Leo Sun, The Motley Fool Thu, November 12, 2026 at 2:35 PM EST 4 min read SPCX +1.39% NVDA -5.82% Explore stocks on Coinbase Trading disclosure Trading disclosure The above button links to Coinbase. Yahoo Finance is not a broker-dealer or investment adviser and does not offer securities or cryptocurrencies for sale or facilitate trading. Coinbase pays us for certain activity generated through this link. Prices displayed are informational.
SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX), the aerospace and AI company founded by Elon Musk, went public at $135 per share on June 12. It initially skyrocketed, but it now trades at about $143.
SpaceX is still growing rapidly, but the Fed's rate hike in September -- its first in three years -- curbed the market's appetite for high-growth, unprofitable companies. But what could a modest $1,000 investment in SpaceX turn into over the next five years?
Missed AI's "Act 1"? Act 2 Could Be 16x Bigger. Most investors think they missed the AI boat because they didn't buy Nvidia in 2005. But according to our analysts, we're only at the end of "Act 1"—the R&D phase. "Act 2" is the global rollout. Continue »
SpaceX operates three core businesses: connectivity (47% of its revenue in the first nine months of 2026), SI (40%), and space (12%). The connectivity segment, which houses Starlink, is its only profitable business by generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP).
Its SI (super intelligence) business houses X, xAI, Grok, Cursor, and its other AI assets. This segment isn't profitable, but its adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) turned positive in the first nine months of 2026. Its space segment, which produces its Falcon and Starship rockets, is still unprofitable by both measures.
Here's how those three core businesses fared over the past year.
For now, SpaceX's core strategy is to keep expanding Starlink's higher-margin business to subsidize the growth of its unprofitable SI and space segments.
For the full year, analysts expect its revenue and adjusted EBITDA to grow 162% and 271%, respectively. They also expect it to turn profitable on a GAAP basis.
Elon Musk claims SpaceX can become the first company to ever generate $1 trillion in annual revenue by 2030. To hit that goal, its revenue would need to grow at a 113% CAGR from 2026 to 2030 as it expands Starlink's reach, ramps up its Starship launches, and beefs up its AI ecosystem with more acquisitions, infrastructure deals, and space-based data centers.
With a market cap of $1.9 trillion, SpaceX might seem expensive at 39 times this year's sales -- but it could be a bargain at less than one times its projected sales of 2030.
If SpaceX can actually generate $1 trillion in revenue in 2030, grow its revenue by another 20% to $1.2 trillion in 2031, and trade at a reasonable 20 times its current-year sales in the final year, its market cap could swell to $24 trillion over the next five years.
But even if SpaceX falls short of those ambitious targets, its stock could still double or triple from its current levels if its massive investments in its rapidly growing satellite, SI, and space businesses pay off. Therefore, a $1,000 investment in SpaceX could easily turn into a few thousand dollars -- or even tens of thousands of dollars -- if the company plays its cards right.
Before you buy stock in Space Exploration Technologies, consider this:
The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Space Exploration Technologies wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years.
Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $348,060!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $1,067,492!*
Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 849% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 210% for the S&P 500. Don't miss the latest top 10 list, available with Stock Advisor, and join an investing community built by individual investors for individual investors.
*Stock Advisor returns as of November 12, 2026.
Leo Sun has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Space Exploration Technologies. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
What a $1,000 Investment in SpaceX Could Be Worth in 5 Years was originally published by The Motley Fool
