SpaceX stock fell back below its $135 IPO price on Thursday, August 20, as roughly 319 million previously restricted shares became eligible for trading and Elon Musk pushed a key Starship recovery milestone several months further into the future. SPCX closed around $133.28, down roughly 4%, leaving investors once again questioning whether Starlink’s extraordinary growth can justify SpaceX’s huge valuation, massive AI spending and an approaching wave of additional insider shares.
The decline is especially striking because SpaceX stock had recovered sharply from its July lows and closed above the IPO price for six consecutive sessions before Thursday’s reversal. SpaceX priced its historic June 11 IPO at $135 a share and ultimately raised approximately $85.7 billion after underwriters exercised their full option.
Now the market faces a brutal test: was the post-earnings rebound the beginning of a new bull run—or merely temporary relief before billions of dollars of insider stock hits the market?
SpaceX Stock Breaks Below Its IPO Price Again
SpaceX shares dropped nearly 5% during Thursday’s session, ending below the psychologically important $135 offer price.
That level matters because it represents the price sophisticated institutional investors agreed to pay during the June IPO. Trading below it suggests that public-market investors currently value the risk-reward proposition less favorably than they did when the company listed.
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SpaceX’s IPO was unlike anything Wall Street had previously seen.
The company initially sold 555.6 million Class A shares at $135 each. After underwriters exercised an option for another 83.3 million shares, total IPO proceeds reached roughly $85.7 billion, making the offering the largest in history.
Shares initially exploded higher.
SPCX eventually reached an intraday high of roughly $225.64 before collapsing to a July low near $104.83. Since then, investors have endured an extraordinary round trip between euphoria and skepticism.
Thursday brought the stock almost exactly back to where the public-market experiment began.
319 Million SpaceX Shares Just Became Tradable
The most immediate pressure came from the company’s unusual staggered lockup schedule.
Approximately 319 million shares held by early employees and investors became eligible for sale on August 20, representing another major increase in potential tradable supply.
An unlock does not mean every shareholder immediately sells.
But it changes supply dynamics.
Employees, venture investors and other early holders who spent years unable to monetize their positions suddenly have the opportunity to convert at least part of their wealth into cash. Even relatively modest selling can matter when the newly eligible block is large compared with normal trading volume.
SpaceX already survived a much bigger test on August 6.
About 911.5 million shares became eligible for trading that day. Instead of collapsing, SPCX rallied and subsequently gained more than 20%, reducing fears that insiders would rush for the exits.
Thursday’s reaction was different.
The 319 million-share unlock coincided with another negative catalyst: a change in Musk’s Starship timeline.
Musk Just Pushed a Key Starship Milestone Back
Starship remains essential to the long-term SpaceX valuation.
The massive rocket is designed to become fully and rapidly reusable, dramatically lowering the cost of sending satellites, cargo and potentially humans into orbit and beyond.
Earlier this month, Musk discussed plans for an upcoming Starship test that could include more ambitious recovery objectives. On Thursday, however, he indicated that an attempt to “catch” the Starship upper stage itself would likely occur in a few months rather than during the next mission.
SpaceX shares weakened following the comments.
The company has already demonstrated tower catches of the Super Heavy booster, but recovering the spacecraft itself would represent another crucial step toward the fully reusable architecture underpinning SpaceX’s long-term economics.
Every delay matters because Starship supports several interconnected businesses.
It is intended to launch dramatically larger batches of next-generation Starlink satellites. It also plays a central role in NASA’s lunar plans and Musk’s longer-term ambitions for the Moon and Mars.
Most importantly for shareholders, reusable Starship launches could significantly reduce SpaceX’s cost structure.
Until that system operates reliably, investors are still assigning enormous value to technology that remains under development.
Starlink Is Already Carrying the Financial Story
The bullish case begins with Starlink.
SpaceX reported $7.8 billion of Q2 2026 revenue, up approximately 92% year over year in its first quarterly report as a public company. Starlink contributed more than half of that total, with revenue rising roughly 66%.
The satellite internet service had approximately 12 million subscribers, roughly double the year-earlier level.
Starlink is increasingly important because it generates the cash that helps finance SpaceX’s other ambitions.
Reuters Breakingviews estimated that Starlink produced roughly $4.3 billion of quarterly revenue and about $1.7 billion of operating profit, while SpaceX’s rocket and AI operations remained much more capital intensive.
That creates an unusual investment structure.
SpaceX is simultaneously a satellite broadband company, launch provider, spacecraft manufacturer and increasingly an artificial-intelligence infrastructure business.
Starlink is currently the most mature cash-generating engine.
The stock valuation, however, assumes considerably more.
AI Spending Has Become the Bigger SpaceX Stock Risk
SpaceX’s first public earnings report exposed just how aggressively Musk is pushing into artificial intelligence.
Quarterly capital expenditures reached approximately $18.4 billion, with roughly $15.8 billion directed toward AI infrastructure.
