SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk speaks via video at the Nasdaq MarketSite in Times Square on June 12, 2026.© Spencer Platt/Getty Images

This has been valuation week for SpaceX, with more than a dozen analysts writing initial research following the company’s record-setting June IPO.

Investors have had a lot of estimates, price targets, bull cases, and bear cases to digest. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk also has a thought about SpaceX’s potential: It will be worth more than Earth.

“You don’t seem to understand that SpaceX will be worth more than the rest of Earth if we accomplish our goals,” wrote Musk in a post on X on Thursday afternoon. He was responding to a comment about AI costs.

That might be his most optimistic projection ever, and he’s had a few. In 2022, he said that Tesla could be worth more than Apple and Saudi Aramco combined. That pair was worth about $4.4 trillion at the time. (Tesla is worth about $1.8 trillion today, based on fully diluted shares outstanding.)

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To be sure, SpaceX operates in space, giving it an edge in growing its AI and communications businesses. Musk is fond of talking about the Kardashev Scale, a framework for evaluating civilizations proposed in the 1960s by Soviet astronomer Nikolai Kardashev.

The scale is about energy use. A level I civilization harnesses the energy on its planet. A level II civilization harnesses the power of its sun. And a Level III civilization harnesses the power of its galaxy. Musk’s ambition is to harness the power of the sun, which, of course, is much larger than the Earth.

As for the non-planetary valuations, Raymond James has the highest price target for SpaceX at $800 per share. Citi’s bull case for the stock is $900 per share, valuing SpaceX at about $12 trillion.

Those estimates, obviously, assume everything goes well for SpaceX, including the development of Starship, SpaceX’s huge, fully reusable rocket that will drive down costs to reach orbit. Morgan Stanley has a $300 price target for SpaceX and a $600 bull case. Its bear case is $75 and assumes Starship isn’t operational until 2029.

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The numbers are all over the place. The average analyst price target is about $240, according to FactSet.

SpaceX stock was down 1.5% in premarket trading on Friday at $149.96, while S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average futures were flat and up 0.2%, respectively.

As for estimates, Wall Street sees more than $630 billion in sales by 2031, up from about $39 billion expected for 2026. Operating income is expected to top $340 billion by 2031, up from about $1 billion in 2026.

That’s a lot of growth. Wall Street doesn’t project free cash flow, though. Analysts project SpaceX will need about $150 billion in extra financing between 2026 and 2031 to build out its orbital AI business.

The numbers swirling around SpaceX are mind-bogglingly large. Maybe planetary comparisons are appropriate.

Stocks in the space sector deepened their declines on Thursday as the SpaceX halo fades further.

At least four space stocks — the space-exploration firm Virgin Galactic satellite firm Redwire space-infrastructure firm Intuitive Machines and the in-space transit company Momentus — have recorded 50% drops so far in June, based on FactSet data. Several others, including Planet Labs and Firefly Aerospace are down 40% or more for the month as of Thursday afternoon.

Even Rocket Lab which has seen a smattering of good news lately, has been affected by the broader space-sector pressure. Shares fell 5.5% on Thursday, contributing to a 44% decline so far in June.

SpaceX’s public launch on June 12 may have increased interest in the space industry, but it also highlighted the steep valuations associated with some space companies, according to CFRA analyst Keith Snyder. Adding to the volatility for the newly public company, SpaceX shares were down about 1% on Thursday, trading at about $153 a share, slightly above their debut price on the Nasdaq.

The analyst, who is bullish on Rocket Lab, noted that at one point the company’s shares were trading at about 100 times revenue. That kind of “insane” valuation, in Snyder’s view, used to be unheard of. It was a large part of the reason he ended up rating SpaceX’s stock a sell.

“I think there’s a little bit of kind of coming to terms with that in the space sector,” Snyder told MarketWatch. “While the growth is there, I think people are starting to realize it’s going to take more time than we thought for this industry to really take off,” and thereby to make some of these valuations justifiable.

The downturn has also slammed funds following the space industry. The Tuttle Capital Space Industry Income Blast exchange-traded fund is the worst performer, down 47% on a month-to-date basis, per FactSet data. At least five other sector ETFs have dropped at least 30% in June.

The Procure Space ETF is having its worst month in six years. The ETF is down by about 30% month to date, putting it on track to end June with a greater loss than it recorded in March 2020, when it fell 28.8% as the COVID-19 pandemic began, according to Dow Jones Market Data.

“All space ETFs are feeling the ‘investment coma’ from the pre-launch fear of missing out on SpaceX to the reality now of owning a very volatile space stock,” Micah Walter-Range, president of space consulting firm Caelus Partners and a contributor to the index behind UFO, said in an emailed statement on Wednesday.

Read: Rocket Lab, Lockheed Martin among the partners in SpaceX’s military space-laser project

In the future, the sector outlook could look brighter, according to experts. However, that will likely take some time, especially as SpaceX’s stock is expected to demonstrate considerable volatility for weeks to come as insiders exit lockup periods and become able to sell their shares.

Related video: Elon Musk celebrates SpaceX IPO, jokes about early low odds of success (Fox Business)

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And let me tell you, if people had told me

“Post [SpaceX] IPO-related volatility, we see compelling opportunities across the rapidly growing space sector,” KeyBanc analyst Michael Leshock said in a note to clients this month as he lifted his ratings on Rocket Lab and Firefly to overweight.

Leshock and others point to the growing activity stemming from NASA, which is expected to lean heavily on commercial partners for missions to the moon and other tasks. National security also remains a major opportunity for much of the sector.

“There is a significant push by the U.S. government to advance its capabilities in space,” Leshock said. “This is not optional, it is mandatory for the U.S. to maintain a leadership position in space.”