SpaceX's Lock-Up Expiry Collides With a Record Quarter — and a $116 Billion Share Overhang
Published on 08/06/2026 at 04:14 | Redaktion boerse-global.de
The timing could hardly be more awkward. Just as SpaceX delivers its first quarterly report since the June IPO — a set of numbers that beat Wall Street's expectations on nearly every line — the company is about to unleash a flood of newly tradable shares onto the market. Roughly 911.5 million shares, representing about 20% of the stock held by insiders, employees, and venture capital backers, become freely tradable today. That's several times the current float of fewer than 280.1 million shares, and it's already weighing heavily on the stock.
The market began pricing in the overhang before the lock-up even expired. Shares fell 8.09% to €100.00 in Wednesday's session, following a 14.12% drop the previous day that brought the stock to €93.46. The shares now sit just 2.66% above their 52-week low, which was set as recently as August 3. For context, the stock is now roughly 26% below its IPO price of $135 per share, set when the company debuted on the Nasdaq under the ticker SPCX in what was the largest initial public offering in history, raising $86 billion.
A Quarter That Delivered — on Paper
The operational picture, at least, is hard to argue with. Second-quarter revenue climbed 92% year over year to $7.8 billion, comfortably ahead of the consensus range of roughly $6.8 billion to $6.9 billion. The net loss narrowed to $541 million, or 9 cents per share, from $1.0 billion a year earlier — far better than the billion-dollar shortfalls some analysts had braced for. Adjusted EBITDA surged 191% to $3.5 billion, while the operating loss shrank to $143 million from $970 million.
The growth engines are firing on multiple cylinders. Starlink revenue jumped 66% to $4.29 billion, with the subscriber base doubling year over year to 12 million paying customers. The connectivity segment posted $1.7 billion in operating income for the quarter. The AI business grew even faster, up 247% to $2.56 billion, while the legacy space launch segment advanced 29% to $962 million.
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The $18.4 Billion Elephant in the Room
So why the sell-off? The answer lies in the capital expenditure line — and it's a big one. Quarterly capex hit $18.4 billion, roughly six times the year-ago figure. Of that, $15.8 billion went into AI infrastructure alone, overshooting analyst expectations of $13.2 billion. CEO Elon Musk attributed the elevated spending partly to rising memory chip prices, as supply struggles to keep pace with surging AI demand.
The company's CFO defended the outlay, pointing to a payback period of under a year for the AI investments, and signaled that the next two quarters would see similarly elevated spending levels. Musk, meanwhile, reiterated his ambition to reach $1 trillion in annual revenue by 2030 — a year earlier than previously communicated — with a run-rate of $100 billion targeted by year-end.
Diverging Views on Wall Street
The analyst community is split on how to weigh the strong fundamentals against the spending appetite and the share overhang. Piper Sandler cut its price target from $156 to $140, maintaining a "Neutral" rating, citing both the lock-up expiry and planned capital expenditures of roughly $65 billion for fiscal 2027. Morgan Stanley struck a more bullish tone the same day, reaffirming a $300 price target and raising its 2026 revenue forecast to a range of $45 billion to $48 billion — while conceding that heavy investment would temper near-term profit growth. Other firms have price targets ranging from $200 to $800, depending on risk appetite.
Automated valuation models currently flag the stock as overvalued relative to its fair value, adding another layer of caution for investors.
Beyond the Balance Sheet
The company isn't resting on its launch record. Management confirmed the acquisition of AI firm Cursor for $60 billion and pointed to the July release of the Grok 4.5 AI model. President Gwynne Shotwell unveiled the commercial "Direct-to-Cell" strategy, which aims to challenge mobile carriers like Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile. Using over 50 MHz of mid-band spectrum acquired from EchoStar, SpaceX plans to deliver data rates of up to 150 Mbit/s directly to unmodified smartphones.
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On the spaceflight side, Musk has penciled in Starship Flight 14 for late August, targeting the first orbital deployment of Starlink V3 satellites and an attempt to catch the upper stage with the launch tower. Flight 13 on July 24 successfully deployed 20 Starlink V3 test satellites before the upper stage splashed down in the Indian Ocean. A Falcon 9 launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base on August 1 carrying 24 more Starlink satellites — the 25th mission for first-stage booster B1081. Another Falcon 9 Starlink mission from California's SLC-4E is scheduled for August 8.
For now, investors are left to weigh a genuine growth story against a formidable set of near-term headwinds: a historic share release, an aggressive AI spending program, and a June bond issuance of $25 billion across five tranches to fund Starship and AI infrastructure. The fundamental narrative remains intact — but the market is currently pricing in the risks, not the rewards.
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