for an IPO in June and could finally go public next month. The stock offering terms could ultimately value Anthropic at $2 trillion when it debuts. Some investors may want to buy in on the company at its IPO, while others may want to stay away. But even investors who don't buy the stock directly might still own it through select exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in their portfolios. That's because these ETFs often mirror the holdings in major indexes.
Prior to SpaceX's IPO, many indexes wouldn't add IPO stocks for weeks or even months after they went public because they didn't meet certain criteria. Then, some fast-track rules were subsequently put in place to account for mega-cap IPOs. As a result of these rule changes, Anthropic stock could show up in some large ETFs pretty quickly. Here are three to consider.
Image source: Getty Images.
Invesco QQQ ETF The Invesco QQQ ETF (QQQ +0.46%) is the best-known and probably most obvious candidate on this list. Anthropic would qualify for inclusion in this ETF due to its listing on a certain Nasdaq (NDAQ -1.06%) exchange. But it's the post-SpaceX fast-track provision that will allow it to show up quickly.
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Nasdaq's new rule says that any eligible newly public company that would rank among the 40 largest Nasdaq-100 components can enter that index after only 15 trading days. If Anthropic comes anywhere close to its expected valuation, the size requirement shouldn't be an issue.
iShares Russell 1000 Growth ETF The iShares Russell 1000 Growth ETF (IWF +0.50%) is another fund that Anthropic could show up in very soon due to its own fast-track rules. In May, FTSE Russell, the fund's index provider, announced that any newly public company with a market cap that would land it within the Russell Top 500 could enter the Russell U.S. Indexes after the fifth trading day.
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Anthropic would clear that bar fairly easily and would likely land in this ETF, assuming that FTSE Russell categorizes it as a growth stock.
First Trust U.S. Equity Opportunities ETF The First Trust U.S. Equity Opportunities ETF (FPX -0.11%) is perhaps a more direct route to IPO ownership. It tracks a market-cap-weighted index that tracks 100 of the largest and most liquid newly public U.S. companies. These stocks remain eligible for inclusion in the fund during their first 1,000 trading days.
NYSEMKT: FPXFirst Trust Exchange-Traded Fund - First Trust Us Equity Opportunities ETF
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Anthropic would be a logical addition to this ETF.
Investors shouldn't necessarily go chasing these ETFs just because they could add Anthropic relatively quickly following its IPO. But they do offer a way to introduce gentle Anthropic exposure to a diversified portfolio without needing to race out and buy shares on IPO day.
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SpaceX’s Starship rocket reached Earth orbit for the first time, though not without some drama along the way.
The company’s mega-rocket launched into space from South Texas early Monday morning and the take off ticked all the early checkboxes for a successful launch. But shortly after the upper stage of the spacecraft separated, it lost one of its six Raptor engines.
While Starship could still reach orbit without one engine, the company initially called off the attempt, only to decide to keep pushing just a few minutes later.
Reaching orbit is a critical milestone that could let SpaceX start using Starship for regular commercial missions, and, importantly, inch closer to its goal of making the mega-rocket fully reusable. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is orienting the entire company around Starship, which has become central to the company’s plans to operate moon missions for NASA, and far-out ideas like putting data center satellites in orbit.
Prior to the launch, SpaceX had planned to have the Starship upper stage orbit the Earth six times over nine hours while deploying 26 third-generation Starlinks into the satellite company’s constellation of internet satellites. It’s not immediately clear if any of that plan was changed due to the delayed entry into Earth orbit.
The company was also able to make progress on returning the Super Heavy booster stage of the rocket back to its launchpad. After separating from the upper stage of Starship a few minutes into the flight, the booster returned to the Gulf coast and performed a simulated landing over the water. It was the cleanest simulated landing SpaceX has performed with the V3 version of Starship, which it started testing in May.
This story is developing…
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Sean O’Kane is a reporter who has spent a decade covering the rapidly-evolving business and technology of the transportation industry, including Tesla and the many startups chasing Elon Musk. Most recently, he was a reporter at Bloomberg News where he helped break stories about some of the most notorious EV SPAC flops. He previously worked at The Verge, where he also covered consumer technology, hosted many short- and long-form videos, performed product and editorial photography, and once nearly passed out in a Red Bull Air Race plane.
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OpenAI’s leading algorithm, ChatGPT, predicts that SpaceX’s (NASDAQ: SPCX) stock is going to maintain its upward trajectory by mid-October 2026, extending September gains that have been pushing the price toward $150.
Specifically, the chatbot predicted that SpaceX stock was most likely to trade in the $148-$158 area by October 15, 2026, based on a forecast that sees the company holding close to its current levels despite potential volatility from upcoming share unlocks.
As for the point estimate, the algorithm narrowed the prediction down to $152. With the shares currently trading around $148.68, the figure represents roughly 2.2% upside in the next 17 days.
ChatGPT predicts SpaceX mid-October price. Source: Finbold and ChatGPT According to the large language model (LLM), one factor that could influence SpaceX shares in the coming weeks is the company’s staggered post-IPO lockup schedule. In other words, additional insider shares becoming eligible for sale as part of an established unlock schedule could increase the available supply of SPCX shares and create short-term selling pressure.
At the same time, increased representation in the NASDAQ-100 could provide additional demand from funds tracking the index. In turn, that could help offset some of the potential pressure from newly unlocked shares.
AI predicts SpaceX stock price target on October 15 Overall, while positive, the $152 estimate points to relatively limited upside from current levels, and the stock’s direction is likely to depend on the balance between additional share supply, index-related demand, and broader investor sentiment toward SpaceX.
However, the forecast places the base case scenario in a broader range of $135 to $176, with a bearish scenario of $135 to $142 and a bullish scenario of $160 to $175. As ChatGPT argued, the bullish range could come within reach if the stock absorbs the October 9 share unlock without significant selling pressure.
