Morgan Stanley Says SpaceX Is Worth $300 Per Share. The Stock Trades Near $140. Here's Who I Think Is Right.

SpaceX shares have fallen nearly 35% since its June 12 IPO, now trading around the $150 range versus a Morgan Stanley $300 price target. Morgan Stanley argues SpaceX’s AI business is undervalued, citing the Cursor acquisition and expected Cursor revenue scaling from a $4B June run-rate to $8B by year-end and $33B by 2028. The article balances this with expectations of steep losses and negative free cash flow projected at -$105B in 2029 before any turnaround, making the $300 target highly dependent on execution.

Analysis

The market is still pricing the company like a long-duration call option on three separate stories, but only one of them is currently cash-generative. That makes the equity unusually sensitive to any change in the perceived terminal value of the AI franchise: if third-party revenue disclosures or customer adds do not appear quickly, the stock will trade back toward the core balance-sheet and free-cash-flow debate rather than the narrative premium. In that setup, the biggest winners are the adjacent monetizers of AI demand that already have visible spend capture — especially NVDA and, to a lesser extent, GOOGL — because they can convert hype into current revenue with far less execution risk.

The second-order risk is that a high-profile AI acquisition can widen expectations faster than operating metrics can catch up. If the integration does not produce measurable acceleration in run-rate revenue, the result is usually not a slow fade but a multiple reset, because investors become less willing to underwrite years of negative free cash flow for a story stock. That also matters for the sell-side ecosystem: bullish coverage helps near-term flow, but it raises the bar for future beats and makes any miss more punitive.

Contrarian view: consensus may be overestimating how much one optimistic target can re-rate an illiquid, speculative name. The cleaner trade is to own the picks-and-shovels beneficiaries of enterprise AI spend rather than the company whose valuation depends on a long sequence of unverified milestones. Near term, the stock can squeeze on headlines; over 1-3 months, the burden shifts to evidence; over 6-18 months, launch cadence and cash burn dominate.

Key Decisions for Investors

• Fade strength in SPCX with 3-6 month put spreads if liquidity is adequate; best entry is after any analyst-driven pop. Risk/reward is attractive if the stock stalls below the post-IPO range and management does not add verifiable KPIs.
• Go long NVDA vs short SPCX as a relative-value expression of AI demand. This owns current monetization while shorting a name with long-dated, uncertain cash conversion; thesis breaks if SPCX shows clear AI revenue inflection within 1-2 quarters.
• Add GOOGL on weakness as a higher-quality AI beneficiary versus speculative AI platform exposure. Time horizon 3-12 months; invalidation would be a clear capex slowdown or signs that enterprise AI spend is rolling over.
• Do not chase ADBE here; treat it as a watch item only. If enterprise AI budgets broaden, it may benefit, but the cleaner near-term beta is still in semis/cloud, not software seats.