SpaceX Stock Grapples With $109 Billion Lockup, Twin Launch Aborts and a Spectrum of Analyst Targets
Published on 07/21/2026 at 12:41 | Redaktion boerse-global.de
SpaceX shares ended Monday just a whisper above their 52-week low, closing at €104.96 to sit a mere 0.08% above the trough of €104.88 set on July 20. The slide has erased roughly 45% from the record high of $225.64 reached shortly after the company’s June 12 initial public offering at $135 a share, and the selling has been relentless: the stock posted seven consecutive losing sessions before this week’s marginal respite.
The immediate catalyst for the swoon is a pair of launch failures. The first came on July 16, when the Starship flight 13 test was aborted after four of 33 engines failed to ignite. Then, on July 20, a Falcon 9 rocket at Vandenberg suffered a rare misfire — engines lit briefly and cut off, forcing a one-day postponement of the Starlink mission it was carrying. Spaceflight Now described it as the second abort within a week, placing a spotlight on the very business line, Starlink, that investors regard as the group’s operational anchor.
The technical hiccups are compounded by a looming liquidity event that could dwarf any earnings surprise. SpaceX will report its first quarterly results as a listed company after the market closes on August 4, followed by a webcast at 4:30 p.m. Eastern time. Two trading days later, the first lock-up tranche kicks in: roughly 911.5 million insider shares — valued at about $109.2 billion at current prices — become eligible for trading. This is only the beginning of a cascade that will release additional blocks of 2.8% to 4% of insider holdings at 15- to 20-day intervals through December, according to schedules published by several media outlets. The bulk of the stock, representing roughly 60% of insider shares including Elon Musk’s stake, remains locked until mid-June 2027. An additional 10% tranche was conditioned on the stock closing above $175.50 on five of ten trading days before the earnings report — a threshold that was never reached.
Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying SpaceX?
The lock-up overhang has attracted a heavy short position. Short interest stands at roughly 29% to 30% of the free float, and about half of the tradable shares are out on loan, reflecting aggressive bearish bets. Leerverkäufer have built up unrealized profits of $8.7 billion on the stock’s decline, according to estimates cited in the secondary report.
Analysts are deeply split on where the stock should trade. At the bullish end, Morgan Stanley holds a $300 price target, projecting revenue growth from $18.7 billion in 2025 to $319 billion by 2030. JPMorgan rates the stock Overweight with a $225 target, while Piper Sandler is more cautious at Neutral and $156. On the opposite end, Morningstar pegs fair value at just $63, and investor Whitney Tilson has warned that the stock trades at 92 times sales. Between these extremes, Cathie Wood’s ARK funds have been active buyers — on July 20 they added about 170,000 shares for roughly $20 million at an average price of $120.14, bringing total holdings to more than 4 million shares. ARK’s analysts assign a fair enterprise value of $2.5 trillion to $3.1 trillion, implying a price target of $180 to $220.
The earnings report on August 4 will put three key questions to the test: the profitability of Starlink, which already counts 10.3 million subscribers and posted 50% year-over-year revenue growth; the margins on Falcon 9 launches; and the pace of spending on the xAI artificial-intelligence unit, which includes the Grok chatbot. In the first quarter of 2026 alone, investment in data-center infrastructure for xAI consumed $7.72 billion — roughly three-quarters of the company’s total capital expenditure — and SpaceX reported a group loss of $4.3 billion for that period. Whether Starlink’s growth can absorb those outlays is the central question for the stock’s direction beyond the lock-up event.
Parallel to the operational drama, reports have surfaced of talks between SpaceX and the Pentagon over a potential multibillion-dollar cloud-computing contract that could deliver high-margin AI infrastructure revenue. That would provide a counterweight to the heavy spending, but for now the market is fixated on the August 4 earnings call and the flood of shares that will follow. With the stock trading within spitting distance of its low, the next few weeks will reveal whether the bears have overplayed their hand or the bulls are buying into a value trap.
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