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Written by Manali Pradhan for The Motley Fool
SpaceX's latest numbers suggest its AI business is becoming much more important to its overall growth story.
Rising analyst estimates show how quickly expectations around SpaceX's future revenue are changing.
Starlink continues to be a major growth engine for SpaceX.
Shares of Space Exploration Technologies (NASDAQ: SPCX), widely known as SpaceX, closed at $151.85 on Sept. 21 -- fairly close to their opening-day first trading price of $150.
To reach $190 by the end of 2026, the stock would need to climb by roughly 25%.
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While that may look like an aggressive prediction, especially given that there are just over three months remaining in 2026, the target price of $190 is still around 16% below the stock's all-time high of $225.64. Additionally, SpaceX's revenue expectations have risen sharply as its artificial intelligence (AI) business has scaled. Hence, a higher share price could be easier to justify if the company delivers on those expectations.
SpaceX had about 13.18 billion shares outstanding on July 28. When its Cursor acquisition closed in August, Cursor shareholders and vested restricted stock unit (RSU) holders became entitled to roughly 391 million additional shares. So SpaceX's basic share count is now estimated to be about 13.57 billion. At $190 per share, this would translate into a market capitalization of roughly $2.58 trillion.
Hence, we need to assess if SpaceX's revenue can grow fast enough to support that valuation without investors paying an even richer valuation multiple.
Analysts' consensus revenue estimate for SpaceX in 2027 is about $108.3 billion. Using the estimated post-Cursor acquisition share count, SpaceX's Sept. 21 market capitalization is around $2.06 trillion, and the stock trades at around 19 times expected 2027 sales.
If its forward sales multiple remains constant, SpaceX would need to be tracking toward revenue of roughly $136 billion in 2027 to support a $190 share price. That is about 25% above the current consensus estimate, but still below the highest analyst estimate of $151.96 billion.
The new revenue estimate is around $27 billion above the current consensus estimate of roughly $108 billion. But analysts have already revised their views of one part of SpaceX's business. Barron's reported that estimates for 2027 AI revenue alone had increased from roughly $38 billion in June to about $67 billion in September, a jump of nearly $29 billion.
While this does not guarantee that revenue estimates for 2027 will rise by another $27 billion, it shows that the size of the estimate reset that would be needed to support a $190 share price is not unprecedented.
SpaceX's recent quarterly results have also been impressive. In the second quarter, the company's AI revenue jumped 247% year over year to $2.6 billion. The AI segment's adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) also improved sharply, from a loss of $276 million in the prior-year period to positive $1.15 billion. The company also disclosed $14.1 billion in contracted cloud service sales.
SpaceX is not relying only on AI growth. Q2 revenue from its connectivity segment -- primarily the Starlink satellite broadband business -- reached $4.29 billion, while Q2 operating income reached $1.66 billion.
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Manali Pradhan, CFA 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.