December 17, 2025 — Texas Pacific Land Corporation (NYSE: TPL) stock surged Wednesday after the Permian Basin-focused landowner disclosed a strategic agreement tied to large-scale AI data center development in West Texas, a move that instantly reframed the TPL story from “royalties and water” to “royalties, water — and AI infrastructure optionality.” [1]
As of the latest available quote during Wednesday’s session, TPL shares traded around $882, up roughly 7% on the day, reflecting strong investor appetite for the new “land + power + water + compute” angle. [2]
Below is what happened on 12/17/2025, what it could mean for TPL stock going forward, and where analyst forecasts and valuation debates stand heading into the company’s imminent 3-for-1 stock split.
What’s driving TPL stock today: the Bolt Data & Energy data center deal
Texas Pacific Land said it has reached a strategic agreement with Bolt Data & Energy, Inc. to “develop and enable” large-scale data center campuses and supporting infrastructure across TPL-owned land in West Texas. Bolt is described as a data and energy infrastructure company co-founded by Eric Schmidt (former Google CEO/Chairman), who serves as Bolt’s Chairman. [3]
Key deal points investors are reacting to:
- Bolt raised $150 million, with $50 million invested by TPL. [4]
- TPL will receive an equity interest, warrants, and critically, a right of first refusal to supply water to Bolt-affiliated projects and related infrastructure. [5]
- Bolt said it is pursuing commercial partnerships and anchor customers to develop large-scale data centers on TPL land. [6]
- Bolt also signaled a power strategy spanning natural gas-fueled, renewable, and ultimately nuclear generation to support compute delivery at scale. [7]
That last point matters because the market’s biggest near-term choke point for AI data center growth is increasingly power availability and time-to-interconnect. In other words: whoever can bring land + reliable power + fast deployment together tends to get paid a premium.
A crucial disclosure: the SEC 8-K highlights potential conflicts (and mitigation steps)
Alongside the announcement, TPL filed a Form 8-K dated December 17, 2025, furnishing the press release as an exhibit and adding an important governance disclosure:
- TPL said it has been informed that Horizon Kinetics Asset Management (HKAM) intends to make a significant equity investment in Bolt through affiliated funds. [8]
- Murray Stahl, a TPL director, is also identified as CEO, Chairman, and CIO of HKAM. [9]
- TPL stated that the company and its Audit Committee reviewed HKAM’s proposed investment, and that TPL, HKAM, and the Audit Committee took steps to alleviate potential conflicts of interest. [10]
For TPL investors, this disclosure is a double-edged signal: it may reduce “surprise risk” by putting governance considerations on the record early, but it also reminds the market to watch related-party optics closely as the Bolt initiative evolves.
Why this deal is strategically plausible: AI compute is hunting for power, not just real estate
The TPL-Bolt announcement lands in a broader 2025 trend: data center owners and Big Tech are shifting to an “all-of-the-above” power sourcing approach — blending renewables with gas and nuclear — because “always-on” compute needs “always-on” electricity that can be developed quickly. [11]
Reuters reported earlier this month that:
- Gas-fired power remains a major source for U.S. data centers and is expected to stay important given 24/7 needs and grid/policy bottlenecks. [12]
- U.S. utility power supplies to data centers were projected to jump 22% to 61.8 GW in 2025 and rise to 134.4 GW by 2030 (per S&P Global, cited by Reuters). [13]
Put that next to TPL’s footprint and the thesis becomes clearer: TPL controls a rare combination of scale, location, and existing energy-adjacent monetization channels. In its own description, TPL owns ~882,000 acres (mostly in the Permian Basin) and monetizes activity via land access fees, easements, materials, water, royalties, and saltwater disposal-related revenue. [14]
If data center developers increasingly seek co-location with power to reduce interconnect delays, West Texas becomes more than “oil country.” It becomes potential AI infrastructure country—especially if projects can secure fuel supply, generation, transmission, cooling/water solutions, and fast permitting.