Notably, though, for the stock to reclaim the upper levels of that range – roughly 18% upside from the current level – demand linked to SpaceX’s higher NASDAQ-100 weighting and a supportive broader technology market will have to add further upside.
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SpaceX plans to launch its massive Starship rocket early Monday in an effort to reach orbit with the spacecraft for the first time.
According to SpaceX's website, the 75-minute launch window begins at 8:15 a.m. ET, or 7:15 a.m. local time, from the company town of Starbase, Texas.
The Federal Aviation Administration told CNBC by email that it issued a "license authorization for the SpaceX Starship Super Heavy Flight 14 launch and reentry operations" on Sept. 26. With the 14th test flight of Starship, Elon Musk's aerospace and defense company also plans to deploy 26 of its new Starlink V3 satellites.
Starship is critical to SpaceX's expansion plans. The company is counting on the giant rocket to scale its Starlink, or Connectivity, business, which was its largest and only profitable segment as of the second quarter. SpaceX operates around 11,000 active satellites in orbit today, compared to roughly 650 for competitor Eutelsat OneWeb.
On SpaceX's earnings call in August, Musk said, "It's not out of the question that at some point, Starlink will deliver a majority of the world's internet, at least in countries where we're allowed to operate, which is the vast majority of countries."
SpaceX went public in June in the largest IPO on record and is now valued at about $2 trillion.
SpaceX has designed its Starship Super Heavy rocket and booster to be fully reusable, and to lift more cargo for less cost into orbit than any prior spacecraft. None of the 13 earlier test flights have been intended to make it into orbit, but with the 14th flight, SpaceX is hoping Starship will circle the planet.
The company is preparing Starship for a major NASA test flight next year, and intends to use the rocket to bring U.S. astronauts back to the moon's surface.
SpaceX COO Gwynne Shotwell said during the All-In Summit earlier this month that the company also plans to use Starship to put "supercompute in space," launching "AI compute satellites" into orbit in 2027.
The company's new v3 satellites, which are produced at a SpaceX facility in Redmond, Washington, are equipped with solar arrays that generate twice as much power as prior generations. They are also larger, and designed to be more powerful, transmitting data more rapidly than earlier versions to Starlink subscribers.
Indian space startup TakeMe2Space plans to launch what it describes as the country's first orbital computing satellite aboard a SpaceX rocket on October 1, seeking to process data in orbit rather than transmit raw information back to Earth.
The company's MOI-1A spacecraft, a sub-50 kg satellite carrying Nvidia Orin NX edge-computing processors, is scheduled to fly on SpaceX's Transporter-18 rideshare mission.
TakeMe2Space said on Monday it has signed 23 customers for the mission, including geographic information system companies and educational institutions.
Commercial users span agriculture, mining, supply-chain management and insurance, Founder and CEO Ronak Samantray told Reuters. US-based space data analytics firm Little Place Labs is among its customers.
Customers will be able to upload containerized AI models to the satellite, which can process data as it passes over a specified area and transmit the analysis to Earth, rather than the full underlying dataset, Samantray said.
"The customer who sees value in our first-generation satellites is the one paying to download a lot of raw data and then do the compute," Samantray said. "The reduction in the cost of not downloading it offsets the premium they pay for compute in orbit."
The spacecraft is an onboard edge-computing satellite rather than a conventional data center. It has about 150 watts of power, Samantray said. In contrast, companies like SpaceX (SPCX.O) and Starcloud plan to use more advanced Nvidia chips that are used in terrestrial data centres.
TakeMe2Space's longer-term plan is to build larger, networked satellites capable of serving multiple customers.
The startup's earlier technology-demonstration mission in late 2024 validated its ability to upload applications, perform AI inference in orbit and download results. A subsequent satellite, MOI-1, was lost after a launch-vehicle third-stage failure.
TakeMe2Space also aims to offer cold storage in orbit for critical data, targeting financial-services and defence customers seeking an additional backup location beyond terrestrial cloud providers.
The company said it designs and manufactures most satellite subsystems in India, while sourcing chips, solar cells and propulsion systems externally. It plans larger satellites beginning in 2027, with the goal of increasing computing capacity and reducing costs.
Space Exploration Technologies (SPCX +0.44%) investors have been on a bit of a roller-coaster ride since its initial public offering in June. The first available price for investors on its first day of trading was $150, and shortly after its debut, it climbed to over $225 per share. But by a bit over a month after that, it had fallen to a low of just under $110 per share. That's a pretty wild swing in just a few months, but the stock has settled back down into a range that hovers around $150 per share, which means the market probably priced the IPO about right.
However, most investors didn't buy SpaceX's stock for what it would do in the first few months as a public company. They bought it for what it will do over the next few years. So, where might SpaceX be by 2030?
Image source: The Motley Fool.
SpaceX has a handful of irons in the fire SpaceX may be known as the most notable space economy investment, but its launch business is a relatively small part of its operation. In fact, it isn't even half as big as its AI division.
DivisionSecond-Quarter 2026 RevenueConnectivity$4.29 billionAI$2.56 billionSpace$962 million Data source: SpaceX.
While there's an argument to be made for classifying its connectivity division as a "space" economy investment, too, I think it's best to keep SpaceX categorized as an on-Earth investment. The connectivity unit is mostly SpaceX's Starlink service, which provides satellite broadband to its subscribers. This has connected many customers to the internet who lacked access to other options such as cable, fiber, or terrestrial wireless, and is likely to be a major growth source for the company for years to come.
SpaceX's fastest-growing division is AI, which should come as no surprise given the current state of the AI race. SpaceX owns xAI, which developed the Grok AI model. This has become a popular model to interface with, and with its revenue rising 213% during the quarter, it's pretty clear it's on the right track.
SpaceX will be larger in the future Projecting where SpaceX will be nearly five years from now is no simple matter because the various businesses it operates are growing rapidly. xAI's revenue could continue to grow at triple-digit rates for some time, and connectivity could keep delivering growth of 20% or more for many years.
