SpaceX just joined the Nasdaq 100. On the same day, one Wall Street analyst put a $10.5 trillion price tag on it. A famed investor put the odds of a crash at 90 per cent.
SpaceX has plenty of admirers on Wall Street. None goes further than Raymond James analyst Brian Gesuale. He opened coverage this week with an $800 price target, Bloomberg reports. That tops the Street, and sits roughly 430 per cent above Tuesday’s price.
Hit it and SpaceX would be worth about $10.5 trillion. That doubles Nvidia, today the world’s most valuable company at $4.7 trillion. SpaceX trades below $2 trillion for now.
The bet rides on AI, not rockets #
The eye-popping part is where Gesuale thinks the money comes from. SpaceX booked $19 billion in revenue last year. He sees $5.2 trillion by 2035. Almost none of it comes from rockets or Starlink.
Instead the case rests on AI. Gesuale expects SpaceX to sell computing power. It would start with data centres on the ground, then move to servers in orbit. On his numbers, AI becomes the biggest business by 2027 and about 94 per cent of revenue by 2035.
He has company. Bloomberg tracks 35 analysts on the stock, and 29 rate it a buy. Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan, and Goldman Sachs all opened coverage this week.
The bear on the other side #
Others push back hard. Jeremy Grantham co-founded GMO and has a name for calling bubbles. He told Morningstar this week that a SpaceX crash looks 90 per cent likely, Business Insider reports.
Grantham called parts of the pitch “utterly inconceivable.” He said the AI looked third-rate next to OpenAI and Anthropic. He waved off the plans to mine asteroids and settle Mars. He also doubted the vast productivity gains the whole story assumes. The company lost nearly $6 billion last year.
Why it matters #
The clash comes down to what SpaceX actually is. Gesuale flags the danger himself. A run of launch failures could sink the stock to $125, below its $135 float price. That would also dent bets on orbital AI and Starlink Mobile.
The reality landed with a shrug. SpaceX shares slipped about 5 per cent on Tuesday, to near $151, as it joined the Nasdaq 100. That drop came even as index funds line up to buy, The Information reports. Rocket firm, AI firm, or bubble: it depends on which number you believe. The market has years to settle it.
Get the TNW newsletter #
Get the most important tech news in your inbox each week.