SpaceX Stock Gains 7.2% as Starlink's Telecom Ambitions Draw Fire From AT&T

SpaceX shares close at EUR 141.20 after three launches in 13 hours; Starship reaches orbit but ends in explosion after splashdown.

Shares of SpaceX climbed 7.2% on Friday to close at EUR 141.20, with media reports pointing to a burst of back-to-back rocket launches as the catalyst. The advance reflects more than a fleeting spike in sentiment: investors appear to be rewarding the company's shift from headline-grabbing one-off feats toward something closer to industrial routine.

A Launch Cadence Rivals Can't Match

At the heart of the move was the Transporter-18 rideshare mission, which carried more than a hundred payloads into orbit — among them satellites from Unseenlabs and a prototype satellite for Google's Suncatcher project, designed to test orbital data processing. The flight slotted into a remarkable sequence of three launches inside 13 hours, a run that also included a NASA crew rotation to the International Space Station (Crew-13) and a mission for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office.

That tempo underscores an operational lead few competitors can currently close. It also reinforces the company's growing role as an indispensable infrastructure partner — a status increasingly visible in Washington. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth named CEO Elon Musk on Wednesday to help lead the Pentagon's Project Meridian study, alongside Anduril founder Palmer Luckey and Newt Gingrich.

AT&T Pushes Back on Starlink's Phone Play

Not everyone welcomes the expansion. On Tuesday, AT&T chief John Stankey called SpaceX's telephony strategy unviable, a direct challenge to Starlink's plans for direct-to-smartphone service. The criticism highlights the hurdles facing SpaceX as it pushes into new telecom markets against entrenched carriers, which are defending their market share and eyeing satellite-based offerings with caution.

Positioning in the satellite-to-mobile segment is seen as a key building block for future growth. Connecting ordinary smartphones directly to a satellite network demands substantial technical work and regulatory approvals — a reminder that the path into telecom is anything but frictionless.

Wall Street Stays Bullish

Despite that pushback, analysts remain confident in the aggressive expansion. TD Cowen's John Blackledge initiated coverage on September 29 with a Buy rating and a USD 200 price target. A day later, Macquarie's Paul Golding kept an Outperform rating on the stock. The optimism rests largely on the reliability of the Falcon program, whose steady revenue stream cushions even costly development risks.

Starship's Orbital Milestone — and Its Glitch

The road ahead is far from risk-free. Starship reached orbit for the first time on Monday — Flight 14 — and deployed 26 Starlink V3 satellites. But after splashdown in the Pacific, an explosion visible on the livestream followed engine problems, according to the AP news agency. The test flight ended prematurely, underlining how technically demanding further development remains. At the same time, SpaceX is pursuing approvals for numerous annual Starship launches at Cape Canaveral, keeping regulatory scrutiny high.

Separately, the U.S. Department of Defense reportedly agreed to a cooperation granting SpaceX exclusive access to precise space-surveillance data.

The Broader Picture

Weighing it all up, the opportunities still clearly outweigh the risks. A combination of commercial dominance in launch services, rising military significance and a sprawling satellite network makes a compelling case for the business model. Short-term setbacks on test flights are part of the company's stated development philosophy. As long as the core operations deliver reliable returns, SpaceX remains the defining heavyweight of private spaceflight.

Even after the latest rally, the stock trades 27% below its 52-week high — a gap that captures the current risk-reward profile: high-frequency execution in the existing business, set against the obstacles standing between SpaceX and the mobile-phone market.