
Shares of Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SPCX -3.93%) could climb to $600, according to Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas. This “bull case” would value the company at a whopping $8 trillion, making it the largest in the world.
Jonas originally initiated coverage on July 7 with an overweight rating and a price target of $300. He reaffirmed the rating on Tuesday.
Here’s how he thinks that could happen and what the rest of Wall Street thinks about SpaceX stock.
Expand NASDAQ : SPCX Space Exploration Technologies Today's Change ( -3.93 %) $ -5.45 Current Price $ 133.29 Key Data Points Market Cap $1.8T Market cap calculated using publicly traded shares outstanding only. Does not include unlisted, private, or dual-class non-traded shares. Implied market cap may vary. Day's Range $ 130.50 - $ 139.98 52wk Range $ 104.83 - $ 225.64 Volume 484.7K Avg Vol 124.9M
What has to go right for SpaceX to hit $600
To get there, a whole lot has to go right. First, SpaceX has to successfully deploy AI data centers in orbit at scale -- and cheap. The model assumes Starship, the company’s fully reusable heavy rocket currently in development, is flying often enough and efficiently enough that the company can cut the cost of deploying AI computing capacity to half the current rate.
Also, critically, Starlink needs to expand well beyond home internet -- and humans. The bull case includes the assumption that hundreds of millions, if not billions, of AI-powered robots will be subscribed to by 2040 at an average revenue per user (ARPU) of $35.
What the rest of Wall Street thinks about SpaceX stock
Wall Street has generally been pretty bullish on SpaceX stock since the IPO. Of 32 analysts covering the stock, the average price target sits around $227. The high is $800. Still, there are certainly bears, too. You can see a sampling of Wall Street in the table below:
Analyst Firm Rating Price Target Brian Gesuale Raymond James Buy $800 Adam Jonas Morgan Stanley Buy $300 Doug Anmuth J.P. Morgan Buy $240 Edison Yu Deutsche Bank Buy $235 Ken Gawrelski Wells Fargo Buy $215 Eric Sheridan Goldman Sachs Buy $220 John Hodulik UBS Buy $210 John Godyn Citi Buy $200 Alexander Potter Piper Sandler Hold $140 Keith Snyder, CFA CFRA Sell $115 Glenn Thum Phillip Securities Sell $75
Morningstar offers a much more skeptical view
Morningstar was one of the first to initiate coverage and has been pretty bearish from the jump.
They see the core launch and Starlink businesses worth only about $40 per share, and everything above that depends on the AI/data-center story. Morningstar’s "Moonshot" scenario, which would get you to $154 per share, gets just a 7% probability from their analysis.
That’s quite a departure from Morgan Stanley. Though I should note that Jonas and Morgan Stanley also offer a bear case that sees SpaceX stock trading at just $75, though it’s clear from the base case that this is far below what they expect.
Can SpaceX stock really reach $600?
So, can the stock really go to $600? I don’t think so.
There’s obviously a lot to like about SpaceX, and it is working to develop pretty amazing technologies, but the gulf between where the company is and the Morgan Stanley bull case is incredibly wide.
The road from $133 to $600 runs mostly through things that do not exist yet and assumes the best possible outcomes for the things that do. It also assumes the lion’s share of SpaceX’s value comes from its AI division, despite that division currently being the weak link. Jonas himself wrote on July 24 that a $100 share price would imply the market was assigning no value at all to SpaceX's AI business. That implies most of the value he sees lies in the AI business.
And with SpaceXAI bleeding cash at an alarming rate, racing to build compute capacity for customers that can exit their leases penalty-free with just 90 days’ notice, I see a very risky bet on a very uncertain future.