Wedbush Initiates Coverage on SpaceX: $190 Price Target, Starship Is the Key
Taylor Wilson
Wedbush analyst Dan Ives initiated coverage of SpaceX with a Buy rating and a $190 price target, implying over 11% upside from Tuesday's close. What this tells us → Wall Street is now valuing SpaceX as an integrated tech conglomerate, not just a rocket company.
Where does the $190 target come from?
Ives frames SpaceX as a "vertically integrated" tech group spanning three businesses: rocket launch, Starlink broadband, and compute infrastructure.
This means → he is not pricing a launch company — he is pricing an entire chain from rockets to internet to computing power.
The 12-month target is $190, rated Buy; at the time of the report SpaceX traded at roughly $163, down about 5% on the day.
Why is everyone watching Starship?
Starship is SpaceX's super-heavy rocket, still in the testing phase as of May 2025.
In plain terms = whether Starship can be reused reliably determines three things: how far per-launch costs can fall, how many Starlink satellites each flight can carry, and how fast the high-margin broadband business can grow.
Wolfe Research analyst Myles Walton shares the view, calling Starship reusability "the single most important value-unlock factor" — while also modeling the risk scenario in which Starship fails.
How dominant is SpaceX right now?
Georgetown University data shows SpaceX handles five out of every six U.S. launches.
The World Economic Forum puts its private launch market share at 82%.
This reflects a near-monopoly in commercial launch — the foundation for a premium valuation, but also a signal that share gains from here are limited.
Losing $5 billion on a $2.3 trillion valuation — how does the math work?
SpaceX posted a $5 billion net loss in 2025; its current market cap is roughly $2.3 trillion.
The company listed on June 12 at $135 per share, opened at $150, peaked at $225.64, then pulled back to a low of $147.11 on June 23.
In plain terms = the market is pricing in enormous long-term expectations, but wide price swings show investors are deeply divided on whether Starship can deliver — the $190 target is fundamentally a bet that reusable rockets move from testing to commercial scale.
Content is for reference only, not financial advice.