SpaceX shares surged almost 8% on Monday, pushing Elon Musk's net worth back above the trillion-dollar mark. A bullish report published a day earlier by a Morgan Stanley analyst, who called the stock "undervalued," combined with a string of recent milestone flight missions, together fueled the rally.

At Monday's close, SpaceX traded at $171.09, a fresh high since mid-June. According to the Forbes real-time billionaires list, Musk's net worth rose by about $30.6 billion that day, lifting his total fortune to roughly $1.03 trillion and keeping him at the top of the rankings.

This marks the second time Musk has reached the trillion-dollar tier, following SpaceX's initial public offering in June.

SpaceX shares have now rebounded about 58% from their early-August low. Morgan Stanley set a $300 price target on the stock, implying roughly 75% upside from Monday's close, and advised investors to position themselves ahead of the company's next Starship test flight and the release of its third-quarter earnings.

Morgan Stanley Turns Bullish as Multiple Catalysts Converge

A research note published by a Morgan Stanley analyst on Sunday argued that, at the current share price, SpaceX is clearly undervalued.

The report highlighted potential catalysts including "upcoming artificial intelligence product launches, progress in Starship development, and new cloud service contracts," while maintaining a buy rating.

Last week, SpaceX completed several historic flight missions within a single day, including a crewed mission for NASA that carried astronauts to the International Space Station, as well as launching Google artificial intelligence chips into orbit.

The analyst noted that if SpaceX attempts to recover the Starship upper stage on its next test flight, the move could become "the most significant positive catalyst since the IPO." In all previous tests, the Starship upper stage splashed down in the ocean, and its reusability has yet to be proven.

Starship is the largest rocket ever built by humanity, designed so that both the upper stage and the booster can be safely recovered and reused. SpaceX plans to use Starship to place Starlink satellites into orbit and to take on cargo and crew missions for other commercial and government organizations.

AI Expansion and Defense Contracts Underpin Revenue

Beyond its core space business, SpaceX's artificial intelligence operations have also become an important support for the share price.

The company entered the AI field by acquiring Musk's xAI and further expanded its footprint by acquiring the code-editing tool Cursor. Although its in-house Grok large model still trails OpenAI and Anthropic in market influence, SpaceX is generating substantial revenue by renting out computing power to customers such as Google and Anthropic.

On the government contract front, according to FedScout data, SpaceX has received more than $12.7 billion in cumulative contract revenue from the U.S. Department of Defense, with defense business accounting for a steadily rising share.

Last Wednesday, September 30, the Pentagon appointed Musk as co-leader of "Project Meridian," an initiative aimed at identifying the weapons, technologies, and military capabilities the United States will need for future warfare.

On the branding side, Musk announced over the weekend that he would rename his AI subsidiary SpaceXAI as SpaceXSI, aligning with an executive order signed by President Trump on September 29. The order requires government agencies to replace the term "artificial intelligence" with "super intelligence" and the abbreviation "SI." As of Monday, however, no formal renaming steps had been implemented.

Record IPO: Financials Show Rapid Growth Alongside Losses

SpaceX listed on Nasdaq on June 12 at an IPO price of $135, issuing 555.6 million shares and raising $75 billion, surpassing the record set by Saudi Aramco in 2019.

In its first week of trading, the stock hit a closing high of $201.80 on June 16, then gradually retreated and bottomed out in early August. After this rebound, SpaceX shares are up about 27% from the IPO price, and Musk holds roughly 82.4% of the company's voting power.

On the financial front, SpaceX generated revenue of $18.67 billion in 2025, up 33% year over year; however, weighed down by heavy investment, net profit swung from $791 million the previous year to a loss of $4.94 billion.

According to Forbes estimates, Musk's current net worth leads Amazon founder Jeff Bezos by more than $628 billion, with the latter's estimated net worth at about $371.5 billion.