SpaceX (SPCX) stock slid for two straight sessions before Thursday’s close, dropping from a post-IPO high of $225.64 to $185.00. Then a top Wall Street analyst made one of the boldest calls yet on the stock.
Arete Research initiated coverage of SpaceX on June 18 with a Buy rating and a price target of $401 a share.
That’s the highest number any analyst has put on the stock since it went public.
Arete analyst Andrew Beale isn’t betting on rockets, at least not directly. Beale, a senior analyst at the firm, has been analyzing telecom and cable stocks since the 1990s.
What makes his call particularly intriguing is that he’s betting on a satellite SpaceX hasn’t even launched yet.
Arete’s Andrew Beale tops Wall Street with a $401 SpaceX call
The $401 target implies roughly 117% upside from Thursday’s closing price of $185.
At that level, SpaceX would carry a market valuation near $5.3 trillion, or about 80 times the company’s projected 2027 sales, Finbold reports.
Beale’s research note described SpaceX as breaking “hard engineering challenges into stepwise tasks” while building hardware and software across three businesses at once:
- rockets,
- satellite internet,
- and artificial intelligence.
In plain terms, Beale thinks SpaceX wins by solving one hard problem at a time, not by betting everything on a single breakthrough.
His specific catalyst is Starlink V3, the next generation of SpaceX’s satellites.
Beale argues V3 could unlock a sizable opportunity in suburban broadband, where home internet options are often limited, by delivering faster speeds and more capacity than today’s fleet.
Why the suburban broadband bet still depends on a rocket that hasn’t flown commercially
There’s a catch:
Starlink V3 satellites are too large for SpaceX’s workhorse Falcon 9.
They need Starship, the reusable heavy-lift vehicle SpaceX has tested for years but hasn’t yet flown a fully operational commercial mission, Parameter reports.
That makes Beale’s $401 target a bet on execution timing as much as demand.
That means two separate things have to go right for the $401 target to hold up:
- SpaceX has to actually get Starship built and flying on schedule, and
- Once Starlink V3 satellites are in orbit, suburban customers have to sign up in the numbers Beale is projecting.
If either falls short, the case weakens.
What SpaceX’s own numbers say about which business is actually carrying the company
SpaceX’s regulatory filings split the company into three segments: Space, Connectivity, and AI, according to its registration statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Connectivity, which houses Starlink, is the only one consistently turning a profit.
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In 2025, Connectivity generated $11.39 billion in revenue and $4.42 billion in operating income, up nearly 50% and 120% year over year.
The AI segment, which absorbed Musk’s xAI in February 2026, lost $6.36 billion on just $3.2 billion in revenue over the same period.
This matters for Beale’s thesis, as his bull case leans almost entirely on Starlink scaling further, not on the AI business turning a profit anytime soon.
Where the rest of Wall Street disagrees
Arete isn’t the only firm with skin in the game.
CFRA analyst Keith Snyder carries a Sell rating and a $115 price target, the lowest on the Street, arguing SpaceX already trades on outsized growth assumptions.
Related: SpaceX president reveals what investors should be watching
Oppenheimer’s Timothy Horan sits in between.
He raised his target to $250 on June 18, the same day as Arete’s call, after calling SpaceX “the only vertically integrated AI company” with the capital and talent to compete at scale.
That $115-to-$401 spread, with other firms scattered in between, shows how unsettled the market still is on SpaceX’s worth less than two weeks after its IPO.
Four catalysts that need to go right for the $401 case to hold up
Beale’s target assumes that a lot of things will break SpaceX’s way before 2027. The catalysts worth tracking include:
- Starship reaching full operational status so V3 satellites can actually launch.
- Starlink subscriber growth holding near the roughly 50% pace it posted in 2025.
- The AI segment’s losses narrowing instead of widening further.
- Insiders selling gradually rather than dumping shares all at once immediately their lock-up restrictions lift.
What this means for investors before SpaceX’s first earnings report
SpaceX’s first earnings release as a public company lands on August 11, a date that carries extra weight since it triggers insider selling rights, Jay Woods, chief market strategist at Freedom Capital Markets, told Finbold.
20% of insiders can sell that day, with another 10% unlocking if shares hold 30% above the $135 IPO price for five to ten straight sessions.
SPCX is still up about 14% over the past five trading days despite two losing sessions, while the S&P 500 gained roughly 1% over the same stretch.
Treat Beale’s $401 target as a long-term thesis that only pays off once Starship is flying commercially and launching V3 satellites on schedule.
