Wall Street is waking up to a business at SpaceX that has nothing to do with rockets. Within two days, three research houses initiated or reaffirmed bullish coverage, and the thread running through all of them is the same: renting out computing power for artificial intelligence is on track to eclipse the company’s traditional space operations.
TD Cowen’s John Blackledge launched coverage on Tuesday with a Buy rating and a $200 price target, arguing that AI compute leasing could generate more revenue than all other SpaceX segments combined as early as the start of 2027. His model projects $14.4 billion in AI compute leasing revenue for the current year, 2026 — roughly 35% of total group sales. The figure is expected to jump to $66 billion in 2027, lifting the segment’s share to about 58%, and could reach $133 billion by 2028.
Anchor Customers Underpin the Forecast
Those projections rest on multi-billion-dollar contracts with major technology firms. SpaceX counts AI startup Anthropic and Google among its clients. A confidential Anthropic prospectus puts potential payments to SpaceX for computing capacity through 2029 at as much as $84.5 billion. Google, according to media reports, secured access to roughly 110,000 graphics processors over 32 months in a deal worth more than $30 billion.
CLSA added its own vote of confidence on Monday, initiating coverage with an Outperform rating and a $250 target — the most ambitious on the Street so far. UBS, meanwhile, reiterated its Buy rating and $210 target on Tuesday, forecasting third-quarter 2026 revenue of $13.8 billion, about 7% above average Wall Street estimates. The AI segment is expected to contribute the bulk of that at $7.6 billion, while the Connectivity satellite division housing the Starlink network is seen rising 59% to $4.9 billion.
The optimism comes at a cost. UBS calculates capital expenditure of $19.3 billion for the third quarter alone. TD Cowen expects AI-related investment of $160 billion in 2027 and projects negative free cash flow through 2030, with debt issuance likely to climb meaningfully as SpaceX funds data centers and satellite constellations.
Starship’s 14th Flight Cuts Both Ways
Operational news has been mixed. On Monday, Starship completed its 14th test flight, reaching Earth orbit for the first time and deploying 26 of the new V3 Starlink satellites before the mission was terminated early. The vehicle splashed down in the Pacific roughly three hours after launch, where it tipped over and caught fire. Reuters reported Tuesday that a Raptor engine shut down following stage separation from the booster. Because the cause has not been conclusively determined, the premature return could complicate NASA’s timeline for future lunar missions.
Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying SpaceX?
Even so, the flight demonstrated the booster’s fundamental suitability for heavier payloads. Should SpaceX shore up engine reliability while bringing contracted data centers online on schedule, the AI business may soon overshadow the launch operations that built the company.
Shareholder Moves and a Legal Win
Activity in the shareholder base has picked up alongside the operational milestones. Gwynne Shotwell filed a Form 144 on September 22 signaling intent to sell 342,170 shares. Bloomberg had reported on September 16 that investor Valor Equity Partners distributed roughly 8.5% of its SpaceX stake to its own fund investors as an in-kind distribution.
SpaceX also notched a legal victory. A federal judge on September 21 rejected an emergency motion from environmental groups, allowing a planned land swap between the U.S. government and the space company to proceed for now while the main case continues.
In European trading, the stock was recently at EUR 131.66, off 0.1% and about 9.9% above its 50-day moving average of EUR 119.78 — a level that has shifted alongside the share price’s recent advance.
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