For SpaceX investors, the more revealing number last week may not have been the share-price jump, but the fact that a record wave of stock made its way into the market without triggering a disorderly exit. The first lockup period after the Nasdaq debut expired on Thursday, and more than 911 million shares became tradeable — roughly 7 percent of all outstanding stock. The free float more than doubled, from 4.9 percent to 11.8 percent.
Instead of a wave of selling, the stock finished Thursday in New York 6.1 percent higher. The move carried into the German market on Friday, where the shares closed at EUR 115.14, up 15.66 percent on the day. Over the week, the stock gained 22.53 percent. That still left it more than 40 percent below its 52-week high, reached in June, and about 11 percent down over the past month.
The calm reception to the lockup expiry was helped by the behaviour of early holders. Jessie Bates III, the Atlanta Falcons safety, told CNBC he planned to sell his entire stake, which he bought in 2022 for USD 150,000. Even so, that kind of individual sale did not turn into broad pressure. The next unlocks are already on the calendar: 319 million shares could be released on 20 August, with about 700 million shares following in September and another 700 million in October. Elon Musk remains the largest single shareholder, with more than six billion shares, but his holdings stay locked until June 2027.
The rally also followed SpaceX’s first quarterly report as a listed company, which showed how quickly the business has scaled. Revenue in the second quarter rose 92 percent to USD 7.8 billion, beating Wall Street’s consensus estimate of about USD 6.9 billion. Adjusted EBITDA almost tripled to USD 3.5 billion. On a bottom-line basis, the net loss narrowed from USD 1 billion a year earlier to USD 541 million, or 9 cents a share.
The biggest engine behind that top-line growth was artificial intelligence. The company said AI revenue reached USD 2.6 billion in the quarter, almost tripling year on year. Starlink contributed USD 4.2 billion to USD 4.3 billion and now counts 12 million subscribers. But the spending was just as striking as the sales growth: capital expenditure in the quarter came to USD 18.4 billion, largely tied to AI data-centre capacity. For the first half of 2026, the company showed a loss of USD 2 billion.
SpaceX is still trying to persuade the market that those investments can justify its valuation. A separate deal may help. Google is paying SpaceX USD 920 million a month to rent around 110,000 Nvidia GPUs under a contract worth almost USD 30 billion through June 2029. SpaceX and Tesla are also jointly investing USD 16.8 billion in a Texas chip plant called Terafab, which is expected to create about 3,000 jobs.
Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying SpaceX?
Management is pushing the AI narrative further. Cursor, the AI coding tool SpaceX said in June it would buy for USD 60 billion in stock, is nearing completion of regulatory review, Elon Musk said on the earnings call. He said the deal should close “recht bald,” with completion possible as soon as the coming weekend and no later than the end of August. Cursor will not remain a standalone unit but will be folded fully into SpaceXAI, the company’s existing AI division.
That division already posted the USD 2.6 billion quarterly revenue figure, while management is aiming for an annualized revenue run rate of USD 100 billion by December if Cursor is included. Cloud-computing services are expected to be the main driver. Musk also said SpaceX plans to begin launching orbital AI satellites next year, moving data centres into space and cutting costs well below rivals’ levels.
Analysts have responded with a mix of enthusiasm and caution. Morgan Stanley’s Adam Jonas lifted his price target to USD 300 after the results and the lockup expiry, saying more than half of that valuation rests on the AI business. Argus upgraded the shares from Hold to Buy and set a USD 160 target. Across 31 analysts, the average price target stands at USD 229.54, with 24 Buy ratings, five Holds and two Sells. The range is unusually wide, from USD 75 to USD 800.
Still, not everyone sees a smooth path from here. Investor James Foord described SpaceX as one of the market’s most binary bets: if the company can expand AI computing capacity to 10 gigawatts by 2027 and generate roughly USD 300 billion in annual revenue, he sees USD 250 as justified; if growth stalls at the current 0.4 gigawatts of added capacity in the second quarter, he puts fair value at just USD 25. For now, he is neutral and rates the stock Hold.
Operationally, the company is not slowing down. Starlink launches continue from Vandenberg Space Force Base, and on Wednesday a Falcon 9 carried three BlueBird satellites for AST SpaceMobile. The latest Starship test flight at the end of July produced intact images of the heat shield for the first time, although analyst Tim Farrar said the booster landing still fell far short of quick reusability.
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