The space division is tough to get a grip on, as the world seems to be focused more on AI proliferation than space exploration at this moment. When a company that's supposed to be a space-first business is putting its focus on AI instead (SpaceX spent nearly $16 billion on capital expenditures on its AI division during the second quarter), it's a pretty clear sign of how important it views that business to be.
Furthermore, SpaceX isn't profitable, so it's difficult to determine how high its profit margins might eventually be. During its IPO roadshow, management told investors they were targeting a 45% net income margin in "the future." With the space side of its business not likely to be profitable by 2030, I'm going to assume SpaceX will fall short of its goal.
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As a revenue baseline, I'll use what Wall Street analysts estimate SpaceX's revenue will be by the end of this year: $44.8 billion. If SpaceX can grow its revenue at a 40% compound annual growth rate over the next four years and reach a 30% profit margin in 2030, that would give it $172 billion in revenue and $51.6 billion in profits that year. If the market prices the stock at an earnings multiple of 30 -- not too excessive for a growth stock -- that would give it a market cap of $1.5 trillion.
For reference, SpaceX's market cap is just shy of $2 trillion today. That should tell you how much hoped-for growth and optimism about profitability are baked into SpaceX's stock already, as growing at a 40% rate for multiple years is a very generous projection. As a result, a $10,000 investment would lose money, falling to around $7,500.
For me, SpaceX is just too expensive to consider. I think investors should look elsewhere.
Space Exploration Technologies (SPCX +0.44%) stock hasn't lived up to its pre-IPO hype. Its share price is still sitting below its opening price of $150 as of this writing.
But a lot can change in five years -- especially with SpaceX's ambitious plans for artificial intelligence (AI), rockets, and its Starlink satellite business.
CEO Elon Musk thinks SpaceX could one day be the most valuable company in the world, and shareholders will have a clearer picture over the next five years of whether it's achieving that goal.
Here's what to expect.
Image source: The Motley Fool.
Its AI data center business could literally take off One of the most ambitious plans SpaceX has for the next several years is to deploy orbital data centers into space. The company says this could happen as soon as next year, with a ramp-up in 2028.
The idea behind this is that data centers use a lot of energy on Earth and take up a lot of space (not to mention that most people don't want them in their communities). Putting them into space could solve the energy and location problem, with power supplied by solar panels.
Boston Consulting Group estimates that global orbital AI data centers could potentially be a $240 billion to $320 billion market by 2040. SpaceX is taking a more grounded approach to AI as well. The company rents out computing power from its Colossus data centers as part of its neocloud business.
Neocloud companies build their own data centers, use some of the computing power for themselves (as SpaceX does for its Grok AI), and then rent the rest to other companies. This could be an important part of SpaceX's future in the coming years, as Gartner estimates neocloud companies could capture 20% of the $267 billion AI market by 2030.
SpaceX is already a key player, with Alphabet signing a three-year deal for compute capacity for its Gemini AI model, which will generate $30 billion in sales for SpaceX by 2029. Anthropic is also an important SpaceX customer, paying SpaceX about $15 billion annually to rent its Colossus 1 data center.
Analysts at Goldman Sachs said earlier this year that SpaceX's AI revenue could 100x by 2030 -- rising to $322 billion.
Starship and Starlink will do more heavy lifting SpaceX has already completed launch tests of its Starship -- the largest rocket ever flown. Over the next five years, it's highly likely that it will become a major part of the company's rocket launch business.
Starship has far more payload capacity than the company's Falcon rockets, and once it reaches operational efficiency, SpaceX says it could reduce the historical cost of single-use rockets by 90%. The benefits could be huge for the company, with Goldman Sachs estimating $8.3 billion from SpaceX's rocket launch business by 2030 -- more than double its 2025 rocket business sales.
The star of the show over the next five years may be SpaceX's Starlink business. The company's satellite internet company generates about 61% of SpaceX's total revenue and is its only profitable business.
Its growth is also accelerating. SpaceX has 12 million global subscribers right now, of which 3 million are U.S.-based. The latest analyst estimates are for Starlink's U.S. customers to 5x by 2030, reaching 15 million.
That would help Starlink capture more of the satellite internet market, which has a total addressable market of around $129 billion.
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SpaceX clearly has a lot of things going for it, and I think it has real potential to achieve some of its goals. However, one of SpaceX's biggest drawbacks right now is that the company is spending heavily to expand, and it's unclear when it will turn off the spigots.
SpaceX's capital expenditures (capex) jumped 308% in the first six months of this year to $26.5 billion. More than 82% of that spending went to SpaceX's artificial intelligence business.
AI holds a lot of promise for SpaceX and its competitors. Still, investors are getting tired of seeing tech companies ramp up AI spending without having a plan for profitability. A recent Wall Street Journal article said that AI spending is "the biggest economic bet in U.S. history" and that spending could total more than $10 trillion between 2025 and 2032.
This spending is coming at a time when inflation is rising again, geopolitical instability is high, and interest rates are increasing.
All this could put pressure on AI companies' ability to turn a profit from increasingly expensive borrowing costs. If that happens, I think SpaceX stock could remain highly volatile, with some potentially unimpressive gains five years from now.
There's a temptation among investors to lump Space Exploration Technologies (SPCX +0.44%) -- aka SpaceX -- into one of two categories.
The first is that CEO Elon Musk is overly ambitious and his goals are unachievable, so the company is doomed to failure and should be avoided at all costs. The second is that Musk is a genius and nearly everything he puts his mind to is a raging success, so buying SpaceX stock while it's just getting started is a wise bet.
The reality is that SpaceX could, eventually, end up somewhere in the middle -- and that means it's important to take a close look at both the good and the bad of the company before jumping to conclusions. Here's one bright green flag, and one dark red one, for the company right now.
Image source: Getty Images.
