Space Exploration Technologies (SPCX -4.21%) is a popular stock that went public earlier this year. Better known as SpaceX, it’s one of Elon Musk’s companies, and it has a few business lines. It has seen success in all of them, and is growing rapidly in many. This could make it a substantially larger company by 2030, but just how big could it get?
Let’s take a look at what a $1,000 investment in SpaceX could become, as it may be a no-brainer buy at these prices.
Image source: The Motley Fool.
SpaceX has a lot of growing to do
SpaceX is divided into three segments: space, artificial intelligence (AI), and connectivity. While the space division may be what it’s best known for, it’s actually the smallest business unit by a wide margin in terms of revenue. Furthermore, it’s growing the slowest, too. While the company’s ultimate goal is to be the premier space-economy investment, SpaceX sees huge opportunities in other industries and is focusing its growth on those right now.
Its connectivity division is space-adjacent. Its primary business is Starlink, a satellite-based broadband internet service that gives users connectivity in most places on Earth. This is game-changing for many people in remote or underserved locations, and the service’s user base has expanded quickly. It’s also SpaceX’s only profitable division. I’m confident this business unit will continue to see rapid growth between now and 2030, but at some point in time, it will have attracted a majority of the potential market for its service, at which point growth will start to slow down significantly. I’m not sure if that will happen by 2030, but it will eventually.
Space Exploration Technologies
Today’s Change
(-4.21%) $-6.88
Current Price
$156.54
Key Data Points
Market Cap
Day’s Range
$156.05 – $161.98
52wk Range
$104.83 – $225.64
Volume
69M
Avg Vol
93.3M
Perhaps the most exciting business segment is SpaceXAI, which was previously another Musk-owned company, xAI, that he had SpaceX acquire a few months before it went public. The AI division of the company develops Grok, a popular large language model commonly deployed for use cases requiring up-to-date information. This is SpaceX’s fastest-growing segment, growing at a 213% pace in Q2. I think this is where the majority of SpaceX’s revenue growth will come from over the next few years, and while it’s currently unprofitable, I think it will eventually provide the cash flow necessary to fund SpaceX’s space endeavors.
But where does all that leave a $1,000 investment made today by 2030?
Modeling SpaceX’s growth isn’t easy
SpaceX has only been a public company since June, so modeling its growth is not an easy task. Furthermore, it’s impossible to know how xAI will perform over the next few years, as it already faces stiff competition from other AI labs. So, let’s start with the immediate future.
For 2027, Wall Street analysts estimate that SpaceX’s revenue will grow by 155% to $115 billion. If the stock didn’t move at all from today’s level, that would price it at 18 times sales. For reference, Nvidia (NVDA +0.97%) trades for 18 times sales right now. So, I’d estimate that all of SpaceX’s 2027 growth is already accounted for in the stock price.
But to project what might happen from 2028 through 2030 requires guessing whether SpaceX will actually launch data center satellites into space in commercially meaningful numbers, and do so in a way that points to that business becoming profitable. If Musk’s plan for a massive constellation of data center satellites becomes a viable business, then SpaceX stock could skyrocket from here. On the flip side, xAI could lose ground to rival AI labs, Starlink’s growth could plateau, and its space division may not achieve meaningful launch growth. If some combination of those things happens, SpaceX’s stock could retreat.
It’s hard to predict the future, and with SpaceX not having a ton of public available performance history, it’s difficult to estimate. However, I have confidence in the business segments SpaceX is involved in, so I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect SpaceX’s stock to double to $2,000 by 2030, driven by growth in at least one of its three segments.
