SpaceX Price Target Hikes: Goldman, Pivotal Lift Calls to $230

Analysts Raise Their Targets Even as the Stock Slips

In the two weeks before SpaceX's third-quarter report, Wall Street's message has stayed consistent while the share price has not. Goldman Sachs analyst Eric Sheridan raised his 12-month target on SpaceX (SPCX) to $230 from $220 and kept his Buy rating. He said the change reflects higher forecasts for the company's AI capacity, revenue and margins.2 Pivotal Research's Jeffrey Wlodarczak followed on October 12, also moving to $230 from $220 with a Buy rating, after he added Starlink Mobile to his financial model.9 Morgan Stanley's Adam Jonas repeated his Overweight rating and $300 target, Barclays started coverage at Overweight with a $254 target, and Susquehanna raised its target to $173 from $144 but stayed at Hold.576

The stock has moved the other way. Shares rose above $175 in early October, which put the $200 level back in view and pushed the implied valuation toward $2 trillion.8 By October 13 they had fallen back toward $155.12 On one recent session the stock lost about 4% and traded near $157.1 As a result, analysts are raising targets while the gap between those targets and the share price is getting wider.

What the Goldman Raise Actually Says

The dollar change in Goldman's target is small. Several outlets argue that its meaning is bigger. According to coverage of the note, Sheridan is modeling how SpaceX could earn money from its growing computing capacity between 2026 and 2028. He considers his AI estimates conservative compared with where he expects the rest of the Street to move over the next six to 18 months.2 One write-up quoted him as optimistic about SpaceX's ability to charge elevated rates for compute infrastructure over the medium term.19

CNBC's Jim Cramer offered a useful reading. Shares fell as low as $104.83 in early August, and at that point Goldman's original $220 target looked more like a hope than a forecast. Raising the target while the stock still trades far below it, he argued, suggests the earlier number was built on real analysis.13 The new $230 target is about $5 above the stock's all-time high of $225.64, set on June 16, shortly after the IPO.13

The valuation figures in the Goldman note explain why this matters. At Goldman's reference price of $158.96, SpaceX trades at about 122 times 2026 earnings. That multiple falls to 40 times for 2027 and 23 times for 2028.10 Every bullish target on this stock is a bet on that earnings path, and AI compute does most of the work.

Morgan Stanley's Growth-Adjusted Case

Jonas's note, titled "Cheap and Getting Cheaper," responds directly to the main objection, which is the high headline multiple. He puts SpaceX at roughly 30 times estimated 2028 EV/EBIT, compared with about 16 times for a group of mega-cap AI enablers. Once growth is factored in, however, SpaceX trades at about 0.3 times on an EV/EBIT-to-growth basis, roughly 40% below the group's 0.5 median.5 Even at $300, he estimates the ratio would be around 0.6 times. That would put it level with Amazon and below Alphabet and Meta.5

His breakdown by business is the clearest picture available of what the market is paying for. He values Space and Connectivity at $127 per share. At a $159 share price, that leaves only about $32 per share for AI, which he equates to roughly three times 2028 sales for a neocloud-style business.5 His $300 target assigns about $165 per share to enterprise AI and about $8 to consumer AI products such as Grok.3 Jonas also listed what would have to happen for the stock to fall to $100 within a year: a clear slowdown in AI development, a major Starship testing setback, or a materially dilutive event.5

The argument depends on growth that has not yet happened. A slower expansion would quickly undermine the growth-adjusted math, and the coverage of his note acknowledges that risk.3

Pivotal Shifts the Focus to Wireless

Pivotal's raise rests on a different business. The update came after SpaceX agreed to buy Grain Management's nationwide 800 MHz spectrum portfolio for roughly $8 billion.9 Wlodarczak described SpaceX as having effectively created a "legitimate" new low-cost wireless carrier. He expects it to start with rural and suburban customers by bundling service with the Starlink dish already installed on the roof.9 He projects about 160 million Starlink Mobile subscribers worldwide by 2036, with monthly revenue per user in the low $20s.

Reports differ on some details. One outlet gives Pivotal's expected U.S. market share as 13% by 2036, while another reports 12% in the U.S. and 2% internationally.16 The more important figure is the cost. Pivotal estimates that a nationwide tower-based network would require $50 billion to $100 billion.16 The market took the threat seriously: AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile shares fell between roughly 8.5% and 13.5% on the day after the deal was reported.9

There is also a smaller inconsistency in how Pivotal's position has been described. Some market commentary still refers to Pivotal as having "initiated" at $220, while more recent reports say the firm raised its target from $220 to $230.89 Those reports are consistent with each other: the $220 initiation is the starting point for the October raise.

The Consensus Depends on Who Is Counting

Anyone reading the headline numbers should know that consensus figures vary noticeably between data providers. MarketBeat lists 45 ratings, a "Moderate Buy" consensus and an average target of $220.06, with estimates ranging from $75 to $800.1 TipRanks reported an average of $215.72 on October 8, then $216 by October 12.4 A Koyfin figure cited on October 12 was $221.07.9 Separate TipRanks pages dated October 6 cited averages of $235.10 and $235.45.219 That suggests the tracked analyst pool or method changed during the week.

Upside percentages vary even more, because each outlet measures from a different price. Morgan Stanley's $300 target has been described as 75%, 84.5% and 88.7% upside, depending on the day used as the base.43 The useful conclusion is that the center of Street opinion sits in the high $210s to low $220s. That is about 35–40% above where the stock traded in mid-October.

The mix of ratings is changing in a telling way. MarketBeat's monthly count shows Buy ratings increasing from 24 to 28 over three months, while Sell ratings rose from one to six.1 The average target also dropped from $238.77 three months ago to $220.06 now.1 Over the same period, the bulls became more confident and the bears grew in number, so the range of views widened.

The Cautious Side of the Street

Susquehanna's Charles Minervino is a good example of a split view. He raised his target because SpaceX's main businesses are growing strongly. He kept a Hold rating because of the valuation, and his $173 target left only a few percent of upside when he published it.6 Erste Group began coverage at Hold without a price target, arguing that the high EV/EBIT multiple already reflects strong expectations for AI.4 CFRA started at Sell with a $115 target back in June.18 Other bulls include Oppenheimer, which raised its target to $280 in September, and CLSA, which started at Outperform with a $250 target.18

Share supply has also put pressure on the stock. Up to 328.4 million shares became eligible for sale on October 9, which may help explain why the rally faded after it.4

What Comes Next

We think the Goldman and Pivotal raises matter less for their size than for what they show: analysts are basing their models on two specific sources of growth, AI compute and Starlink Mobile. Launch and satellite broadband are increasingly treated as the foundation of the valuation, not the source of further upside. This framing gives the bull case a concrete test. Upcoming results need to show that AI revenue can keep growing quickly enough to support the multiples. JPMorgan has noted that AI revenue grew 247% in the prior period.9

The near-term tests are already scheduled. Third-quarter earnings are expected in late October, with consensus estimates of about $12.98 billion in revenue and $0.13 in earnings per share.9 Morgan Stanley expects the report to show the economics behind Cursor and Grok, and Jonas rates a possible ship catch on Starship Flight 15 as the biggest potential upside event since the IPO.14 Spending is the risk that cuts across every scenario: SpaceX is reportedly seeking about $40 billion to buy more Nvidia chips, and a wireless network would cost billions on top of that.1316 The higher targets assume these investments pay off. The falling share price shows investors still want proof.