SpaceX shares extended their recent pullback on Wednesday, slipping 1.6% after a 1% decline the prior session, even as Wall Street analysts boosted their outlooks for the company's artificial intelligence business. The stock's dip came despite a broadly higher market, with the S&P 500 up 0.5%, the Nasdaq Composite gaining 0.4%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average adding 390 points, or 0.7%, helped by gains in Nvidia and Johnson & Johnson.
The recent market turbulence has been fueled by rising bond yields and higher oil prices, which have reignited inflation concerns. However, the major indexes were on track to break a three-day losing streak, and SpaceX's decline appears to be an isolated move rather than a sector-wide trend.
Oppenheimer's Bullish Call
Oppenheimer raised its price target for SpaceX to $280 from $250 on Tuesday, maintaining an Outperform rating. The revised target implies an upside of roughly 100% from the stock's current price of around $139. The firm highlighted SpaceX's vertically integrated AI platform as a key differentiator, noting that the company combines proprietary data, substantial capital, access to GPUs through its partnership with Nvidia, and the ability to rapidly build infrastructure.
Oppenheimer also pointed to SpaceX's acquisition of Cursor as a potential catalyst for its broader AI strategy. The deal has strengthened the company's agentic coding data and logic, with benefits expected across its AI platform, including Grok Bot and Grok 4.6. Further improvements are anticipated with the release of Grok 5.0.
The firm noted that AI productivity and usage are running ahead of expectations for both SpaceX and the wider AI industry, though infrastructure remains a bottleneck. Oppenheimer raised its long-term revenue estimates by about 10% on stronger AI compute pricing, and suggested that higher capital spending could push that increase to roughly 20% over the longer term.
Bernstein Sees AI Becoming SpaceX's Largest Business
Bernstein SocGen Group reiterated its Outperform rating on SpaceX on Wednesday, maintaining a $248 price target. Analyst Douglas Harned expects SpaceX's AI revenue to nearly quintuple to $115.1 billion in 2027 from $24.6 billion in 2026. That would make AI the company's largest revenue contributor in 2027.
Bernstein estimates SpaceX will generate $46.4 billion in total revenue in 2026, rising to $150.4 billion in 2027, with AI accounting for most of the increase. These estimates underscore how rapidly SpaceX's valuation story is shifting beyond rockets, satellites, and launch services toward AI infrastructure and computing.
Bernstein's $248 valuation target also incorporates another longer-term growth avenue: orbital data centers. The firm sees SpaceX's future launch capacity as central to its broader ambitions, particularly with the planned Starbase Louisiana facility.
Starbase Louisiana and Orbital Data Centers
SpaceX plans to build Starbase Louisiana across 125,000 acres, with construction expected to begin in 2027 and the first Starship launch targeted for 2029. The site is planned to include at least 10 launchpads and eventually support more than 30 Starship flights per day. Bernstein views this facility as critical infrastructure for SpaceX's plans to deploy orbital data centers.
For investors, this creates a more complex stock story than simply betting on Starship or Starlink. SpaceX is increasingly being valued on the potential for an integrated AI infrastructure platform, with launch capacity, computing hardware, software, and data all feeding into the same growth thesis. This aligns with broader market trends, as seen in Nvidia's recent surge on strong AI growth forecasts and Meta's AI-driven upside potential.
While SpaceX's stock has faced short-term volatility, the analyst community remains largely optimistic. The company's aggressive expansion into AI infrastructure, coupled with its dominant position in launch services, positions it well for long-term growth. However, investors should be mindful of the risks, including infrastructure bottlenecks and the capital-intensive nature of these projects.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice.
