Citi Sees SpaceX Stock as More Than a Rocket Bet

SpaceX stock is trading at $145.30, about 8% above its $135 IPO price, according to Yahoo Finance at the time of writing.

Interestingly, SpaceX stock climbed as high as $225.64 after its $135 IPO, according to Yahoo Finance reporting, indicating a peak post-IPO gain of about 67%, before sharply retreating from those highs.

So SpaceX investors were naturally looking for proof that Wall Street's post-IPO optimism wasn't misplaced and that the company was truly onto something special.

Citi's analysts obliged, offering far more than a simple stock call.

Following a 10-hour teach-in on space and AI, the firm argued that SpaceX sits at the center of a 10-plus-year investment cycle, with launch leadership, Starlink, orbital AI, and extreme vertical integration creating a compounding infrastructure story.

Citi just hailed SpaceX as a platform for the future, while the market still has to decide how much of that future is investable today.

Why Citi sees SpaceX as more than a rocket company

Citi kicked things off with a buy rating and a $200 base-case price target for SpaceX stock, implying an expected return of about 34.9% from current levels.

In the note shared with me, Citi valued SpaceX as a vertically integrated platform spanning space access, global connectivity, and AI infrastructure, rather than just a launch provider.

Moreover, Citi derived its target from the average of three methods: 2027 growth-adjusted multiples for trillion-dollar peers, a sum-of-the-parts analysis valuing Space, Connectivity, and AI separately, and 2030 comparable-company multiples for large-cap platform peers.

Put bluntly, as my fellow tech reporter Vuk Zdinjak noted in perhaps the most honest take on SpaceX, that kind of valuation framework shows how tough it is to value such a business.

In the Bank of America note he covered, he panned the bank's use of a nearly 20-year cash-flow model that stretched far beyond the usual 5- to 10-year DCF window and well past the typical 12-month life of a price target.

Analysts looked to assign a present value to businesses that may not be fully proven for years.

Nevertheless, Citi is sold on SpaceX's abilities, especially its reusable launch capability, Starlink's global satellite network, the xAI/Grok integration, and future terrestrial and orbital compute infrastructure.

It also argues that extreme vertical integration will likely push costs down and throughput up at a scale competitors might struggle to match.

Wall Street price targets for SpaceX stock

• Morgan Stanley set a $300 price target, arguing SpaceX's AI and infrastructure upside remains underappreciated after the IPO.
• Deutsche Bank set a $255 target, saying SpaceX deserves a premium valuation because few companies match its scale in reusable rockets.
• JPMorgan initiated coverage with a $225 target, citing SpaceX's launch dominance and Starlink's broadband opportunity.
• Goldman Sachs set a $205 target, citing trillion-dollar potential across space, broadband, and AI, while flagging volatility risks.
• Bank of America set a $235 target, with analyst Ronald J. Epstein arguing SpaceX's launch leadership could power a broader Starlink, infrastructure, and AI flywheel.
  
  Sources: TheStreet, Investing.com, MarketScreener

Why the space economy may be bigger than investors think

Citi's broader point is that SpaceX isn't turning heads in isolation.

It's operating in a market whose ceiling is still being rewritten, with VOYG CEO Dylan Taylor arguing that the "space TAM is not fixed" and that the industry is entering a 10-plus-year investment cycle where government and commercial spending reinforce each other.

So, effectively, we're seeing new layers of demand emerging across satellite broadband, orbital AI, defense, lunar infrastructure, space manufacturing, and data services.

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Citi also talked about tight launch capacity and a space company COO, who said that current supply chain conditions should not derail the upcoming launch and satellite manufacturing ramp.

ETF sponsors are also seeing that same widening opportunity. ProcureAM CEO Andrew Chanin said the Procure Space ETF crossing $1 billion in assets validated the move from "thematic curiosity" to "core allocation," with the industry now powering broadband, climate monitoring, and national security.

To throw in some third-party figures, according to Fortune Business Insights, the global space economy is projected to grow from $648.43 billion in 2025 to $1.15 trillion by 2034, representing an increase of roughly 78%.

What could derail Citi's bullish SpaceX thesis

To be fair, SpaceX's bull case rests on several big "ifs."

Citi analysts pointed to several risks, including failure to demonstrate rapid Starship reusability, lack of launch infrastructure, FAA and other government regulatory headwinds, slower gains in Starlink mobile share, and failure to prove that orbital AI satellites can actually perform compute at scale.

The big argument from Citi is that orbital AI satellites are physically possible, but the problem centers on unit economics as advanced materials and components remain expensive.

Put simply, that leaves investors rallying behind a business where the technology may be possible, while the economics remain unproven.

Zdinjak's Bank of America analysis pushes that skepticism harder.

He notes that BofA's bullish case relies heavily on Starship becoming rapidly reusable, orbital compute working, regulatory risk staying manageable, and SpaceX spending enough money to support an AI buildout that's remarkably competitive.

So essentially, if even one of those pillars slips, Citi's upside-down case will look a lot more fragile.

At the same time, Seeking Alpha data suggest investors may be less willing to pay 49 times forward sales for SpaceX.

Related: 5-star analyst sets bold SpaceX stock price target

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This story was originally published July 13, 2026 at 6:17 PM.