How the Bolt partnership fits TPL’s core business model (and why water is central)
Even after today’s AI-driven headlines, TPL’s fundamentals still revolve around two engines:
- Land & Resource Management (royalties, easements, surface leases, materials, etc.)
- Water Services & Operations (water sales, produced water-related activities and royalties)
In its most recent quarterly results (Q3 2025), TPL posted several operational records:
- Water Services & Operations segment revenue hit $80.8 million (a company record) [15]
- Water sales revenue was $44.6 million and produced water royalties revenue was $32.3 million [16]
- Consolidated net income was $121.2 million ($5.27 diluted EPS) on $203.1 million revenue [17]
TPL also disclosed a tangible “water-tech” investment that could become more relevant in a data center future:
- In July 2025, TPL began construction of a 10,000 barrel-per-day produced water desalination facility in Orla, Texas, with an estimated in-service date by the end of 2025. [18]
Now overlay the Bolt partnership detail that TPL gets a right of first refusal to supply water to Bolt projects. [19]
That’s not a throwaway term. In West Texas, water access and disposal logistics are often as strategic as land access—especially for industrial-scale buildouts.
“Today’s move” in context: TPL has been volatile, and today’s catalyst is changing the narrative
Tuesday’s close provides a useful baseline: TPL ended Dec. 16 at $820.69, down 2.26% on the day, and was still about 44% below its 52-week high of $1,462.78 (set March 3), according to MarketWatch’s market recap. [20]
Against that backdrop, a ~7% jump on Dec. 17 is notable not just because of the magnitude—but because it suggests the market is willing to reward a new category of optionality (data centers and energy infrastructure) even while the stock remains well off its highs. [21]
Barchart’s Dec. 17 commentary also framed the stock’s recent performance as lagging broader energy benchmarks over various windows, underscoring that sentiment coming into today wasn’t uniformly bullish. [22]
Stock split spotlight: TPL’s 3-for-1 split is days away
Today’s rally also arrives just ahead of a major technical event for TPL shareholders: a three-for-one stock split.
TPL’s board finalized the timing earlier this month:
- Record date: December 12, 2025
- Distribution/effective date: December 22, 2025
- Split-adjusted trading begins: December 23, 2025 [23]
In the company’s own stock split FAQ, TPL explains the mechanics: after the split, shareholders hold three shares for every one share previously held, and the trading price is expected to be reduced by approximately one-third (purely mechanical; not a value change by itself). [24]
Why splits can matter anyway (even if they don’t change fundamentals):
- They can improve liquidity and expand accessibility for smaller accounts.
- They can alter options market granularity.
- They can amplify headline attention—particularly when paired with a major narrative catalyst, like today’s data center announcement.
Analyst forecasts and targets for TPL stock: bullish upside… but wide dispersion
TPL has relatively limited analyst coverage compared with mega-cap energy names, and that often creates bigger differences across “consensus” targets depending on the data provider and methodology.
Here’s what’s in the market right now (as of Dec. 17, 2025):
KeyBanc initiation: Overweight
A Nasdaq/Fintel note reports that KeyBanc initiated coverage on Dec. 2, 2025 with an Overweight recommendation. [25]
One-year target ranges
That same Nasdaq/Fintel piece cites an average one-year price target of $930.56, with forecasts ranging from $641.35 to $1,239.00 (based on figures it attributes to Fintel). [26]
“Consensus” targets can look different elsewhere
MarketBeat, for example, lists a consensus price target of $1,050 and a consensus rating of Hold based on four analyst ratings (as displayed on its page on Dec. 17). [27]
Barchart’s Dec. 17 analysis references a mean price target of $842.50 and describes analyst sentiment as “reasonably bullish,” though still cautious. [28]
Important note for readers ahead of the split: once the 3-for-1 split takes effect, price targets and per-share metrics will be restated on a split-adjusted basis over time. In plain English, a $1,050 pre-split target would translate to roughly $350 post-split—assuming targets are mechanically adjusted. [29]
What investors are debating now: optionality vs. execution (and valuation discipline)
Today’s data center pivot introduces a new bull/bear framework for TPL stock.
