SpaceX Stock Price Drop: What’s Really Happening to the World’s Most Valuable Space Company

Seeing a record-breaking stock return its gains in a matter of weeks can cause a certain kind of vertigo. On June 12, 2026, SpaceX went public at a price of $135 per share. $150 was the opening price. At $161, it ended its first day. The company was valued at over $2 trillion for a brief, thrilling moment, making it the biggest IPO this market had ever witnessed. The stock then began to slide, initially silently.

Shares dropped more than 30% from their post-IPO peak by late June, momentarily falling below the initial $135 price. The market capitalization of the company decreased by more than $400 billion. Even though the stock has since rebounded, closing at $153.47 on September 9, the path from that June peak to the present has not been easy.

When SpaceX revealed earnings on August 5 that clearly unnerved investors, it was the first significant shock. Due to the company’s aggressive push into AI infrastructure and Starship development, capital expenditures had skyrocketed to more than double its revenue. On Wednesday, shares fell 13.6%. It wasn’t subtle, but it also wasn’t a collapse. Some observers compared the company’s spending pace to Tesla’s early manufacturing years, when the cash burn appeared almost reckless from the outside but turned out to be strategic.

An additional layer of pressure was introduced by the share unlock schedule. Early investors and staff members usually cannot sell their shares right away after a company goes public because they are locked for a predetermined amount of time. Markets prepare for a surge of supply when those locks begin to expire. On August 6, SpaceX’s initial unlock released more than 911 million shares. The previous day, the stock had already closed at a new post-IPO low of $108.27. The majority of viewers were taken aback by what transpired next. SPCX increased 16% in a single day rather than collapsing under that new supply. Shares were trading at $133 by the end of that week.

It’s still unclear if that rally was a well-timed relief bounce or a sign of true conviction. Most likely both. On August 20, a second, smaller unlock of roughly 319 million shares occurred, and the stock fluctuated but did not crash. With about 700 million shares becoming eligible in September, a third round is now imminent. These tranches are all tests. Buyers have taken them up thus far. Every analyst seems to be wondering whether that will continue at the moment.

The intriguing—and possibly underestimated—fact is that the SpaceX stock decline was never solely due to fundamentals. Revenue for the second quarter was $7.81 billion. Just the AI market saw a 247% year-over-year increase to $2.56 billion. The satellite internet company Starlink is expanding at a rate that most telecom companies would be jealous of. The decline was caused in part by investors recalculating what they had paid for during the IPO excitement, in part by unlock fear, and in part by valuation anxiety. That is not just a financial story, but also a human one.

For their part, analysts have not retreated. Pivotal Research started reporting with a $220 price target and a buy rating. Oppenheimer is currently worth $280. In a bold move of its own, Morgan Stanley has set a $300 target. The typical Wall Street target is approximately $226. Never one to hold back, Scott Galloway sees a 50% decline by year’s end. Somehow, Raymond James wants to reach $800. There is a huge, more than ten-fold difference between the most bullish and bearish calls. That in and of itself gives you an idea of how ambiguous this story actually is.

Outside the Hawthorne and Boca Chica factory floors, SpaceX continues to do what it does: launch rockets, increase Starlink coverage, and develop Starship for a future that is both near and always far off. Regardless of what the ticker is doing on any given Tuesday, the operational business is still real and important, as demonstrated by the August 30 launch of NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope on a Falcon Heavy.

What you think about Starship’s reusability timeline and Starlink’s subscriber ceiling will largely determine whether the SpaceX stock price decline was a correction, a buying opportunity, or an early warning. As this develops, it’s difficult not to feel that both the optimists and the pessimists have a valid point of view, which may be precisely where a business this young and ambitious should be.