Musk Predicts SpaceX 2033 Revenue of $3.5 Trillion, Seven Years Ahead of Wall Street Expectations

TradingKey - On August 27 ET, Elon Musk stated in response to a Morgan Stanley (MS) research report on platform X that SpaceX's (SPCX) annual revenue is expected to reach $3.5 trillion around 2033, which is Musk's most optimistic assessment. This timeline is seven years ahead of Morgan Stanley's 2040 projection.

[Source: X]

This target is even more aggressive than Musk's prediction a few days ago of "revenue surpassing $1 trillion by 2030." Taking $18.67 billion in 2025 as the base figure, reaching $3.5 trillion in 2033 represents a nearly 187-fold increase over eight years, requiring a compound annual growth rate of around 92%.

Providing the capacity foundation for this goal is SpaceX's newly announced $100 billion-level investment plan.

On August 25, the company announced that it will invest $100 billion in Louisiana to build a "Starbase," with the project expected to break ground in 2027 and achieve its first Starship launch as early as 2029.

Morgan Stanley noted in a subsequent report that this plan implies launch frequencies will far exceed its original expectations, maintaining an "Overweight" rating with a mid-2027 price target of $300.

From a fundamental perspective, SpaceX's business structure is undergoing changes. Consolidated revenue for the full year 2025 was $18.67 billion, with a net loss of $4.9 billion.

Starlink contributed approximately $11.4 billion in revenue and $4.4 billion in operating profit, serving as its primary revenue source; the space business suffered operating losses weighed down by Starship R&D, with cumulative R&D investment in Starship exceeding $8 billion over the years, including about $3 billion in 2025 alone; the AI business also failed to achieve profitability.

Although its AI business is currently operating at a loss, SpaceX claimed in its IPO S-1 filing that its addressable total addressable market (TAM) reaches as high as $28.5 trillion, covering $26.5 trillion in AI-related markets, $1.6 trillion in connectivity services, and $370 billion in space solutions. Among them, the AI-related market is broken down into $22.7 trillion for enterprise applications (including $11.2 trillion for enterprise AI applications) and $2.4 trillion for AI infrastructure.

These figures have raised skepticism among some analysts, with views suggesting that its underlying assumptions are "overly optimistic." NYU valuation expert Aswath Damodaran also criticized the TAM for pushing the AI portion into "fantasy land," while offering his own TAM estimate of around $3 trillion to $4 trillion.

Notably, although Morgan Stanley set a mid-2027 price target of $300, representing nearly a twofold upside from current stock prices, retail investors do not seem to be buying it.

On Stocktwits, retail sentiment on SPCX stock remained "bearish" over the past 24 hours. SpaceX's stock closed at around $140.87 on Thursday, above its IPO price of $135 but well below its all-time intraday high of $225.

[Source: Stocktwits]