Business

Goldman Sachs projects staggering SpaceX growth by 2030

By Damilola Esebame TheStreet

Updated June 20, 2026 2:08 AM

Goldman Sachs wants investors to view SpaceX, which went public on June 12, as both a rocket company and an AI infrastructure business that could become Earth's largest within five years.

The bank, which served as the lead underwriter for the initial public offering, has laid out revenue projections that have drawn skepticism from multiple equity analysts, including Morningstar's Nicolas Owens and Prof G Markets co-host Ed Elson

Goldman forecasts that SpaceX will generate $474 billion in total revenue by 2030, up from $18.7 billion in 2025, a trajectory that would place it above most of the largest technology companies operating today.

For retail investors who bought into SpaceX believing they were buying a launch company, the Goldman projection reframes what this stock represents.

Goldman's AI forecast towers over Big Tech revenue benchmarks

The AI division Goldman is projecting is the former xAI, which SpaceX acquired in February 2026 for a reported valuation of $250 billion, CNBC reported.

xAI generated $3.2 billion in revenue but a $6.4 billion net loss in 2025, according to SpaceX's S-1 filing.

Goldman projects the AI unit will generate $15.6 billion in 2026 and $34.5 billion in 2027, the Financial Times reported. It could then accelerate rapidly, reaching $322 billion in annual revenue by the end of the decade.

That growth trajectory, if realized, would place SpaceX's AI division ahead of Amazon Web Services's current annual revenue, though it would still trail Nvidia's most recent annual revenue of approximately $216 billion.

SpaceX has disclosed plans to spend $350 billion in total capital expenditures between now and 2030, the majority of it tied to AI infrastructure, including data centers, satellite compute capacity, and the Terafab chip manufacturing facility.

Goldman also projects that SpaceX's earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization, or EBITDA, will rise from $6.6 billion in 2025 to $352 billion by 2030, primarily driven by the AI division, Yahoo Finance reported.

How SpaceX is building an AI infrastructure stack from orbit down

Anthropic signed a $1.25 billion monthly deal through May 2029 to rent compute capacity at SpaceX's Colossus 1 data center near Memphis, Tennessee, according to TechCrunch.

Alphabet signed a separate $920 million-per-month agreement covering approximately 110,000 Nvidia GPUs and related hardware from October 2026 through June 2029, TechCrunch reported.

In orbit, SpaceX has disclosed plans for the AI1 satellite, the first in a planned network of orbital compute nodes.

Musk has said the satellite uses an interchangeable compute payload that accepts processors from multiple chipmakers, with a peak power draw of about 150 kilowatts.

The second pillar is orbital data centers, which involve building space-based servers that could harness continuous solar power and entirely avoid traditional cooling constraints.

More SpaceX:

They could also support global compute demand, including autonomous systems needing low-latency coverage beyond fiber networks.

The third pillar is Terafab, a chip foundry planned for Austin, Texas, originally launched as a joint venture between Tesla, SpaceX, and xAI in March 2026, with Intel joining in April 2026 as the chip manufacturing partner.

SpaceX has said the facility will use Intel's 14A process technology, and Elon Musk has announced a goal of producing one terawatt of computing capacity per year.

SpaceX acknowledged in its S-1 filing that it will remain dependent on third-party chip suppliers even after Terafab is operating.

"While Terafab is intended to expand our internal chip manufacturing capabilities, we expect to continue sourcing a significant portion of our compute hardware from third-party suppliers," SpaceX said in its S-1 filing.

SpaceX is building a full AI infrastructure stack spanning satellites, orbital data centers, and a Texas chip foundry ecosystem strategy.

PATRICK T. FALLON/Getty Images

SpaceX's non-AI businesses still carry substantial revenue weight

The Goldman projection also accounts for SpaceX's existing revenue base, not just future expansion.

It notes Starlink accounted for 61% of SpaceX's 2025 revenue and could reach $144 billion by 2030. That alone would represent one of the largest broadband businesses on Earth, Yahoo Finance reported.

Ed Elson, a tech analyst and co-host of the Prof G Markets podcast, reviewed SpaceX's full 277-page S-1 filing ahead of the June IPO and concluded that the financial picture within it could not support the valuation that Goldman was pitching.

The stock is set to be priced at 107 times sales, which would make it one of the most expensive stocks in history. It will be twice as valuable [as] Walmart while generating less revenue than Macy's

The rocket business, which accounted for 22% of 2025 revenue through launch contracts with government and commercial clients, is projected to grow to $8.3 billion in 2030, Yahoo Finance reported.

Taken together, the AI division is expected to carry roughly 68% of total revenue by 2030, meaning investors in SpaceX are effectively making a primary bet on artificial intelligence, not aerospace.

What the Goldman projection means for investors holding SpaceX stock

SpaceX debuted on Nasdaq on June 12 at $135 per share, opening higher at $150. It peaked at $176.52 intraday and reached approximately $2.4 trillion before closing at $161.11, CNN reported.

Elon Musk holds approximately 42% of SpaceX's equity but controls 82.4% of voting power after the offering through the dual-class share structure, according to the S-1/A filing, concentrating strategic decision-making in a single individual.

Goldman expects the AI segment to rise 388% to $15.6 billion in 2026, compared with the prior year, which would provide a meaningful signal that the Goldman growth curve is on track.

The structure of SpaceX's revenue base will also become more visible on a quarterly basis, now that the company is publicly traded.

Alphabet, holding over a 6% stake in SpaceX before the IPO, also spends $920 million monthly on compute capacity. It will now disclose its SpaceX holdings in earnings reports, signaling deeper visibility into the AI division's commercial momentum.

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This story was originally published June 20, 2026 at 2:03 AM.