Salesforce Raises Its 2030 Revenue Target to $63 Billion as Its Stock Slides

Salesforce fell to $243.27 in early Thursday afternoon trading, down 2.9% from Wednesday’s close of $250.54, extending a slide that began the day the company laid out its most ambitious long-term revenue goal yet. Even so, analysts were raising their targets.

A bigger number for 2030

At an investor session tied to its Dreamforce conference in San Francisco on Wednesday, Salesforce told shareholders it expects $63 billion in revenue in fiscal 2030, the year that ends in January of that year. That figure tops what the Street expected. Analysts had modeled a range of $59 billion to $61.4 billion, and the company’s own prior goal was more than $60 billion. Chief Executive Marc Benioff pointed to adoption of Agentforce, its set of artificial-intelligence agents, as the main engine behind the number. President and finance chief Robin Washington reaffirmed the framework and said organic growth should re-accelerate in the second half of fiscal 2027.

Analysts raise targets after the pitch

The reception on the Street was warm. Stifel, Canaccord Genuity and Guggenheim each lifted their price targets to $300, and BMO Capital moved to $285. JPMorgan called the event “incrementally positive” for the case that the shares deserve a higher multiple, citing customer data on AI adoption. Stifel wrote that Salesforce now has several distinct ways to charge for AI across its products. RBC Capital was more guarded, pointing to solid demand but mixed feedback on how customers view the pricing.

An AI worry that won’t go away

The optimism was not universal. Earlier this month, Morgan Stanley cut its rating on Salesforce to the equivalent of neutral and lowered its target by more than $100, to $187. The shares fell about 4% on September 8, when OpenAI released a new general-purpose AI system and revived a concern that has trailed the stock all year, that capable AI agents could eat into demand for the specialized business software Salesforce sells. Wednesday’s target was, in part, the company’s answer to that fear. Whether customers pay up for its agents, at the prices it wants, is the test the $63 billion figure rests on.

A pullback after a sharp August jump

The decline follows a strong run. Salesforce closed Monday at $259.43 and has dropped roughly 6% since, most of it over the two sessions around the investor day. Zoom out, and the picture changes. The stock is up 26% over the past six weeks and 37% since mid-May, and much of that came in a single session after its late-August quarterly report, when the shares jumped from $205.62 to $252.05. Even after this week’s fall, Salesforce trades about 34% below its 52-week high of $369.

What to watch into the close

The immediate question is the close. Thursday’s session was still open in the early afternoon, and where the shares finish will hint at whether the selling reflects real doubt about the 2030 plan or ordinary profit-taking after a fast climb. The rate backdrop matters too. The Federal Reserve raised its benchmark rate by a quarter point on Wednesday, to a range of 3.75% to 4.00%, its first increase since 2023, and its projections left the door open to one more this year. Higher rates tend to weigh on expensive software stocks, whose value rests on earnings far out in time. Salesforce also steered investors toward the back half of fiscal 2027, the point at which management expects growth to pick up.

This is a general-market summary for information only — not investment advice, and not a recommendation regarding any security.