Bernstein says Space Exploration Technologies Corp.‘s (NASDAQ:SPCX) long-term artificial-intelligence (AI) upside depends on solving one of rocketry’s hardest problems, namely, making Starship fully and rapidly reusable, which the firm says is necessary for orbital AI infrastructure at scale.
Starship Reusability Anchors SpaceX’s AI Valuation
"So this path toward full reusability, that is absolutely central to the AI play here long term, and to the kinds of valuations that we’re seeing right now, and that we expect," Bernstein analyst Douglas Harned told CNBC on Monday.
Bernstein forecasts roughly $600 billion in SpaceX revenue by 2031, below Elon Musk’s projection that SpaceX could generate $1 trillion in revenue by 2030. Its model assumes about 3,500 Starship launches in 2031. "So what you need to see is the success of reuse of Starship. We haven’t seen it yet," Harned said. Reuters confirmed Musk’s $1 trillion target in June.
SpaceX’s own filings make a similar case. The company warned that AI compute satellites at scale need full Starship reusability to become economically compelling and that slower turnaround could raise costs and delay deployments.
Reuters said the acquisition could give xAI a stronger foothold in AI coding, while Cursor’s access to developers’ coding requests and design decisions could help improve AI models such as Grok. Reuters reported SpaceX has spent more than $15 billion developing Starship, which remains central to orbital AI data centers. Musk has previously called achieving fully reusable rockets a "crazy hard problem."
Orbital AI Plans Raise Launch Stakes
SpaceX aims to begin orbital AI compute demonstrations by late 2027, ahead of possible deployments in 2028. SpaceX Vice President Stephanie Bednarek recently said Starship could "make that a reality" by carrying the mass needed for large orbital platforms.
Grok And Cursor Add Software Upside
Harned said SpaceX’s software business could add upside Bernstein has not modeled. "For us, it’s a little bit of a wildcard," he said, pointing to Grok and the Cursor deal. "You may be able to see a more attractive intelligence product as well, which is not something we’ve incorporated, but could provide some more upside here."
SpaceX completed its $60 billion acquisition of Cursor parent Anysphere this month after announcing the all-stock deal in June. Reuters said the acquisition could give xAI a stronger foothold in AI coding, while Cursor’s access to developers’ coding requests and design decisions could help improve AI models such as Grok. Cursor serves more than 50,000 enterprises, including 64% of the Fortune 500.
Benzinga Edge Stock Rankings indicate that SpaceX stock offers a positive price trend across the Short, Medium and Long term.
Price Action: SpaceX shares were trading 2.38% lower at $142.75 in pre-market trading on Tuesday.
Photo courtesy: Samuel Boivin / Shutterstock.com
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