SpaceX Stock IPO Craters Over 50% from Peak as Loss-Making Reality Bites

The SpaceX stock IPO, priced at $135 per share on 11 June 2026, has delivered a brutal lesson in the distance between narrative and fundamentals. From an intraday peak above $220, shares in SPCX have retreated to $108 as of early August, a fall of more than 50% in roughly six weeks.

The base offering comprised 555,555,555 Class A common shares at $135, for a stated offering size of $75 billion. After underwriters exercised the greenshoe allotment, the total raised reached approximately $86 billion, surpassing Saudi Aramco’s 2019 listing to set a global record.

From record IPO to a 50% haircut

The opening days were genuinely extraordinary. SPCX climbed more than 40% across its first two trading sessions, at one point lifting SpaceX’s valuation above both Amazon and Microsoft. Then a single session delivered a 16% reversal, and the stock has largely struggled to recover direction since.

For a UK investor who put £7,777 into the stock at the peak, that stake is now worth £3,735. SpaceX pays no dividend, so there is no income to offset the capital loss. The arithmetic is straightforward and unpleasant.

Short interest in SPCX is reported to be among the highest of any listed stock globally, meaning a substantial cohort of traders has been positioning for exactly this kind of decline and profiting from it. Those on the other side of those trades are the ones absorbing the losses.

What the SEC filings say about the underlying business

The SpaceX stock IPO prospectus, filed with the SEC, shows a business that is growing fast but spending faster. Full-year 2025 revenue came in at $18.7 billion, up 33% year on year. Against that, the company posted a net loss of $4.9 billion for 2025 and lost a further $4.28 billion in just the first quarter of 2026.

The segment picture is mixed. The Connectivity division, which houses Starlink, generated adjusted EBITDA of $7.2 billion in 2025, up from $3.8 billion in 2024. The Space segment, however, saw adjusted EBITDA fall from $1.2 billion to $0.7 billion, absorbing $3.0 billion in research and development spending on Starship. The AI segment swung from $0.3 billion adjusted EBITDA in 2024 to a loss of $1.2 billion in 2025. These are non-GAAP measures and the headline net loss figures are the ones that matter for valuation.

As of 31 March 2026, Starlink had approximately 10.3 million subscribers across 164 countries, with more than 9,600 satellites in orbit. The UK retail prospectus made clear the scale of ambition: the company pegs its total addressable market at figures it describes as the largest in human history, with Connectivity alone cited at $1.6 trillion. Whether addressable market converts to captured revenue on any reasonable timeline is the question the current share price cannot yet answer.

With no profits to anchor valuation, the stock trades on a price-to-sales ratio of around 70, which means investor sentiment is doing most of the heavy lifting. That is an unstable foundation when sentiment shifts.

Lock-up expiry and the Cursor acquisition

Two structural factors add complexity to the near-term picture. First, SpaceX agreed a 180-day lock-up with underwriters led by Goldman Sachs following the IPO. When that window closes, insiders gain the ability to sell. Lock-up expirations routinely introduce fresh selling pressure, particularly in stocks that have already declined significantly from their opening highs.

Second, on 14 August 2026, SpaceX completed its acquisition of Anysphere, the maker of the AI coding tool Cursor, via a merger disclosed in an SEC 8-K filing. Cursor’s shareholders received 389,289,254 shares of SpaceX Class A common stock, based on an implied equity value of $60.0 billion for Cursor and a price per share equal to the volume-weighted average closing price over the seven trading days immediately before closing. That is a substantial share issuance, adding dilution to an already stretched valuation at a moment when the stock is under pressure.

SpaceX’s operational credentials are not in question. The company accounts for more than 80% of global mass to orbit since 2023 and has conducted approximately 650 total launches, with a 95% vehicle relight rate. The Falcon 9 is genuinely best-in-class. None of that is disputed.

The question for investors is whether those credentials justify a valuation that, even at $108, still prices in an enormous amount of future growth that the income statement has yet to deliver. The lock-up expiry date is the next hard test for the share price.