SpaceX Stock Faces Split Over AI Valuation

SpaceX stock (SPCX) is under renewed scrutiny after reports showed robust Starlink revenue and rapid AI growth, even as heavy AI capital spending produced steep negative free cash flow and left analysts divided over the strategic implications of the Cursor acquisition.

Starlink Revenue and AI Investment

SpaceX’s Starlink unit generated about $4.3 billion in revenue in Q2 2026 with a 38.6% operating margin. Subscribers reportedly doubled year over year, driving connectivity revenue growth and margin expansion.

The company’s AI segment posted roughly $2.6 billion in revenue in a recent quarter, rising 247% year over year and 213% sequentially. Adjusted EBITDA turned positive at $1.1 billion, but the AI unit still recorded a net operating loss of about $1.3 billion due to infrastructure build-out.

At the company level, free cash flow was negative about $25 billion in the first half of 2026, largely driven by AI investment. Capital spending allocated to AI compute infrastructure totaled approximately $15.8 billion, absorbing roughly 86% of total company capital expenditure in one reported breakdown.

Cursor Acquisition and Valuation Outlook

SpaceX completed its acquisition of Anysphere’s Cursor on August 14, 2026, in a stock-based transaction valued at about $60 billion. The deal was executed via a merger into an entity called X67 Inc., making Cursor a wholly owned subsidiary.

Cursor reportedly generated about $4 billion in annual recurring revenue as of June 2026, with roughly 75% coming from business customers. The product serves more than 50,000 businesses and is used by nearly two-thirds of the Fortune 500.

JPMorgan reiterated an Overweight rating and a $240 price target for SpaceX. Analyst Doug Anmuth’s model starts from a projected 2028 profit per share of about $7.02 and applies a mid-30s earnings multiple (around 34x). The firm cited Cursor integration, visible improvements in the Grok AI model, and a fast model-release cadence as key drivers.

SpaceX’s Grok AI roadmap includes the August 2026 launch of Grok 4.6, designed for complex, multi-step enterprise tasks such as research, data analysis, software development, and application creation. Prior versions like Grok 4.5 reportedly tripled token consumption, and initial cloud service agreements contributed about $1.6 billion of incremental AI infrastructure revenue in a recent quarter. JPMorgan expects an intermediate Grok 4.7 as early as September 2026 and Grok 5 by December 2026. The company is also developing Grok Bot, a beta autonomous agent product aimed at executing tasks inside enterprise applications.

Beyond AI and software, SpaceX plans to invest up to $100 billion in a Starship launch and spaceport facility in Louisiana to increase launch frequency and support large-scale satellite deployments. The roadmap includes orbital data centers and AI-optimized compute in space developed with NVIDIA technology, with a first orbital AI mission targeted around 2027 and a long-term goal of roughly 75 gigawatts of orbital compute capacity by 2031. Analysts note the combination of rockets, Starlink broadband, and AI as a differentiated, multi-segment platform if these elements come together.

Valuation views remain sharply divided. The shares have pulled back about 39% from their peak but still trade at elevated multiples. Some analyses warn that SpaceX could more than double revenue over the next two years yet see its share price decline by 2028 under multiple-compression scenarios. Skeptical observers point to the company’s cash shortfall and question paying implied equity valuations of $1.8 trillion or higher for a business absorbing heavy AI investment.