Morgan Stanley ties its $300 SpaceX target to Starship Flight 15 and late-October earnings

The note's title put SpaceX at $159 ^[4]. Monday's close of $171.09 is 7.6% above that ^[16]. At $159 the $300 target implied about 89% upside ^[17]. At Monday's close it implies about 75% ^[18]. The target stayed where it was, so the upside Jonas advertised shrank by roughly 13 points in one session ^[19].

Jonas put a deadline on it. "We think that over the next few weeks (ahead of Starship Flight 15), investors can take advantage of a unique opportunity to buy shares that look unusually cheap," he said ^[5]. The catalyst the analysts rank highest depends on SpaceX choosing to try it. Should SpaceX attempt to catch the upper stage on that flight, they wrote, it could be "the biggest positive catalyst since the IPO" ^[9]. Upper stages have so far splashed down in the ocean and have not been proven reusable ^[10].

Third-quarter results, expected in late October, are the other date ^[3]. Yahoo Finance's reporter takes the note to be a sum-of-the-parts valuation in which investors fully value the space and connectivity units but not the AI business ^[7]. CNBC calls the revenue SpaceX earns renting capacity to Google and Anthropic hefty ^[12]. The report does not put a number on it. Jonas wants that business judged on neocloud contracts "showing continued pricing around $30-50/watt" ^[6]. He also said how hard that price is to forecast: "Fewer still can say where compute pricing is heading as agentic token demand grows" ^[8].

If SpaceX attempts the catch and lands it, the note gets the event it ranked highest ^[9]. A Flight 15 that skips the attempt, or fails it, ends Jonas's few-week window without that catalyst ^[5]. October results showing compute contracts priced outside $30 to $50 a watt would leave the AI business at the discount Yahoo's reporter describes ^[7].

In my view the stock has already priced in part of that calendar. Working back from Monday's close and the climb since early August, the bottom was roughly $108 ^[20]. That was about 46% below the June 16 record close ^[21]. Retaking the record needs another 18% ^[23]. I'd expect the Flight 15 result to move the price more than the $300 figure does over the next few weeks. Jonas's ownership point argues the other way. According to Yahoo Finance, he says barely any of the clients at his presentations own the stock ^[15], and buyers who arrive to fix that do not need a ship catch. If the shares hold above $171 after a Flight 15 without a catch, I am wrong.