Green flag: SpaceX's AI business is tapping into a potentially massive market SpaceX might be known to the general public as a rocket company, but its artificial intelligence (AI) business is one of its largest long-term opportunities.
The company has built two Colossus data centers that it uses for both developing and improving its own AI, including its Grok AI model, and for renting them out to customers. This approach is already working well, with SpaceX inking multi-year deals with Anthropic and Alphabet worth tens of billions of dollars annually.
And that could just be the beginning. A Financial Times report over the summer said that Goldman Sachs underwriters estimated SpaceX's artificial intelligence revenue could be 100 times higher than its $3 billion sales last year -- reaching $322 billion by 2030.
That's just an estimate, of course. Still, there's real momentum in the AI market right now as SpaceX and other companies are investing heavily in creating leading AI models and renting out compute capacity to customers.
Some of the latest estimates show that global AI infrastructure spending could surpass $10 trillion between 2025 and 2032. It's hard to know if that will be money well spent, but it certainly shows that SpaceX and other AI players believe the payoff could be significant.
Red flag: SpaceX's capital expenditures are a runaway train The flip side to SpaceX's AI opportunity, and the red flag investors should be paying attention to, is that the company's capital expenditures (capex) are speeding up -- with no end in sight.
SpaceX spent just $6.5 billion in capex in the first six months of 2025. But just one year later, that amount had risen by more than 300% to $28.5 billion. Even more concerning is that the vast majority of this spending went -- nearly 83% -- went only to artificial intelligence.
That's a problem for SpaceX because AI only accounts for about one-third of the company's total sales, with the vast majority of revenue coming from its Starlink satellite internet business.
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As I mentioned, tech companies are spending huge sums in hopes of long-term benefits, but SpaceX's rapid acceleration of AI capex relative to its sales is a hard pill to swallow for most investors. SpaceX isn't profitable yet, and it's investing in other capital-intensive industries, including its Starship rocket.
SpaceX's spending should already be a red flag for investors. And if AI costs contune to accelerate, then it could be an even bigger warning sign to to steer clear of the company for now.
Don't jump on SpaceX stock just yet If you're on the fence about buying SpaceX stock, I think it's better to hold off. In addition to SpaceX's rising costs, its shares are also trading at a hefty premium. The company's stock has a price-to-sales (P/S) ratio of about 69, far above the tech sector P/S average of around 8.
While the company is well-positioned to benefit from AI, investors should wait to see if its investments start paying off before considering paying such a high price for SpaceX stock.
High-profile IPOs like SpaceX (SPCX +0.44%) can tempt investors to chase quick gains, even as pros dominate the event-driven trading. Discover why patience, fundamentals, and smart entry timing may matter more than hype, and see how this applies in the video below.
*This video was published on Aug. 29, 2026.
Jeff Santoro has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Lou Whiteman has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Toby Bordelon has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
This is the week, and Monday is the day. After 13 test flights in which its Starship flew intentionally suborbital paths that never quite orbited the Earth, SpaceX is scheduled on Sept. 28 to attempt to send Starship on a trip all the way around the Earth for the first time.
It might also generate some revenue for SpaceX.
Starship Flight 14 aims to launch at 9:30 a.m. Monday and to orbit Earth six times over 10 hours before splashing down just west of Chile in the Pacific Ocean. Neither the Starship itself nor its Super Heavy booster will attempt a tower landing on this test flight.
Both will end up in the drink.
Image source: SpaceX.
What's different about Flight 14? The fact that Starship (both the name of the launch system and of the rocketship's second stage, which is designed to carry either cargo or passengers) will complete an orbit (actually, six of them) is the first big difference about this mission. SpaceX also notes that it has made certain hardware modifications to improve engine performance and software changes to enhance relight reliability. The company has also tweaked some of Starship's protective heat shield tiles to improve their performance.
But another change to this flight could be even more important to investors in Space Exploration Technologies (SPCX +0.44%) stock.
SpaceX CFO Bret Johnsen calls Tuesday's flight Starship's first commercial, non-demonstration mission, with plans to place 26 Starlink V3 satellites into orbit. Starship is currently the only launch vehicle large enough to carry SpaceX's Starlink V3 satellites, each of which is rated for 1 terabyte per second of download transmission -- 10x the downlink capacity of the company's V2 mini satellites. (Space analysts estimate the V3 satellite has a mass of nearly two tons -- three times the size of a V2 mini -- so 3x the mass for 10x the performance.)
Johnsen further argues that Flight 14 will be Starship's first "revenue-generating flight."
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How Starship generates revenue for SpaceX This statement is a bit more controversial than it sounds. As I explained back in June, SpaceX post-IPO (initial public offering) is a complicated beast, comprising three separate but interconnected businesses:
Space (rocketships and rocket launches). Connectivity (Starlink internet broadband satellites). and AI (artificial intelligence). Now, you might think that when the company's Space segment launches Starlink satellites for the Connectivity business -- as will happen on Flight 14 -- SpaceX would have the former bill the latter for the service, such that Space recognizes revenue from Connectivity paying for the launch.
But SpaceX itself says that's not the case.
Referring to the company's own IPO Prospectus:
For launches of our Starlink satellites, the Company does not recognize any inter-segment revenue, rather those launch costs are capitalized in satellites in Property, plant, and equipment, net. We allocate a significant amount of launch capacity to our Connectivity segment, and expect to allocate a significant amount to our AI segment in the future. Our Space segment revenue only reflects our customer launches and customer activities.
Furthermore:
For launches dedicated to deploying our Starlink satellites, we capitalize the associated costs within our Connectivity segment and depreciate them over time, and we do not recognize revenue for those launches in our Space segment.
Let me emphasize that last point: This means that "Space is getting zero revenue from launches it performs for Connectivity."
What this means for investors So how does this fit with the CFO's assertion that Starship Flight 14 will be "revenue-generating"?
