Investors are currently focused on SpaceX's valuation following its record-setting IPO. Elon Musk's rocket, communications, and AI company is currently valued at roughly $2 trillion, despite not being expected to generate free cash flow for a decade or more. That's no problem for Wall Street, with some analyst target prices projecting $10 trillion or more in the coming years.

The incredible optimism reflects the incredible scale SpaceX has planned, which investors overly focused on early trading might have missed. It's something to behold.

Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas models about 50 Starship launches in 2027. That number rises to 6,000 by 2040.

Starship is SpaceX's huge, fully reusable rocket that can cut the cost of reaching space from thousands of dollars per kilogram to hundreds. Starship's low costs are the flywheel underpinning SpaceX's potential.

Jonas' 204o projection is massive; conservatively, it represents 600,000 metric tons carried to orbit in one year, or more than 10 times what humanity has put into orbit so far in our civilization's history.

That's also more than 100 launches a week, requiring, perhaps, a fleet of 200-plus Starships, powered by some 8,000 engines. That fleet won't all be built in a year. Still, Boeing and Airbus suppliers are struggling to build roughly 3,000 turbofan engines for commercial aircraft a year.

It starts at Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas, where SpaceX builds Starship. "You go through that plant, it's like walking into the future...The level of automation, the scale. It's like multiple Costcos, and it's full," RBC analyst Ken Herbert told Barron's. "It's mind-blowing the amount of activity and the amount of tooling. It looks incredibly modern."

Herbert is a veteran aerospace analyst and has watched Boeing build commercial jets in huge facilities across America. Still, he used words like "mind-blowing," "holy moly," and "floored" to describe SpaceX operations.

"The amount of ambition around the industrialization is unlike anything I've ever witnessed," he added.

Key to realizing its space dreams the company's high level of vertical integration. SpaceX does most of its work itself. Roughly 60% of the components on a Boeing jet are sourced from suppliers, estimates Herbert. That number for SpaceX is closer to 10%. The space business is still new. That number of outsourced parts could change as the relatively new commercial space industry matures, but SpaceX doesn't want its growth to be gated by supplier issues.

To be sure, not everything will go right for SpaceX. Timelines will shift to the right as inevitable hiccups occur. Still, what SpaceX is trying to accomplish is impressive. "I just remember walking in [Starbase] and feeling like...I'm looking at the future," said Herbert. "If they can pull it off, it's unprecedented."

Herbert rates SpaceX stock as Buy and sets a $225 price target for the shares. Jonas rates shares Buy. His price target is $300. The average analyst price target for SpaceX stock currently sits at about $242, valuing all that potential at roughly $3.2 trillion.

Write to Al Root at allen.root@dowjones.com

This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.

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July 12, 2026 13:01 ET (17:01 GMT)

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