This Analyst Has a $450 Price Target on SpaceX Stock. Does That Make it a Buy?

Key Points If SpaceX hits Arete Research's price target in the next 12 months, it would be a $6 trillion company. SpaceX is already trading at a high premium on a price-to-sales basis, and it's not yet profitable. 10 stocks we like better than Space Exploration Technologies › Space Exploration Technologies (NASDAQ: SPCX) is one of the more controversial stocks on the market, and that shows up in analysts' assessments. The range of 12-month price targets they've put on the stock forecast everything from significant losses to massive gains. According to Yahoo! Finance, the lowest price target among analysts covering the company is $117, while the highest -- from Andrew Beale at Arete Research -- is $450. Beale's target suggests the stock will about a triple from today's level. That's a monster growth target, and would lead to SpaceX being valued at around $6 trillion. That's a huge difference from today's $2 trillion company, but is this a legitimate price target or just an outlier intended to grab attention? Missed AI’s "Act 1"? Act 2 Could Be 15x Bigger. Most investors think they missed the AI boat because they didn't buy Nvidia in 2005. But according to our analysts, we’re only at the end of "Act 1"—the R&D phase. "Act 2" is the global rollout. Continue » Image source: The Motley Fool. Beale's prediction doesn't care about rockets SpaceX operates in three segments: space exploration, connectivity, and AI. While space exploration may be SpaceX's ultimate goal, it isn't what's supporting the business right now. Connectivity, mostly through its Starlink satellite broadband platform, is its only profitable segment. Beale's thesis hinges on Starlink further improving its margins and expanding. Additionally, it focuses on SpaceX's AI endeavors. A few months before the company went public, SpaceX acquired AI firm xAI -- another Elon Musk company that developed the Grok large language model. While connectivity may provide the profits, xAI provides a huge amount of growth. During Q2, xAI generated an impressive 213% growth rate. Beale's thesis points to this business becoming a huge revenue driver. But could it be enough to lift the stock to $450 per share? I don't think so. SpaceX is already richly valued at around $152 per share and a $2 trillion market cap. This year, Wall Street analysts expect the company to book $44.7 billion in revenue. That values the stock at nearly 45 times this year's sales. Even if SpaceX could snap its fingers and have a 50% profit margin -- an unusually high margin -- that would leave it trading at 90 times earnings -- making it among the most expensive big tech companies out there. That's based on today's business and a speculative idea of potential profits. And right now, it's operating in the red. There are no earnings to measure it by. If SpaceX triples toward Beale's price target, that would further exaggerate its already high valuation. First, SpaceX's business needs to grow into the company's current market cap. So while the $450 price target may be applicable in a decade , I think it's a bit outlandish to consider as a short-term price target. Should you buy stock in Space Exploration Technologies right now? Before you buy stock in Space Exploration Technologies, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Space Exploration Technologies wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $387,158 !* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $1,365,749 !* Now, it’s worth noting Stock Advisor’s total average return is 932 % — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 211% for the S&P 500. Don't miss the latest top 10 list, available with Stock Advisor , and join an investing community built by individual investors for individual investors. See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of September 20, 2026. Keithen Drury 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 .

If SpaceX hits Arete Research's price target in the next 12 months, it would be a $6 trillion company.

SpaceX is already trading at a high premium on a price-to-sales basis, and it's not yet profitable.

Space Exploration Technologies (NASDAQ: SPCX) is one of the more controversial stocks on the market, and that shows up in analysts' assessments. The range of 12-month price targets they've put on the stock forecast everything from significant losses to massive gains. According to Yahoo! Finance, the lowest price target among analysts covering the company is $117, while the highest -- from Andrew Beale at Arete Research -- is $450.

Beale's target suggests the stock will about a triple from today's level. That's a monster growth target, and would lead to SpaceX being valued at around $6 trillion. That's a huge difference from today's $2 trillion company, but is this a legitimate price target or just an outlier intended to grab attention?

Missed AI’s "Act 1"? Act 2 Could Be 15x Bigger. Most investors think they missed the AI boat because they didn't buy Nvidia in 2005. But according to our analysts, we’re only at the end of "Act 1"—the R&D phase. "Act 2" is the global rollout. Continue »

SpaceX operates in three segments: space exploration, connectivity, and AI. While space exploration may be SpaceX's ultimate goal, it isn't what's supporting the business right now. Connectivity, mostly through its Starlink satellite broadband platform, is its only profitable segment. Beale's thesis hinges on Starlink further improving its margins and expanding.

Additionally, it focuses on SpaceX's AI endeavors. A few months before the company went public, SpaceX acquired AI firm xAI -- another Elon Musk company that developed the Grok large language model. While connectivity may provide the profits, xAI provides a huge amount of growth. During Q2, xAI generated an impressive 213% growth rate. Beale's thesis points to this business becoming a huge revenue driver.