There are a couple of possible answers. One might be that the CFO simply misspoke -- that SpaceX is still capitalizing Starlink launch costs, and Connectivity will not, in fact, credit Space with revenue for this flight.
Or Johnsen might have said something technically incorrect but true in a broader sense. Carrying Starlink V3 satellites to orbit won't directly generate revenue for SpaceX, but down the line, as the satellites are put in service, Starlink subscribers will pay to use them -- and that's revenue for the company.
A third possibility is that Johnsen inadvertently hinted that SpaceX is changing its accounting policy and will begin tracking "inter-segment revenue" between Connectivity and Space going forward.
Last but not least (and most intriguing) is the possibility that Starlinks aren't the only payload going up on Starship Flight 14. There may be other cargo on the rocket from a customer other than SpaceX, which is paying part of the launch cost and generating revenue from the launch.
Which answer is the right one? I honestly don't know -- but I'm eager to watch the launch tomorrow and find out.
SpaceX’s (NASDAQ: SPCX) recovery from its post-IPO slump has paid off for investors who bought near the stock’s summer lows.
For instance, an investor who put $1,000 into SPCX stock on July 27, when shares traded at about $113, would now hold a position worth approximately $1,310 based on the latest closing price of $148.68, representing a gain of roughly 31%.
SpaceX six-month stock price chart. Source: Finbold The rally marks a significant turnaround for the stock after a turbulent few months following SpaceX’s historic Nasdaq debut in June.
Although shares remain below their post-IPO high of $225.64, they have recovered significantly from their summer selloff lows.
SpaceX raised about $75 billion in its IPO, with total proceeds ultimately reaching $85.7 billion after underwriters exercised their overallotment option, valuing the company at roughly $1.77 trillion.
However, the rally quickly faded as investors weighed the company’s heavy capital spending plans, ambitious artificial intelligence investments, and a series of lockup expirations that added selling pressure.
SpaceX key fundamentals One of SpaceX’s biggest developments in 2026 has been its expansion into artificial intelligence. Earlier this year, the company absorbed Elon Musk’s xAI, bringing Grok, X, and the Colossus computing infrastructure under its umbrella.
It expanded further in August with the acquisition of Anysphere, the developer behind the AI coding assistant Cursor.
The deals have created a fast-growing AI business alongside SpaceX’s traditional operations, supported by long-term computing agreements expected to generate billions of dollars in recurring revenue.
While AI has attracted significant investor attention, Starlink remains the company’s core commercial business, continuing to add customers across consumer, enterprise, aviation, maritime, and government markets.
SpaceX has also strengthened its position as a major government contractor. In July, the U.S. Space Force awarded the company a $1.6 billion contract for 18 Falcon 9 launches through 2027, while Pentagon awards secured this year have exceeded $7 billion. NASA also expanded its Commercial Crew contract by nearly $950 million in September to fund three additional Dragon missions to the International Space Station.
Meanwhile, Falcon 9 continues to dominate commercial launch services as Starship advances toward more ambitious orbital missions.
Going forward, SpaceX’s performance will likely depend on continued Starlink growth, execution of its AI expansion strategy, demand for computing infrastructure, and progress on the Starship program.
SpaceX just crossed a milestone that no rocket company has ever reached, and the path to $250 per share runs directly through it. The numbers behind the launch tell a very different financial story than most investors expect.
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SpaceX (NASDAQ:SPCX | SPCX Price Prediction) designed the Falcon 9 Block 5 booster to make rockets fly more like airliners. Block 5 debuted in May 2018. It runs on 9 Merlin 1D engines that produce roughly 1.7 million pounds of thrust, and it is built to fly 10 or more times with minimal maintenance. SpaceX just flew B1100, its 100th Block 5 booster, from Vandenberg with a classified U.S. Space Force payload. The booster then landed on the Of Course I Still Love You droneship. Reusable hardware at that scale supports a balance sheet holding $93.52 billion in cash.
Shares closed at $148.68, up 6.48% over the past month. Here’s what SpaceX needs to do to hit $250 per share in 2027.
Wall Street Already Sees Nearly 50% Upside The consensus target of $222.42 implies 49.6% upside. Analysts rate the stock 6 Strong Buy and 22 Buy, against 2 Sells. The Street expects revenue to rise from $44.8 billion in 2026 to $108.3 billion in 2027. In its first quarterly report as a public company, SpaceX beat estimates: revenue came in at $7.81 billion versus $6.82 billion expected, and EPS was -$0.09 versus -$0.29 expected.
Here’s What It Takes for SpaceX to Reach $250 SpaceX currently trades at about 80x the 2027 EPS estimate of $1.8628. At $250, that multiple would rise to roughly 134x. Adjusted EBITDA grew 191% last quarter.
SpaceX could reach $250 under certain conditions.
Rising estimates: 90 days ago, analysts expected 2027 EPS of -$0.2360. Today they expect $1.8628, with 5 up revisions in 30 days and zero downward. Defense demand: SpaceX holds more than $6 billion in Starshield contracts. The FY2027 budget funds 22 Space Force and 9 Space Development Agency launches. AI scale: Compute capacity reached 1.4 GW, supported by $14.1 billion in cloud contracts. Starlink capacity: Subscribers doubled to 12.0 million. V3 satellites from Starship are expected to add significant capacity. Main challenges are Starship losses and $18.37 billion in quarterly CapEx, both harder to brush off in a weak market.
SpaceX Has Already Traded Near $250 SpaceX is a recent IPO with no annual return record. Over the past 52 weeks, shares have traded as low as $104.83 and as high as $225.64. The stock is up 41.8% from that low, and $250 sits only 10.8% above the all-time high.
$250 Is a Stretch, But the Blueprint Exists Reaching $250 would require a 68% gain. Wall Street projects nearly 50% upside, estimates keep rising, and a $47.50 billion backlog supports growth. If AI revenue compounds and Starship V3 delivers, $250 is within reach.
Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.
