SpaceX (SPCX) stock closed at $145.47 on Monday, down 3% for the day, after the company's Starship rocket reached orbit for the first time. Shares of Space Exploration Technologies Corp. climbed as high as $150.80 shortly after liftoff, but the gains reversed by late morning and the stock drifted lower into the close.

The 14th test flight marked a milestone for the reusable rocket program and also deployed 26 new Version 3 Starlink satellites into orbit. Starship's earlier flights never reached orbital speed. This time, the vehicle stayed up long enough to release its full satellite payload. Orbital speed is the threshold that separates a suborbital test vehicle from a working delivery system, and Monday's flight was the first time Starship demonstrated that end to end.

One of the upper stage engines failed during launch. SpaceX pressed on toward orbit anyway, though the mission ended up shorter than planned.

Why the Stock Dipped Despite the Milestone

Wall Street had already priced in a strong outcome for the test, and the shortened mission gave some investors a reason to book profits. The S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average each fell about 1% the same day, and SpaceX stock underperformed both benchmarks.

SpaceX still conducts most of the world's rocket launches. The company launched its Falcon 9 rocket 165 times in 2025 and expects a similar pace this year. CEO Elon Musk said on social media that hourly Starship flights are two to three years away. A launch cadence at that pace would give SpaceX a cost edge over ground-based data centers.

Wall Street's Growing AI Bet on SpaceX

TD Cowen initiated coverage of SpaceX stock on Monday with a buy rating and a $200 price target, pointing to the company's terrestrial AI compute leasing business as its fastest-growing revenue stream. Google and Anthropic are already customers of that business. TD Cowen expects AI compute leasing to account for most of SpaceX's revenue by the first quarter of 2027. The framing shows how far the bull case has moved beyond launch: brokers are valuing SpaceX as an infrastructure provider for the AI buildout, not only as a rocket company.

SpaceX generated $23 billion in revenue over the past twelve months, and analysts are forecasting 144% revenue growth for the 2026 fiscal year.

TD Cowen is not alone in its optimism. CLSA also began coverage on Monday with a buy rating and a $250 price target. Bernstein SocGen projects Starlink's broadband business will reach roughly $64 billion in revenue by 2031. Mizuho reaffirmed its outperform rating, citing SpaceX's pricing power, while William Blair and Clear Street also remained positive following the Starship launch.

SpaceX stock carries one of the highest buy-rating ratios on Wall Street. Roughly 76% of analysts covering shares rate them a buy, compared with 55% to 60% for a typical S&P 500 company. The average analyst price target stands near $224, well above Monday's closing price. What to watch from here is already on the record: whether Starship's test program moves toward the hourly flight cadence Musk described, whether Falcon 9 holds its expected launch pace through the year, and whether AI compute leasing tracks toward TD Cowen's first-quarter 2027 milestone.

This article was originally published on CoinCentral.