Key Takeaways
- Elon Musk believes SpaceX will generate $3.5 trillion in yearly revenue by 2033, powered primarily by AI.
- This projection represents 35x growth from the company’s anticipated 2027 revenue of $100 billion.
- Morgan Stanley forecasts the same $3.5 trillion figure but pushes the timeline to 2040, seven years beyond Musk’s prediction.
- Analyst consensus points to SpaceX generating $416 billion by 2030, significantly below Musk’s timeline.
- SPCX stock gained 0.9% Thursday before slipping 0.2% in premarket trading Friday to $140.61.
Elon Musk is known for ambitious forecasts, and his latest prediction doesn’t disappoint. The SpaceX CEO publicly stated Thursday that the aerospace company could achieve $3.5 trillion in yearly revenue by 2033.
SPCX stock hovered at $140.61 during premarket hours Friday, showing a 0.2% decline after Thursday’s 0.9% gain. The shares remain marginally above the $135 IPO price from June.
Space Exploration Technologies Corp., SPCX
Musk’s statement emerged following a post by X user DogeDesigner, who highlighted a Morgan Stanley research note describing SpaceX as “attractively valued.” The note suggested investors continue to undervalue Starship’s potential. Interestingly, Morgan Stanley’s own $3.5 trillion projection targets 2040 rather than 2033.
Mach 33 CEO Aaron Burnett noted the discrepancy, observing that Morgan Stanley’s forecast “is based on a figure nearly half the company’s stated objective and arrives 10 years beyond the company’s intended timeline.”
Musk entered the conversation directly. “My best guess for ~$3.5T revenue is roughly around 2033 fwiw,” he stated. Achieving this would require maintaining an 80% compound annual growth rate from the projected $100 billion in 2027 sales.
Analyst Projections Fall Short
Traditional Wall Street estimates paint a considerably different picture. Financial analysts anticipate SpaceX will achieve $175 billion in 2028, followed by $281 billion in 2029, and $416 billion in 2030. Extrapolating from these figures makes Musk’s $3.5 trillion target by 2033 appear extremely optimistic.
To put this in perspective, no American corporation has ever recorded $1 trillion in annual revenue. Wall Street’s earliest prediction for reaching this milestone belongs to Amazon, expected to cross it in 2028.
Morgan Stanley’s Adam Jonas, who maintains a Buy rating on SPCX with a $300 price target, estimates that $2.6 trillion of SpaceX’s 2040 revenue will stem from AI-related services.
Artificial Intelligence Fuels Growth Strategy
Artificial intelligence sits at the core of Musk’s expansion strategy. While the timeline may be aggressive, broader AI spending trends do validate substantial growth potential.
Nvidia recently forecast 70% growth for calendar year 2027, exceeding Wall Street’s 45% consensus. Alphabet’s cloud division posted 82% year-over-year growth in Q2, while its cloud services backlog reached $514 billion, representing nearly 400% annual growth.
SpaceX has set a goal of conducting 10,000 Starship launches annually by 2030, supported by President Trump’s new space initiative encouraging accelerated NASA launch schedules. Construction on a new launch complex, Starbase Louisiana, is scheduled to commence in 2027, with the inaugural Starship launch planned for 2029.
Musk recently announced that Starship’s forthcoming Flight Test 14 will include an attempt to catch the rocket’s upper stage.
SPCX declined 0.27% to $140.49 in overnight trading Thursday and dipped another 0.2% to $140.61 in premarket Friday, tracking alongside S&P 500 futures which were down 0.1%.
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