Tesla (TSLA -1.54%) went public in 2010 and has delivered life-changing returns since. Given its average annualized returns of 40.11% (as of writing) since it hit equity markets, $5,000 invested in Tesla 16 years ago would be worth more than $1 million today.
Tesla's co-founder and CEO, Elon Musk, recently took another one of his companies public: Space Exploration Technologies (SPCX +0.44%), and many investors have high hopes for the rocket company. Could SpaceX follow in Tesla's footsteps and deliver millionaire-maker-level returns?
Image source: The Motley Fool.
The ingredients are there According to some estimates, SpaceX's IPO has turned more than 4,000 of its current and former employees into millionaires. Many of them had likely been with the company for years, during the period when it helped revolutionize space travel. SpaceX pioneered the routine reuse of orbital-class rocket boosters.
Falcon 9, the company's primary operational rocket, has a reusable first-stage booster, a factor that has helped the company significantly reduce space travel costs. SpaceX has become the industry leader and earns revenue from contracts with government agencies and other institutions. But SpaceX isn't done innovating.
The company is working on Starship, which is designed to be fully reusable, including both its Super Heavy first-stage booster and Starship upper-stage spacecraft. That could, once again, allow the company to reduce launch costs, leading to higher margins and profits. SpaceX has two other operating segments: one that provides internet connectivity services through a constellation of Low Earth Orbit satellites, and an artificial intelligence (AI) business that provides AI computing capacity.
Connectivity is the company's most profitable segment. The company's customer base and revenue in this unit are growing rapidly, and SpaceX plans to launch its next-gen Starlink satellites into orbit to serve far more customers. Further, SpaceX has signed important AI compute deals this year and sees a massive opportunity in this market. The company hopes to eventually address the limitations of hyperscalers' AI build-out by serving its customers via AI satellites.
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These plans could significantly improve the company's already strong financial results. In the second quarter, SpaceX's revenue grew 92% year over year to $7.8 billion, while its net loss shrank to $541 million from the $1 billion reported in the year-ago period. Analysts (on average) expect SpaceX to report earnings per share of $0.07 this year (as of writing).
And CEO Elon Musk said the company has an internal projection of $1 trillion in annual revenue by 2030. That isn't out of the realm of possibility if the company can continue to innovate and execute its plans over the medium term. And over the long term, SpaceX could crush broader equities.
A lot could go wrong Investors placed high expectations on SpaceX even before its IPO. Between the company's dominance in the space industry, its attempts to disrupt some lucrative markets, and its being led by Elon Musk, who has proven he can guide a highly successful company, SpaceX arguably traded at a hefty premium the moment it hit the stock market. That's partly why, despite significant progress since it went public, the company has not gained much value. And this could remain a problem.
SpaceX is trading at 200x forward earnings, a valuation that seems to have already factored in some of the company's future success. But what if some of SpaceX's plans fail? The company could face setbacks if Starship's flight tests don't go as planned, among other potential problems. And if that happens, the stock could fall off a cliff.
None of this means SpaceX can't turn average investors into millionaires over the next 20 years or so, but at current levels, the stock is rather risky and likely to be highly volatile. SpaceX is incredibly unlikely to deliver Tesla-like returns over the next 16 years -- that would make the company's market cap reach about $441 trillion, roughly 14 times the current annual GDP of the U.S. But waiting for a significant dip in the company's stock price to invest, and holding onto SpaceX's shares for the next 30 years, could result in life-changing returns.
SpaceX (NASDAQ:SPCX – Get Free Report) COO Gwynne Shotwell sold 342,170 shares of SpaceX stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, September 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $153.57, for a total transaction of $52,547,046.90. Following the transaction, the chief operating officer directly owned 2,472,035 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $379,630,414.95. This represents a 12.16% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan.
SpaceX Trading Up 0.4% NASDAQ SPCX opened at $148.67 on Friday. SpaceX has a 1-year low of $104.83 and a 1-year high of $225.64. The business’s 50 day moving average price is $136.41. The company has a current ratio of 5.12, a quick ratio of 4.99 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.29. The firm has a market capitalization of $1.96 trillion and a price-to-earnings ratio of -1,651.89.
SpaceX (NASDAQ:SPCX – Get Free Report) last announced its earnings results on Tuesday, August 4th. The company reported ($0.09) EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of ($0.26) by $0.17. The business had revenue of $7.81 billion during the quarter. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 91.9% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, analysts forecast that SpaceX will post -0.15 earnings per share for the current year.
