Seven Years Ahead of Wall Street’s Bullishest Forecast! Elon Musk Personally “Corrects” Morgan Stanley: SpaceX (SPCX.US) Will Achieve $3.5 Trillion Annual Revenue by 2033

According to Zhitong Finance APP, after Morgan Stanley made a high-profile bullish call on SpaceX (SPCX.US), Elon Musk personally responded recently, providing a timeline even more aggressive than Wall Street’s. Musk stated on the social media platform X that SpaceX could reach approximately $3.5 trillion in annual revenue around 2033, about seven years earlier than Morgan Stanley’s projection of 2040.

It is understood that Morgan Stanley recently reiterated its “Overweight” rating and $300 target price on SpaceX shares, forecasting the company’s revenue to hit $3.5 trillion by 2040. The firm’s star analyst Adam Jonas believes investors have yet to fully grasp SpaceX’s ambitious plans centered around the Starship rocket and the new launch base in Louisiana. He notes the current share price is near IPO levels, offering a “unique opportunity.”

“Investors are unaware of the scale of SpaceX’s Starship plans”

The catalyst for this event was a Morgan Stanley investor report. Jonas wrote in a report released on Wednesday: “We do not believe investors fully appreciate the scale of SpaceX’s plans for Starship.” This report followed SpaceX’s disclosure that it would spend $100 billion to build a new “Starbase” in Louisiana.

As disclosed, SpaceX plans to build a new Starship launch base in Vermilion Parish, Louisiana. Construction is expected to start in 2027, with the first Starship launch in 2029. According to the plan, the base will ultimately have 15 launch pads, far more than the 3 pads SpaceX currently operates; by the end of 2027, another 3 pads are expected to be fully operational.

Jonas believes that the scale of this expansion itself shows the market has not adequately priced in SpaceX’s launch cadence. Morgan Stanley’s model conservatively assumes only 2 launches per day per pad. At this pace, by 2040, SpaceX would conduct about 5,800 Starship launches per year, requiring just 8 launch pads—less than the planned 15. In other words, even if the Louisiana base is not fully completed, SpaceX would still be able to achieve Morgan Stanley’s 2040 launch forecast.

Jonas also specifically pointed out that Louisiana’s geographic location has unique advantages. The base allows rockets to launch southward over the Gulf of Mexico, avoiding densely populated areas as they would when launching from Florida, Texas, or California. This enables SpaceX to expand into “dawn-to-dusk sun-sync polar orbit” launch capabilities, where, as Jonas notes, “the orbits are directly relevant to orbital calculations.” In his view, this is part of SpaceX’s long-term story of combining space launches, Starlink communication, and AI computing power.

Musk responds to Morgan Stanley: My best guess is 2033

On X, user “DogeDesigner” quickly shared one of Morgan Stanley’s reports, highlighting SpaceX’s “attractive valuation” and stating that investors underestimate Starship’s scale potential.

Aaron Burnett, CEO of investment firm Mach 33, then reposted and commented, pointing out that Morgan Stanley’s estimate “is almost only half of the company’s public target, and its timeframe is a decade later than the company’s own goals.”

This comment also drew a direct response from Musk himself. He wrote: “My best guess for reaching about $3.5 trillion in revenue is around 2033.”

This means Musk expects SpaceX to reach the $3.5 trillion revenue mark seven years earlier than Morgan Stanley predicts. Notably, Musk has previously publicly forecast that SpaceX would achieve $1 trillion in revenue by 2030.

Musk’s response further highlights the gap between SpaceX’s internal goals and Wall Street models. According to SpaceX’s own plans, the company even aims for 10,000 Starship launches per year by 2030. This goal is partly driven by former U.S. President Trump’s new space policy, which seeks to increase NASA’s launch frequency.

From Starship to K3 Civilization: Musk’s broader narrative

Besides the direct revenue projections, Musk has drawn an even larger vision around the Louisiana Starbase project. He stated that the base would allow Tesla (TSLA.US)’s Optimus humanoid robot to become the world's first “Von Neumann machine.” In Musk’s narrative, the development and launch infrastructure driven by SpaceX’s Starship projects will help “civilization expand across the Milky Way and achieve K3 status.”

The “Von Neumann machine” typically refers to self-replicating systems; Musk associates this with the Optimus robot and the mass launch capability of Starship, implying that humanity could use Starship to deliver manufacturing capabilities into space, achieving extraterrestrial self-replication and expansion. K3 refers to a Type III civilization on the Kardashev scale—one capable of harnessing the energy output of an entire galaxy. This continues Musk’s established narrative of positioning SpaceX as the driver for “making humanity a multiplanetary species” and even an “interstellar civilization.”

From the perspective of short-term launch cadence, SpaceX is indeed rapidly advancing Starship testing. Musk revealed that the upcoming 14th Starship flight test will attempt to catch the upper stage of the rocket. If successful, this would be another key breakthrough in reusable rocket technology, following booster recovery.

Share price remains below highs, clear bull-bear divide

Morgan Stanley has set a target price of $300 for SpaceX; calculated at Thursday’s closing price, this suggests about 114% upside. Jonas believes that, based on the firm’s forecast for fiscal year 2028, SpaceX trades at only 10 times sales (implying 70% growth) and 25 times EBITDA (implying 113% growth).

“We believe investors have a unique opportunity to ‘re-rate’ SPCX shares near IPO prices, with potentially even stronger fundamental momentum in space, connectivity, and enterprise AI,” Jonas wrote.

Since its public listing, SpaceX shares have struggled. The stock’s market cap exceeded $1 trillion on its first trading day, but has since pulled back from its highs and is now near its IPO price. After the recent Q2 financial results, the share price came under further pressure due to raised capital expenditure guidance.

However, Jonas stated that Morgan Stanley’s outlook for SpaceX actually improved significantly after the financial report, as investors gained more insight into the impact of lockup expirations—an issue that, contrary to some fears, has not resulted in sustained selling pressure.

Jonas previously argued that SpaceX is a “potential generational compounding growth stock.” In his $300 target price, more than half is attributed to the company’s AI ambitions through its merger with xAI, with the remainder coming from its launch services and Starlink satellite internet business.

However, not everyone in the market shares this optimistic view. Hedge fund billionaire David Einhorn recently expressed a bearish outlook on SpaceX in a letter to investors, believing that Musk’s rocket and AI company is overvalued.