Elon Musk Just Made This $1 Trillion SpaceX Prediction. Here's What It Could Mean for the Stock By 2030.

Space Exploration Technologies (NASDAQ: SPCX) founder and CEO Elon Musk continues to talk the stock up following last week's record-breaking initial public offering. In a reply to a journalist's post at social media platform X on Sunday afternoon, Musk wrote, "I think SpaceX might be able to reach approximately $1T revenue in 2030." He then adds, "And I ​would be surprised if revenue ​is not greater than $1T in 2031," offering some color he couldn't before the IPO.

In light of this expectation, the company's $2.5 trillion valuation suddenly makes much more sense. Indeed, if Musk's suggestion is anywhere close to being on target, SpaceX shares are arguably undervalued.

Just take his comment with a (very) big grain of salt. The response doesn't detail how or why SpaceX will reach that lofty target, given that it reported revenue of only $18.7 billion last year. And remember, Musk has a penchant for overpromising and underdelivering.

Image source: Getty Images.

SpaceX and Musk are wildly ambitious

Never say never. Anything's possible.

Musk's comment begs the question, though ... where exactly is this $1 trillion-plus in annual revenue going to come from? Even in SpaceX's IPO prospectus, the company says the space launch market is only worth $370 billion annually. The mobile connectivity market that Starlink serves is expected to eventually become $1.6 trillion business, although Starlink certainly isn't the only player in this arena.

No, if SpaceX is going to reach the $1 trillion annual revenue mark by the end of 2030, it's going to need to carve out an enormous piece of the artificial intelligence (AI) industry -- which it says will eventually be worth $26.5 trillion per year -- with the vast majority of that coming from enterprise applications.

There's the rub. AI will undoubtedly grow to become an even bigger business than it is today by 2030. But a $22.7 trillion market at any point in the foreseeable future? For perspective, that's roughly one-fifth of the entire world's annual GDP, according to data from the International Monetary Fund. And there are more established solutions providers like Alphabet, Anthropic, and Palantir Technologies that will either build their own infrastructure or rely on proven platforms like CoreWeave's or Equinix's to prevent SpaceX from capturing the lion's share of whatever growth awaits.

Well-informed analysts aren't so sure

It doesn't matter right now, of course. Right now, SpaceX shares are still riding the wave of euphoria established even before Friday's IPO; Musk's comment on Monday only fanned the already-bullish flames. The stock may end up getting even a little more bullish mileage out of it when all is said and done.

Just be careful about buying in now based on this off-the-cuff optimism. Again, Elon Musk has a history of making bold predictions without a great basis for supporting them.

This might help keep things in perspective: Goldman Sachs only expects SpaceX to report full-year revenue of $470 billion in 2030, while Morgan Stanley puts the figure at only $330 billion. And these two investment banks were the lead underwriters of SpaceX's IPO. They'd know the company and its opportunity about as well as anybody could.

Given this, now certainly doesn't seem like a great time to buy in.

James Brumley has positions in Alphabet. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Equinix, Goldman Sachs Group, and Palantir Technologies. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.