SpaceX Stock Surged 30% After Its IPO. Here's Where It's Going Next, According to 2 Wall Street Analysts

Last Friday, Elon Musk's Space Exploration Technologies (NASDAQ: SPCX) went public, opening at $150 per share. Since hitting the Nasdaq, SpaceX, the stock has surged as high as 50%. However, as of June 18, the shares were hovering at about $190 -- a bit less than 30% above the opening-day price.

Below, I'll analyze some commentary from two Wall Street analysts and share their opinions on whether SpaceX stock has further room to run.

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Oppenheimer values SpaceX stock at $190 per share

Oppenheimer analyst Timothy Horan initiated coverage on SpaceX stock just before the shares began trading in the initial public offering (IPO). Horan gives SpaceX an outperform rating and a $190 price target. At the time the report was published, this implied roughly 40% upside from SpaceX's offering price of $135. Relative to SpaceX's current price of $190, however, Horan's target implies no gains for the shares.

Horan's stance rests on SpaceX building what he calls a vertically integrated artificial intelligence (AI) ecosystem featuring both consumer and enterprise data, a large language model (LLM) via xAI's Grok, and GPU hardware from Nvidia, all stitched together through leading manufacturing and engineering talent.

Taken together, Horan sees a $10 trillion total addressable market (TAM) by 2035 as SpaceX's operations converge across space-based orbital data centers, communications, and cloud computing. Key drivers in Horan's model include plans for 10,000 Starship launches per year, plus recent AI infrastructure deals with Anthropic and Google.

It's important to note that Horan emphasized near-term risks of investing in SpaceX stock, including momentum-driven valuation multiples, an unproven orbital data-center market, regulatory hurdles surrounding space exploration, and governance risks tied to Elon Musk.

Morningstar thinks SpaceX's true value is less than 50% of its current market cap

Morningstar equity research analyst Nicolas Owens published a detailed discounted cash flow (DCF) analysis that assigns SpaceX a fair value of $63 per share. This equates to a value of roughly $780 billion for the company -- about 70% below SpaceX's current market cap.

Morningstar's model values SpaceX based on the company's core segments: launch operations, Starlink, and AI. Per the assumptions in the DCF, Starship and Starlink contribute a combined $40 per share to SpaceX's fair value, given each segment carries "better visibility and relatively lower uncertainty" compared to the company's AI ambitions, which Owens calls a moonshot.

In Morningstar's most optimistic scenario, Owens applies a bullish stance to SpaceX's AI infrastructure aspirations by modeling rapid orbital data-center deployments, which lead to a huge capture of the AI compute market. Under these conditions, Owens assigns a share price of $154 to SpaceX by 2040. This is important to call out because even under the most long-term, blue-sky conditions, Owens still essentially sees SpaceX as completely overvalued.

What do these divergences mean for investors buying SpaceX stock near $190?

The gap between Horan's $190 price target and Owens' $63 fair value highlight two very different risk tolerances and time horizons when it comes to investing in SpaceX stock.

Horan's forecast suggests SpaceX will deliver on its most ambitious timelines and capture a meaningful portion of future orbital AI infrastructure demand. Horan's target is in line with the current market value. By contrast, Owens' analysis treats SpaceX's current valuation as pricing in too much certainty when it comes to unproven technologies and aggressive growth assumptions.

Given the split between these analysts, investors chasing SpaceX's post-IPO momentum face elevated volatility from a wide range of possible future outcomes. Investors who prioritize capital preservation should wait for more concrete evidence of Starship's progress or for any price consolidation that brings SpaceX stock closer to a more conservative fair value.

Position sizing, milestone tracking, and the fact that both reports were issued around the time of SpaceX's public market debut are important to keep in mind, regardless of which framework resonates more with investors.

SpaceX's next meaningful move will likely depend less on initial sentiment and more on whether the company starts translating its ambitious visions into measurable revenue and profit margin widening in the coming quarters. For now, the easy money has likely been made in SpaceX stock.

Adam Spatacco has positions in Nvidia. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Nvidia. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.