The bull case: TPL is becoming a “platform” for West Texas infrastructure
Supporters argue TPL is uniquely positioned because it can monetize:
- Land scale (site availability, long runway)
- Energy adjacency (Permian gas, renewables potential, infrastructure corridors)
- Water positioning (existing water services operations + potential desalination tech) [30]
The Bolt deal structure—equity + warrants + water supply rights—suggests TPL is trying to capture upside that looks more like “infrastructure development economics” than simple royalty economics. [31]
The bear case: data centers are hard, power is political, and timelines are uncertain
Skeptics will point out:
- The announcement does not include a build timetable, capex schedule, or named anchor customer (Bolt says it’s pursuing partnerships and anchor customers). [32]
- AI data center power procurement is increasingly complex, blending interconnect queues, fuel risk, and regulatory scrutiny—despite the broader “all-of-the-above” trend. [33]
- Governance optics matter when directors and major shareholders have overlapping interests in adjacent investments (TPL explicitly flagged and addressed this). [34]
Valuation and expectations
TPL also trades more like a premium asset platform than a conventional energy stock, which means expectations can reset fast when commodity cycles slow or when investors question long-duration growth narratives. (This helps explain why the stock can be simultaneously “high-quality” and still sharply volatile.) [35]
What to watch next in TPL stock after Dec. 17, 2025
If you’re tracking TPL stock into year-end and into early 2026, the market’s likely focus list looks like this:
- Bolt project milestones
- Any disclosure of anchor customers, initial campus locations, generation partnerships, or early infrastructure contracts. [36]
- How TPL frames capital allocation
- In Q3, TPL highlighted major activity including acquisitions and the buildout of its water operations (and it had also announced a stock split plan). [37]
- Stock split trading dynamics
- Watch liquidity and volume changes as the stock begins trading on a split-adjusted basis on Dec. 23. [38]
- Next earnings timing (market estimates)
- Market calendars are already penciling in mid-to-late February 2026 as an estimated window for Q4 reporting, though official company confirmation can differ. [39]
Bottom line for Dec. 17, 2025
Texas Pacific Land Corporation stock is moving today because the company just attached itself—credibly, and with a meaningful capital commitment—to one of the market’s most powerful secular narratives: AI data centers and the race to secure “fast power” in advantaged energy regions. [40]
But the longer-term outcome for TPL stock will likely depend on whether this Bolt partnership evolves from a headline into a measurable stream of land, water, and infrastructure monetization—without diluting the core strengths investors already value in TPL’s high-margin, asset-based model. [41]
References
1. www.texaspacific.com, 2. za.investing.com, 3. www.texaspacific.com, 4. www.texaspacific.com, 5. www.texaspacific.com, 6. www.texaspacific.com, 7. www.texaspacific.com, 8. www.sec.gov, 9. www.sec.gov, 10. www.sec.gov, 11. www.reuters.com, 12. www.reuters.com, 13. www.reuters.com, 14. www.texaspacific.com, 15. www.texaspacific.com, 16. www.texaspacific.com, 17. www.texaspacific.com, 18. www.texaspacific.com, 19. www.texaspacific.com, 20. www.marketwatch.com, 21. za.investing.com, 22. www.barchart.com, 23. www.texaspacific.com, 24. www.texaspacific.com, 25. www.nasdaq.com, 26. www.nasdaq.com, 27. www.marketbeat.com, 28. www.barchart.com, 29. www.texaspacific.com, 30. www.texaspacific.com, 31. www.texaspacific.com, 32. www.texaspacific.com, 33. www.reuters.com, 34. www.sec.gov, 35. www.marketwatch.com, 36. www.texaspacific.com, 37. www.texaspacific.com, 38. www.texaspacific.com, 39. www.marketbeat.com, 40. www.texaspacific.com, 41. www.texaspacific.com
