[DigitalToday reporter Jinju Hong (홍진주)] SpaceX shares kept rising, supported by a string of price targets from investment banks.

The shares rose 1.22 percent to $173.17 in premarket trading on Oct. 6 local time, blockchain media outlet Decrypt reported. They ended the previous regular session up 7.63 percent at $171.09.

The immediate driver of the rise was back-to-back positive assessments from Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs. Morgan Stanley's Adam Jonas reaffirmed an overweight rating and a $300 price target on Oct. 5. He said SpaceX may look expensive if compared with big AI companies on valuation alone, but appears "effectively cheaper" once expected growth rates are reflected. Goldman Sachs' Eric Sheridan also maintained a buy rating and raised the target to $230 from $220.

With the share rise, SpaceX's market capitalisation topped $2.3 trillion. Based on the previous closing price, the market value was about $2.32 trillion. Compared with the $135 IPO price set in June, the shares are about 28 percent higher.

At the centre is Morgan Stanley's growth-adjusted valuation. Jonas said a comparison that reflects both the operating profit multiple against estimated 2028 enterprise value and the growth outlook puts SpaceX at about 0.3 times, about 40 percent lower than the median 0.5 times for a peer group of large AI companies. Under a traditional approach, SpaceX trades at about 30 times operating profit against estimated 2028 enterprise value, higher than about 16 times for the peer group. The report's core point is that the assessment varies depending on the metric used for the same company.

A change in SpaceX's business structure also underpins Morgan Stanley's $300 target. SpaceX's second-quarter report shows AI segment revenue of $2.561 billion, surpassing space segment revenue of $962 million. Connectivity segment revenue, at $4.291 billion, was still the largest. In its segment valuation, Morgan Stanley assigned $8 per share each to space and X·Grok, while allocating $118 to connectivity and $165 to enterprise AI. That implies enterprise AI is the biggest pillar supporting the $300 target.

Related assets also reacted in the crypto market. CoinMarketCap data shows "SpaceX tokenised stock" traded at $172.78, up 7.74 percent over 24 hours. The tokenised product trades separately from Nasdaq-listed shares, making it difficult to directly compare its 24-hour change with the premarket share move.

A key potential catalyst is the 15th Starship test flight. Jonas flagged the flight, expected in late October or early November, as a major event. He said success in catching the upper stage could be the biggest upside catalyst for the shares since the IPO. SpaceX has not publicly confirmed the schedule for the 15th test flight or whether it will attempt a catch.

The timetable follows the 14th test flight conducted on Sept. 28. Starship reached orbit for the first time then and deployed 26 Starlink V3 satellites. SpaceX is designing a long-term orbital operating system in which Starship returns to the launch site, is caught and reused. As a result, the market is watching how much actual test-flight results strengthen the share-price narrative, alongside investment banks' target-price adjustments.