Why Musk’s Turbine Ambitions Make Howmet Aerospace a Screaming Buy

(SeaPRwire) –   By: Reginald Vance

Elon Musk just gave the industrial manufacturing sector a jolt. SpaceX wants to install 20 gigawatts of behind-the-meter power capacity by the end of 2027 to feed AI data centers out in Bastrop, Texas. To pull that off without getting choked by external vendors, the company plans to build its own industrial gas turbine blades and vanes in-house. Wall Street panicked immediately, dragging Howmet Aerospace stock down from its recent highs. But Bernstein’s desk isn’t sweating it. They are calling this dip a clean buying opportunity, pointing out that an aerospace giant controlling over 50% of the industrial gas turbine blade castings market isn’t going to get sidelined by an 18-month DIY manufacturing sprint.

Let’s look at the actual operational baseline here. Howmet opened at $259.61 on Friday, trading comfortably below Bernstein’s aggressive $328 price target, which suggests about 24% upside from the August 28 close of $264.85. Musk has long complained about supplier bottlenecks across the heavy hardware space, and Howmet is undeniably that central bottleneck. Yet, SpaceX trying to self-supply doesn’t mean Howmet is losing its grip. In fact, Howmet holds long-term supply agreements with every major industrial gas turbine producer on the planet, with those contracts locked in tightly through around 2030. Even Musk himself has admitted that high-end turbine blades are effectively sold out through that exact timeframe, meaning internal production efforts at SpaceX are purely about plugging their own local power gap rather than competing for market share elsewhere.

Casting industrial turbine blades at scale is notoriously difficult, filled with high technical failure rates that rarely respect aggressive startup timelines. While SpaceX scrambles to stand up manufacturing lines in Texas, Howmet is executing from a position of hardened strength. The company reported Q2 EPS of $1.33, easily beating the $1.24 consensus estimate, alongside $2.55 billion in revenue that crushed expectations and grew 24.1% year over year. Their first new capacity expansion came online right during Q2, with at least six more expansion projects actively moving through the pipeline, fueling a 38% surge in their industrial gas turbine segment alone. With institutional heavyweights like NEOS Investment Management boosting their stakes and wall street consensus sitting comfortably at a Moderate Buy with targets stretching up to $350, Howmet remains the undisputed tollbooth on the modern power generation highway.

Author bio: Reginald Vance, a venture partner specializing in semiconductor valuation and advanced materials.