Hedge Funds Weigh In On SpaceX Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. QRG Capital Management Inc. acquired a new stake in SpaceX in the 2nd quarter valued at $8,632,000. Envestnet Portfolio Solutions Inc. acquired a new position in shares of SpaceX during the 2nd quarter worth about $1,274,000. State Street Corp bought a new position in shares of SpaceX in the 2nd quarter valued at about $1,858,329,000. Security National Bank of SO Dak acquired a new stake in shares of SpaceX in the second quarter valued at about $48,000. Finally, HBK Investments L P bought a new stake in SpaceX during the second quarter worth about $40,579,000. Trending Headlines about SpaceX Here are the key news stories impacting SpaceX this week:
Positive Sentiment: Starship Flight 14 is approaching a major milestone. SpaceX completed a full launch rehearsal involving cold-fueling Booster 21 and Ship 41. The mission is targeting Starship’s first orbital flight, potentially strengthening confidence in the company’s next-generation reusable launch system. Starship rehearsal article Positive Sentiment: Analyst support and AI-compute growth provided a bullish counterweight. Mizuho analyst Brett Linzey said SpaceX could sustain premium compute pricing through 2027 and expects substantial upside. Elon Musk also outlined plans to add hundreds of thousands of Nvidia chips to the Colossus 2 data center, although execution will depend on power, cooling and networking capacity. SpaceX price forecast article Positive Sentiment: Google selected SpaceX for Project Suncatcher. An experimental Google AI satellite is scheduled to launch on a SpaceX rideshare mission, highlighting demand for Falcon 9 launch services and supporting SpaceX’s potential role in orbital AI infrastructure. Project Suncatcher article Neutral Sentiment: Planet Labs’ Pelican-12 reached Cape Canaveral ahead of SpaceX’s Bandwagon-5 rideshare launch. The payload supports SpaceX’s launch activity, but the immediate financial benefit to SPCX is unclear. Planet Labs Pelican satellite article Negative Sentiment: Insider selling and share unlocks remain a major overhang. COO Gwynne Shotwell sold 342,170 shares for approximately $52.5 million under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 plan. Separately, more than 300 million locked-up shares became eligible for trading, raising concerns about additional supply. SEC insider filing Negative Sentiment: SpaceX’s roughly $1.9 trillion valuation and continuing losses leave the stock highly sensitive to launch delays, heavy AI spending and execution risk. A reported $10 billion fundraising by Blue Origin also signals that competition in rockets, satellites and government contracts is intensifying. Blue Origin funding article Analyst Ratings Changes Several brokerages recently issued reports on SPCX. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft reiterated a “buy” rating and set a $235.00 price target (down from $255.00) on shares of SpaceX in a research report on Wednesday, September 2nd. JPMorgan Chase & Co. reaffirmed a “buy” rating on shares of SpaceX in a research note on Tuesday, August 25th. Cfra began coverage on shares of SpaceX in a research report on Friday, June 12th. They set a “sell” rating and a $115.00 target price on the stock. Daiwa Securities Group started coverage on shares of SpaceX in a report on Thursday, July 2nd. They issued a “neutral” rating and a $175.00 price target for the company. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group restated a “buy” rating and issued a $205.00 price objective on shares of SpaceX in a research report on Tuesday, August 4th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-six have given a Buy rating, eight have given a Hold rating and seven have given a Sell rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $218.28.
Check Out Our Latest Stock Analysis on SpaceX
About SpaceX (Get Free Report)
Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) is a privately held aerospace company founded in 2002 by Elon Musk. The company develops and operates launch vehicles, spacecraft and satellite systems, serving commercial, government and scientific customers.
SpaceX’s principal products include the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets, which are used to launch satellites, spacecraft and other payloads into orbit. The company also develops the Dragon spacecraft, which supports cargo and crew missions to low Earth orbit, including missions for NASA and other customers.
Through its Starlink business, SpaceX operates a large constellation of low Earth orbit satellites that provides broadband internet service to customers in numerous countries and regions.
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SummarySpaceX receives a Strong Buy rating, driven by robust growth across launch, Starlink, and especially the accelerating AI segment.Grok Bot, the new AI agent product, is rapidly gaining traction and is expected to significantly boost SPCX’s business and enterprise revenues.Management targets $100 billion in AI ARR by year-end, with total revenue projected to approach $300 billion by 2030.Even with a conservative 18x sales multiple, SPCX projects ~27% annual returns to 2030, despite execution and competitive risks.I do much more than just articles at Option Income Builder: Members get access to model portfolios, regular updates, a chat room, and more. Learn More » Kenneth Cheung/iStock Unreleased via Getty Images
It's been a couple months since I last talked about SpaceX (SPCX) - one of Elon Musk's two trillion dollar+ companies.
In my initial coverage soon after the IPO, I rated shares of this
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The initial public offering (IPO) of Space Exploration Technologies (SPCX +0.44%) was a worldwide spectacle. The anticipation was intense as Elon Musk sold shares in the company to the public for the first time. SpaceX, as the company is more commonly known, raised $75 billion from the IPO, with the underwriter's overallotment bringing the total to more than $85 billion. A lot of insiders got rich, but there's a catch that could keep the stock rangebound through at least December. Here's what you need to know.
How much does a share of SpaceX go for? The IPO price for SpaceX was $135. But when the shares opened, the stock started trading at $150. Given all the excitement around the company's IPO, it isn't surprising that the stock quickly jumped, peaking at just over $200 per share. But once the enthusiasm faded, it crashed to $108. That's not exactly shocking, with the stock now back in the $150 range.
Image source: Getty Images.
Investors are emotional, so there's no telling what will happen with SpaceX stock. That said, there's an interesting headwind that investors need to understand. The insiders who got rich during the IPO are likely only rich on paper, because insiders generally aren't allowed to sell their stock right away. They are subject to lockup periods. In this case, insiders will be able to sell shares on various dates through December 2026.
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A lockup doesn't change the number of shares that exist, but may increase the number of shares that freely trade on the market. That means that investors have to absorb more volume, which often puts downward pressure on a stock's price. This isn't unusual at all, as lockup periods are normal fare with initial public offerings. Only SpaceX's record-setting IPO clearly wasn't a normal IPO. Anything that Elon Musk touches seems to get extra investor attention.
Should you sell while the stock is back at the IPO price? If you are a long-term investor and believe SpaceX is a leading, if not THE leading, space stock, you probably shouldn't sell it. However, if you are a short-term trader who bought into the hype surrounding the IPO, thinking that the stock would rocket to the moon, you might want to consider selling it now that it is back in the $150 range. Indeed, insiders who want to turn their paper profits into realized gains will need to sell their shares, which could be a major headwind for SpaceX's stock at least through late 2026.
SpaceX stock has wavered this month after hitting the crucial resistance at $158. This consolidation has coincided with share unlocks and the upcoming Starlink v3 test. It was trading at $148.03 on Friday, down sharply from the all-time high of $225. So, is this a golden opportunity to buy the company?
Top analysts tracking SpaceX are highly bullish on the company because of its diversified business model. Many of them believe that its ongoing challenges, including cash burn, are temporary.
The average estimate among analysts is that the stock will jump to $227 in the next 12 months. This target is about 53% above the current level. The most bullish analyst believes that the stock will jump to $800, up by 440% from the current level.
