There is a number making the rounds on Wall Street right now that would have seemed disconnected from reality 12 months ago: a $600 price target for a company that went public at $135 in June and briefly fell below that listing price within weeks of trading.
That kind of number does not get attached to rocket launches and satellite subscriptions.
Morgan Stanley just attached it anyway. The reason comes down to one acquisition. SpaceX (SPCX) bought AI coding platform Cursor for $60 billion in stock. The bank kept its base-case target at $300. It raised the bull case to $600.
The gap between those two numbers is where the entire SpaceX debate lives right now.
Morgan Stanley’s $300 base case and $600 bull case for SpaceX
Morgan Stanley’s $300 base case is built on what SpaceX is doing now. Rocket launches. Starlink. An AI division the bank estimates is worth about $12 per share.
Morgan Stanley considers that a discount to comparable neocloud companies, according to Investing.com.
More SpaceX:
The $600 bull case is different. It does not assume things go well. It assumes things go very well, and all at once. Cursor needs to become a major recurring software business. Starlink needs to keep growing. Starship needs to lower orbital launch costs enough that space-based computing becomes real. Investors need to assign a premium multiple to the whole platform. That is a lot of dominoes.
SpaceX stock is down roughly 14.5% from its listing price. It climbed above $135 for the first time since mid-July in the three sessions before this report. The recovery suggests the market is at least reconsidering the post-IPO selloff.
Why the Cursor deal changes SpaceX’s AI story
SpaceX exercised its option to acquire Cursor in June for $60 billion in stock. The deal is expected to close before the end of August, according to The Information.
Cursor is an AI coding platform. It writes, edits, debugs, and reviews code. More than 50,000 businesses use it….
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