Oppenheimer Initiates SpaceX Coverage at $190 Target, $2.5T Cap

📌 UPDATE — June 16, 2026

SpaceX has already blown past Oppenheimer's $2.5T price target, surpassing Amazon to become the 5th most valuable company in the world with a market cap of $2.79 trillion. The company added a staggering $263 billion in market cap in a single day, making Oppenheimer's $190 target look conservative in hindsight. SpaceX now sits alongside Apple, Nvidia, Microsoft, and Alphabet in the global top five — a milestone that would have seemed extraordinary even months ago.

📣 @SawyerMerritt via X — June 16, 2026

📌 UPDATE — June 15, 2026

Oppenheimer's $2.5T price target has already become reality. SpaceX closed its second day of trading up 19.6%, pushing its market cap above $2.5 trillion for the first time — adding a staggering $420 billion in a single session. The milestone arrives remarkably fast, validating the bank's Outperform thesis almost immediately after initiating coverage.

📊 @SawyerMerritt via X · June 15, 2026

📌 UPDATE — June 12, 2026

SpaceX has now reached a reported valuation of $2.2 trillion, closing in on Oppenheimer's $2.5T price target faster than many anticipated. This marks a significant leap from previous valuations and reflects continued investor confidence in Starship development and Starlink's expanding subscriber base. The milestone means SpaceX has already achieved roughly 88% of Oppenheimer's bull-case target since the initiation. Social media chatter from investors is picking up, with market observers noting the speed of the company's ascent.

Tweet from @ray4tesla noting SpaceX is now a $2.2T company

One day before SpaceX's anticipated IPO, Oppenheimer has initiated coverage of $SPCX with an Outperform rating and a $190 price target — a call that would put SpaceX's market capitalization at roughly $2.5 trillion. That's a 43% premium over the reported $135 IPO price and nearly $750 billion above the $1.75 trillion valuation SpaceX is targeting at its debut.

Sawyer Merritt tweet on Oppenheimer SpaceX coverage initiation — Source: @SawyerMerritt — June 11, 2026

What Oppenheimer Actually Sees

The thesis isn't simply a rocket company getting a premium multiple. According to the research note, Oppenheimer views SpaceX as a vertically integrated AI company — one that combines communications infrastructure, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence through space-based systems. The firm argues SpaceX possesses an unusually complete stack: capital, proprietary data, large language models, hardware, manufacturing capacity, and engineering talent, all under one roof.

Starlink is identified as the primary near-term cash engine, while SpaceX's AI business — including its xAI ties — is expected to become a more significant revenue contributor over time. The broader market opportunity Oppenheimer is sizing: a potential $10 trillion addressable market by 2035, built on the convergence of satellite communications and AI-driven cloud infrastructure.

The "terrestrial compute expertise" language from the note is worth noting. Oppenheimer appears to be framing SpaceX's ground-based computing capabilities not just as support infrastructure, but as a potential bridge — or contingency plan — for enabling key AI workloads in space. That's a more nuanced read than the typical "satellite internet company" framing the market has defaulted to.

The Numbers in Context

Metric	Value
IPO Price	$135 / share
Oppenheimer Price Target	$190 / share
Implied Upside	~41%
IPO Market Cap	~$1.75 trillion
Oppenheimer Market Cap Target	~$2.5 trillion
Target Timeline	12–18 months
Addressable Market (2035)	~$10 trillion

Risks Oppenheimer Flags

The note doesn't shy away from the downside case. Oppenheimer lists regulatory, technology, execution, key-person, and investor-expectation risks. One specific technical challenge the analysts call out: managing chip thermal loads for space-based applications within a four-year window. That's a genuine engineering constraint — heat dissipation in orbit is a fundamentally harder problem than in a terrestrial data center, and the timeline is aggressive.

The "key-person" risk flag is also notable. SpaceX's trajectory is tightly coupled to a single individual in a way few public companies are. That's a real variable for institutional investors building positions post-IPO.

If Oppenheimer's $2.5 trillion target materializes on the stated 12–18 month timeline, SpaceX would rank among the most valuable companies on earth at debut. Whether the AI-in-space thesis plays out at that pace — or proves to be a longer-duration story — is the central question the market will be pricing from day one of trading.