The $685 Billion Divide on SpaceX: From $115 to $800 as Starship’s 13th Flight Looms
Published on 07/12/2026 at 17:45 | Redaktion boerse-global.de
Wall Street has rarely seen a stock as polarizing as SpaceX. While Elon Musk declared on July 10 that the company could one day be “worth more than the rest of the world combined,” the equity itself has slipped below its initial public offering price of $150, closing Friday at $145.30 on the Nasdaq. That sits well off the June intraday high of $225.64 – and the analyst targets tracking the name span an astonishing $685 range, from a bearish $115 at CFRA to a bullish $800 at Raymond James.
The extremes reflect fundamentally different views on whether Starship and Starlink can justify a valuation that, at IPO, ran to more than 90 times revenue, according to investor George Noble. Raymond James analyst Brian Gesuale bases his $800 target on a vision of SpaceX generating over $837 billion in revenue by 2031, with EBITDA of $696 billion, driven by Starship slashing orbital transport costs by more than 99% and by multibillion-dollar AI data-center deals with Google Cloud, Anthropic, and Reflection AI. At the other end, CFRA rates the stock a sell at $115, while Seeking Alpha’s discounted cash-flow model puts fair value at just $90.41 and Motley Fool warns that Starship has only completed twelve test flights through May, facing a theoretical addressable market of roughly $30 trillion – close to the entire U.S. GDP.
The immediate catalyst for the bulls is Flight 13. On July 10, SpaceX engineers fired all 33 Raptor-3 engines on Super Heavy Booster 20 for 25 seconds – the longest static fire ever recorded for a Version 3 booster. The test cleared the last technical hurdle for the launch, which is now set for Thursday, July 16, with a 90-minute window opening at 5:45 p.m. Central Time from Starbase, Texas. The mission will carry the first batch of Starlink V3 satellites equipped with laser links and cameras to monitor the heat shield during reentry, attempt a controlled booster landing in the Gulf of Mexico, and relight a single Raptor engine in orbit before Ship 40 splashes down in the Indian Ocean.
Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying SpaceX?
Beneath the technical milestones, the financial picture is deeply split. Starlink generated $11.4 billion in revenue in 2025, or 61% of the group’s $18.7 billion total, with an operating profit of $4.4 billion and adjusted earnings of $7.2 billion. The launch business contributed $4.1 billion, while the xAI division – despite $3.2 billion in revenue – posted an operating loss of $6.4 billion and is on track to lose roughly $10 billion in 2026, according to Advisorpedia. Overall, SpaceX reported a net loss of $4.9 billion last year on capital expenditure of $20.7 billion. In the first quarter of 2026, revenue hit $4.7 billion with adjusted EBITDA of $1.1 billion, but a loss per share of $1.27. Government contracts, including a $2.29 billion Space Force award in May, account for about one-fifth of sales. The next quarterly report is due August 6.
Adding to the uncertainty, lock-up restrictions are beginning to unwind. Musk and other top insiders remain bound for 366 days, but starting in August, employees can sell 20% of their stakes, with staggered releases continuing through the third quarter of 2026. By that point, up to 83% of non-permanently restricted shares could be tradeable. Noble has warned that the IPO – which he called the largest exit-liquidity event in history – may tempt early investors and staff to cash out, piling pressure on the stock.
Yet institutional buyers remain active. Ark Invest, led by Cathie Wood, purchased roughly 117,000 shares on Friday, signaling long-term conviction in SpaceX’s space and satellite-internet strategy. The fund’s move underscores the split between those who see a buying opportunity below the IPO price and those who warn that the combination of Starship development costs, AI infrastructure spending, and looming insider sales has not been fully priced in.
Whether Flight 13 – the first to deploy commercial payloads and test in-orbit engine restart – can shift the narrative will become clear later this week. But with a consensus analyst target around $237 to $240, the market is effectively betting that the stock’s current 35% discount to that average is either a gift or a trap. The next few weeks, with the Starship launch, the earnings report, and the first lock-up release, will deliver the answer.
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