Musk's Remarks Don't Mean SpaceX Cut Its Starship Launch Guidance -- Barrons.com

By Al Root

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk created a kerfuffle earlier this week at a White House luncheon when he talked about Starship, his rocket company's giant rocket.

SpaceX, he said, was targeting one to two Starship launches a week in the coming year. Musk said something different on SpaceX's second-quarter earnings conference call in August, though: "Probably a year from now, we will be doing at least one [Starship] flight a day, possibly more."

The two comments, taken together, led to claims that SpaceX had cut guidance by 80% to 90%. One or two flights a day is about 550 flights, versus one or two a week, which is about 80 flights.)

"This seems (very) material," wrote GLJ Research analyst Gordon Johnson on Thursday.

SpaceX didn't respond to Barron's request for clarification. They didn't need to. There isn't anything extraordinary about Musk's remarks. SpaceX didn't cut guidance. Investors just need to understand how to speak Musk.

For starters, Musk didn't say that Starship would launch daily on Jan. 1. "Probably" and "possibly" aren't official financial guidance. And anyone interested in SpaceX, or his EV maker Tesla, needs to understand that Musk is prone to aspirational comments.

Musk has talked about truly self-driving cars since 2016, told investors Tesla could make 20 million EVs by the end of this decade, said Tesla would be worth more than Apple and Saudi Aramco combined in 2o22, and, just days ago, said Starship was only two to three years away from "hourly launches."

These are goals-not guidance.

For an example of guidance and what happens when management changes guidance quickly, look at Honeywell Aerospace.

Before being spun off from Honeywell Technologies, Honeywell Aerospace hosted an analyst event where it gave 2026 sales growth and operating profit guidance-with numbers and ranges. In August, weeks after giving the initial guidance, management reduced the numbers. The stock dropped more than 23%.

That didn't happen to SpaceX stock after Musk's comments at the White House, following the August conference call.

Coming into Friday trading, shares were down less than $1, or 0.4%, for the week. The move was immaterial. SpaceX stock was up 4.3% in early trading on Friday, at $154.40, while the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average were up 0.9% and 0.7%, respectively.

The lack of an early-week reaction shows that investors just weren't surprised by Musk's comments. As for Friday's move, there isn't much news, except Musk's other trillion-dollar company, Tesla, reporting strong third-quarter EV sales.

The one time Musk's mouth got him in trouble was his 2018 "funding secured" tweet. He said he was considering taking Tesla private and had wrapped up financing for the deal. That led to some consequences, including an SEC fine.

Musk has his own way of talking. Those not fluent in Musk-ese should become so and realize that it's a very bad idea to trade SpaceX and Tesla stock based on aspirational comments.

Write to Al Root at allen.root@barrons.com.

This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

October 02, 2026 10:51 ET (14:51 GMT)