SpaceX Earns Street-High $800 Target Amid Divergent Analyst Calls on AI Stocks

A wave of significant analyst ratings this week highlighted diverging views on the near-term beneficiaries of artificial intelligence, with a new Street-high price target for SpaceX contrasting sharply with a downgrade for software giant Salesforce based on poor AI product feedback.

Bullish Calls on Infrastructure and Commerce

Raymond James initiated coverage of SpaceX with a Strong Buy rating and an $800 price target, the highest on Wall Street. The firm called the convergence of industrialized space access and AI "the most significant infrastructure convergence since the advent of the Internet," positioning SpaceX to capitalize on a total addressable market estimated at nearly $30 trillion.

Analyst Brian Gesuale's thesis centers on Starship, which he projects will cut the cost of transporting mass to orbit by over 99%. The firm forecasts SpaceX's revenue could grow from $38.5 billion today to more than $837 billion by 2031. Separately, Stifel upgraded Shopify to Buy, raising its price target to $150 from $110, citing a path to 30%-plus revenue growth in 2026 as it gains market share and builds out its "agentic commerce playbook."

Mixed Views on Asian Tech Giants

Bank of America reiterated its Buy rating on Alibaba with a $172 price objective, labeling it "one of the most compelling AI plays in China." Analysts expect AI-led demand to accelerate the company's cloud revenue growth to 45% year-over-year in the June quarter, up from 38% previously.

Meanwhile, Mizuho TMT specialist Jordan Klein called the recent investor sell-off of Samsung an "overreaction" to its preliminary second-quarter results. He argued the revenue miss was attributable to mobile devices and panels, not the fundamentally strong memory business, where he estimates implied operating margins of over 80%.

Ad

Caution on Software Implementation

In a notable counterpoint to broader AI optimism, Bernstein downgraded Salesforce to Sector Weight from Outperform and removed its price target. The decision was driven by weak customer feedback on the company's Agentforce AI product.

Analyst Jackson Ader cited consistent feedback from customer conversations:

• Customer data is often not organized enough for meaningful AI work.
• The Agentforce product itself "just isn’t there" in terms of maturity.

Bernstein's report stated that evidence of a sustained business acceleration from Agentforce "is further out than we’d expected, if it plays out at all." The firm also noted that a recent CIO survey showed more IT leaders expect to deprioritize Salesforce spending than increase it over the next year.