Timothy Hiran, an Oppenheimer analyst, believes that the stock will jump to $280, while Ryan Koontz of Needham, sees it rising to $250. Macquarie has also set a target of $250, meaning that it needs to jump by about $100 from the current level.
Recent announcements show that Elon Musk is investing across all parts of SpaceX, a move aimed at gaining market share as competition rises. The last quarter showed that the space business had a capital expenditure of $1.17 billion, while the connectivity and AI businesses spent $1.37 billion and $15.8 billion, respectively.
A good example of this is the planned test of the Starlink v3 next week. This version will lead to an improved service as the company seeks to gain market share globally. Starlink now has over 12 million customers who are paying a fee every month.
In a statement this week, Musk predicted that Grok’s capabilities will match or be better than those offered by other companies like Anthropic and OpenAI. This statement comes at a time when the platform is struggling as competition rises and its model remains under pressure. Data shows that Grok’s performance lags other models by far.
READ MORE: SpaceX stock forecast after hitting a $946 million NASA deal
Analysts believe that SpaceX has more room for growth, especially in its data center business. It recently inked a $1.1 billion a month deal. This is on top of deals with other companies like Google, Reflection AI, and Anthropic. As a result, some top companies Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley believes that the revenues will jump to over $1 trillion in the next few years.
The average estimate among analysts is that its annual revenue will jump to $44.8 billion this year, with the most bullish one having a target of $51 billion. This surge will then extend to over $103 billion next year.
To be clear, its free cash flow will be affected by the massive investments. Nonetheless, these investments will likely be worth it in the long run, as we experienced with Tesla.
SPCX stock chart | Source: TradingView
The two-hour chart shows that the SPCX stock has remained inside a narrow range this month. A closer look shows that it has formed an ascending triangle pattern, a common continuation sign in technical analysis.
The stock has remained above the 50-period moving average and the Supertrend indicator. Therefore, in the long-term, the stock will likely continue surge, potentially to the psychological level of $200. Over time, the stock will likely surge to $300 and above.
Brett Linzey, a Wall Street analyst at Mizuho Securities, expects Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (NASDAQ: SPCX) stock to rally at least 35% over the next 12 months, despite choppy SPCX price performance over the past three months, driven by the imbalance between the company’s $2 trillion valuation and its $18.67 billion revenue for 2025.
On September 25, 2026, Linzey maintained the firm’s SpaceX stock rating of ‘Outperform’, according to a note sent to clients on Friday. As SpaceX stock traded at $148.03 at the time of writing, this analyst expects SPCX to deliver a 35.11% upside over the next 12 months, reaching a target of $200.
This positive sentiment for SPCX price performance over the next 12 months is based on the company’s strengthening revenue streams, especially its recent confirmed contracts.
“Third-party pricing, recent contracts, and a new hosting agreement strengthen confidence in premium compute pricing,” Linzey highlighted.
Mizuho based this bullish thesis on SpaceX’s hosting agreement commencing December 1, 2026, which guarantees a revenue stream of up to $1.11 billion per month for this company. Additionally, the analyst argued that SpaceX is well positioned to maintain its premium compute pricing through 2027, supported by recent contract wins and broader industry momentum.
SpaceX stock price prediction At the time of publication, 33 Wall Street analysts surveyed by TipRanks over the past 3 months have set an average target of $232.07. This moderate buy from these analysts signals a potential rally towards a new all-time high over the next 12 months.
SpaceX stock price prediction. Source: TipRanks SPCX price performance Since its initial public offering (IPO), SpaceX stock is up about 9.65%.
SPCX price performance since its IPO. Source: Finbold However, Wall Street analysts have predicted a rally towards a new ATH over the next 12 months, largely because the company has secured definitive revenue streams.
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SpaceX’s (NASDAQ: SPCX) milestone Starship Flight 13 was the first such test that saw the successful deployment of Starlink satellites on July 24 after the market closed, but despite its technological and regulatory importance, it failed to halt the equity’s decline.
Specifically, SPCX stock closed at $113.50 on July 27, the first regular session after the event – lower than the $115.07 recorded on launch day and below even the $119.85 on July 20, the first session after the initial launch failed.
Still, a SpaceX share price reversal came about a week later with the company’s first-ever quarterly filing and, at press time in the pre-market on Friday, September 25, the equity is changing hands at $149.36.
SpaceX stock price chart with the first session after Starship Flight 13 marked. Source: Google Thus, a $1,000 investment triggered by confidence instilled by the successful test flight would have risen to $1,315.95 shortly before the next milestone launch: the Starship Flight 14, scheduled for Monday, September 28.
What is Starship Flight 14? Meanwhile, the next test flight promises to be even more technologically important than the July launch. Indeed, Starship Flight 14 is aimed at not only deploying Starlink satellites, but also being the first attempt to enter a sustained orbital trajectory.
SpaceX will use the reusable Super Heavy rocket – the same as in July – but will not attempt to catch it, reserving that experiment for Flight 15. Notably, the test was initially scheduled for September 22 and was subsequently delayed to the next Monday.
Could Starship Flight 14 reignite the SpaceX stock price rally? Elsewhere, the upcoming launch appears relatively unlikely to turn into a significant SPCX stock price driver, whether it fails or is successful, considering the lack of impact of Flight 13.
Still, with only a single example since the SpaceX initial public offering (IPO) available, and with the equity being in an apparent consolidation phase unlike in July, it is possible the event will prove a catalyst after all.
A part of the reason for the relatively low odds of major moves is the significant expansion of the company’s business.
While best-known for its reusable rockets and Starlink communications satellites, SpaceX runs the military-focused Starshield and has become both a social media company and an artificial intelligence (AI) firm in recent years.
Under the circumstances, the next major SpaceX stock move might come in two to three months – should Elon Musk’s estimates about new advanced models prove correct this time – due to both the dominance of the technology in public discourse and the importance the company itself gave it in the S-1.
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