Pivotal Starts SpaceX at Buy, $220 Target: 50% Upside — SkimNews
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- Pivotal Research Group analyst Jeffrey Wlodarczak launched coverage of SpaceX with a Buy rating and a $220 price target, implying about 50% upside from recent levels and a roughly $3 trillion valuation.
- Wlodarczak's thesis rests mainly on Starship, SpaceX's fully reusable rocket, which could cut the cost to reach orbit by 90% and unlock applications like space-based AI data centers while bolstering Starlink broadband.
- The $220 price target assumes SpaceX eventually flies each Starship rocket up to 50 times; Starship is not yet flying commercially, with test flight 14 expected later this month and commercial payloads likely in 2027.
- SpaceX carries a Buy rating from 76% of covering analysts, well above the 55-60% average Buy-rating ratio for S&P 500 stocks, according to FactSet, with an average price target of about $226.
- SpaceX stock rose 1.2% to $149.75 in early Tuesday trading even as S&P 500 and Dow Jones futures slipped 0.2% and 0.7%; shares are up about 10% from the $135 June IPO price but have traded as low as $105 and as high as $225 since listing.
Why it matters: A new Buy from Pivotal alone rarely moves a $2 trillion stock — but it formalizes what the broader Street already believes: SpaceX's valuation is an exercise in Starship reusability math, not current cash flows. With 76% of analysts at Buy (vs. 55-60% for the S&P 500 average) and a consensus target near $226, investors holding through the $105-$225 post-IPO volatility are effectively betting that Starship achieves the assumed 50-flight reusability — a milestone that remains unproven with zero commercial flights to date.
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