SpaceX Enters Its Most Turbulent Week Yet: Record Short Interest Meets a Lock-Up Flood
Published on 08/02/2026 at 06:33 | Redaktion boerse-global.de
The numbers are staggering by any measure of Wall Street history. Short sellers have piled $24.6 billion worth of bets against SpaceX — a position larger than the one against Tesla, Elon Musk's other public company. Roughly 219.3 million shares, or about 34 percent of the free float, are now sold short, up from just 23.3 million shares six weeks earlier, according to S3 Partners. Data provider Ortex puts the figure slightly lower at 196 million shares, around 31 percent of the tradable supply, but the trend is unmistakable: this is one of the biggest bearish wagers on a single stock in recent memory.
The bearish conviction has been building for weeks, and the stock has felt it. SpaceX shares closed Friday at EUR 93.96, down 3.48 percent on the day and roughly 32 percent lower over the past month. The equity now sits barely above its 52-week low of EUR 93.41 and more than half below the June peak of EUR 194.46. The slide has erased more than half the company's market value from its high point, a dramatic reversal for a company that went public in June at $135 per share and raised roughly $75 billion from an offering of 555.6 million shares.
A Double Catalyst Arrives This Week
Two events in the coming days will test whether the bears or the bulls have read the situation correctly. On Tuesday, August 4, SpaceX reports its first quarterly results as a public company after the market close. Two days later, on August 6, the first lock-up period expires, releasing up to 911.5 million shares held by early investors, managers, and insiders — a package worth approximately $116 billion at current prices. Only about 640 million shares, roughly 5 percent of all outstanding stock, are currently tradable. After the release, that figure will roughly double to about 12 percent, according to S3 Partners.
Sam Pierson, research director at S3 Partners, sums up the short-seller logic bluntly: the big bet is on the lock-up release. Nobody expects the earnings report to be strong enough to absorb the wave of newly tradable shares. Options markets are pricing in a move of around 13 percent in the stock during the reporting week, underscoring just how uncertain the outcome looks.
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What the First Earnings Report Will Show
The earnings release will offer the first detailed look at how heavily SpaceX depends on its Starlink satellite business, which analysts estimate generates around 60 percent of total revenue and is growing at more than 30 percent annually. In the first quarter, SpaceX reported revenue of $4.69 billion, up 15 percent year over year, while capital expenditures more than doubled to $10.1 billion. For the full year 2025, the company posted revenue of $18.7 billion and a loss of $4.9 billion.
Analysts surveyed by TipRanks are focusing on three areas. For Starlink, the key metric is subscriber growth, particularly after the service surpassed 10 million active customers in early 2026. In the AI segment — which encompasses X, Grok, Cursor, and the data-center capacity rental business — analysts expect a significant revenue jump as major tech companies like Anthropic and Alphabet expand their infrastructure lease payments. The AI unit xAI, in which SpaceX holds a stake, is projected to grow 433 percent in 2026, though it burned through $7.8 billion in nine months and remains loss-making.
The company's $60 billion acquisition of software firm Cursor has also raised dilution concerns among investors, adding to the downward pressure. Operational setbacks have compounded the gloom: a Starship launch failed in July due to engine problems, and a booster exploded during a subsequent landing attempt.
A Curious Shareholder Q&A
The run-up to the earnings call has produced some unexpected signals about the retail investor base, which accounts for roughly 30 percent of IPO shareholders. SpaceX set up an online platform where shareholders could submit and vote on questions for the first conference call as a public company. The results surprised observers: the top-ranked questions asked for additional footage of the Starship HLS lunar lander for the Artemis program, details on orbital refueling, pink-painted rockets, and sponsorship for heat shield tiles. A Shiba Inu mascot named "Asteroid," complete with a $35 plush toy for educational and charitable purposes, also drew considerable interest. Questions about AI data centers ranked only 183rd, and a potential merger with Tesla received almost no votes.
Analysts Remain Split — But Mostly Bullish
Despite the stock's slide, Wall Street's consensus remains constructive. Since the IPO, 23 analysts have issued buy ratings, six hold ratings, and one sell, with an average price target of $239.04, according to TipRanks. S&P Global's survey of 34 analysts produces a similar picture: a consensus buy rating and a mean target of $236.71. Individual estimates range widely, from $62 to $800.
Morningstar, however, values SpaceX at $780 billion — well below the valuation implied by recent private-market trading. Morgan Stanley analysts have warned that at a share price of $100, the entire AI business would effectively be valued at zero.
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Pierson identifies three factors beyond the immediate week that investors should watch. The lock-up ladder continues with further release dates over the coming year. A potential S&P 500 inclusion is possible no earlier than mid-2027 due to waiting periods, though Pierson notes the market is already pricing in that possibility. And a merger with Tesla could accelerate an index inclusion — a scenario that seems far-fetched given the lack of shareholder enthusiasm expressed in the Q&A platform.
Technicals Point to Oversold Conditions
The chart suggests the selling may be nearing exhaustion, at least in the short term. The 14-day relative strength index stands at 31, a level that often signals oversold conditions and sometimes precedes a stabilization — though it offers no guarantee of a trend reversal. The annualized 30-day volatility of 54.45 percent captures the market's nervousness heading into this pivotal stretch.
The earnings report on Tuesday lands on a stock already under heavy pressure. Whether it can cushion the additional supply from Thursday's lock-up release and force the record short position to cover will determine the near-term direction. The gap between the current price and the analyst consensus target suggests substantial upside if SpaceX can meet growth expectations in Starlink and AI. But with a 34 percent short interest and a doubling of the free float on the horizon, the burden of proof lies squarely with the company's first earnings call as a public entity.
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