That figure shocked investors.
SpaceX’s AI business is expanding quickly and has reportedly signed billions of dollars of cloud-computing agreements, but the spending required to build that capacity is enormous.
Management argued that the economics are already improving.
CFO Bret Johnsen said the payback period for certain AI investments had fallen below one year, while AI revenue grew several-fold from a year earlier. SpaceX is targeting a $100 billion annualized revenue run rate by December, supported by Starlink, AI compute and other operations.
That is the bull case in one sentence.
SpaceX may be spending extraordinary amounts because it sees extraordinary demand.
The bear case is equally straightforward: the company is investing faster than free cash flow can currently support.
The $25 Billion Debt Sale Raised the Stakes
SpaceX added another financing layer immediately after the IPO.
On June 23, less than two weeks after shares began trading, the company priced a $25 billion inaugural bond offeringacross multiple maturities.
The timing was notable.
SpaceX had just raised more than $85 billion from equity investors and then immediately tapped debt markets for another $25 billion.
That demonstrates extraordinary access to capital.
It also shows how much capital Musk’s ambitions require.
Starlink satellite deployment, Starship development, launch facilities, AI servers and future data-center infrastructure all demand billions of dollars before their economics are fully proven.
Investors therefore cannot evaluate SpaceX using a traditional aerospace-company framework.
The stock is effectively a highly leveraged bet on several enormous technology markets developing simultaneously.
SpaceX’s Valuation Leaves Little Room for Mistakes
SpaceX’s June IPO implied a valuation around $1.75 trillion before the stock began trading.
That valuation demands exceptional execution.
The company is undoubtedly dominant in commercial launch. It operates the world’s largest satellite broadband constellation, and its first public earnings report demonstrated extraordinary revenue growth.
But investors are paying today for businesses that may not reach mature profitability for years.
That creates violent reactions when timelines slip.
Starship delays matter more at a trillion-dollar-plus valuation than they would for an early-stage aerospace startup. Rising capex matters more. Declining Starlink average revenue per subscriber matters more.
Reuters reported that Starlink revenue per subscriber fell approximately 22% year over year as SpaceX expanded internationally and pursued lower-priced customers.
Subscriber growth can compensate for lower pricing—but only if network economics remain attractive.
That is one reason investors are watching Starlink margins as closely as subscriber counts.
More Insider Selling Tests Are Coming
Thursday’s 319 million-share unlock is not the end of the story.
SpaceX deliberately created a staggered lockup structure rather than one giant expiration date, but increasingly large quantities of stock are scheduled to become tradable over the coming months.
Another 319 million shares are expected to unlock in September, with further tranches following during the fall. A much larger block is expected around third-quarter earnings in November, while broader restrictions expire in December.
CEO Elon Musk’s shares remain subject to longer restrictions.
The market therefore faces repeated supply tests.
If SpaceX produces strong results and insiders largely hold their positions, these events could prove far less damaging than feared.
If employees and early venture investors use each window to monetize significant holdings, SPCX could remain under pressure even if the underlying business performs well.
SpaceX Stock Forecast: $135 Becomes the Immediate Battleground
The simplest level for investors to watch is the IPO price itself.
A sustained recovery above $135 would suggest buyers are willing to absorb the latest insider supply and overlook the revised Starship timeline.
The next major technical barrier appears closer to $150, where SpaceX’s recent recovery repeatedly struggled. The stock reached above $146 earlier this week before Thursday’s reversal.
Below $135, attention could shift back toward the August lows.
SPCX has already demonstrated that downside can accelerate quickly when valuation anxiety combines with concerns about capex and insider supply.
But bulls have powerful fundamental arguments.
Revenue nearly doubled in Q2. Starlink subscribers doubled. AI revenue is growing rapidly. SpaceX remains dominant in launch services, and Starship could eventually lower costs dramatically if full reusability works as intended.
This is not a company suffering from weak demand.
It is a company whose stock may be suffering from enormous expectations.
What Investors Should Watch Next
The first catalyst is the next Starship flight test. Investors need evidence that technical progress continues even if the upper-stage catch has been delayed.
The second is insider supply.
SpaceX absorbed the August 6 unlock remarkably well but stumbled during Thursday’s smaller tranche. How the market handles September and November releases could reveal whether institutional demand is deep enough to support the valuation.
Third-quarter earnings will be even more important.
Investors should watch Starlink subscriber growth, average revenue per user, AI revenue, capital expenditures and whether management remains on track toward its ambitious $100 billion annualized revenue target.
SpaceX stock is now almost exactly where Wall Street first priced it in June—but the investment case has changed dramatically.
Investors now know Starlink is growing faster than many expected. They also know AI capex is far larger than many expected.
And after another Starship timeline slip and hundreds of millions of newly tradable shares, the $135 IPO line has become something bigger than a price.
It is now the market’s referendum on whether SpaceX’s extraordinary future is already fully priced into the stock.
