The next few weeks will tell investors whether SpaceX’s post-IPO slide is a valuation reset or a structural problem. The stock closed Friday at $147.95, hovering just above the $135 IPO price from June, after touching a low of $108.27 in early August. But the more consequential pressure is building behind the scenes: a wave of lockup expirations that will dramatically expand the number of tradable shares.
Roughly 27 percent of the 4.6 billion shares scheduled for release under lockup rules in 2026 have already hit the market in August. Another 7 percent tranche unlocks on September 10, followed by a further 7 percent on September 25. The final 28 percent won’t become tradable until after third-quarter earnings in November. The free float has already climbed from 7.34 percent at the time of the IPO to 15.32 percent today, and observers expect it to reach roughly 24 percent by the end of September.
That steady drip of sellable equity helps explain the persistent downward pressure on the shares since their post-IPO peak. The stock traded as high as $176.52 on its first day on the exchange, and in German trading it has fallen 35 percent from its 52-week high of €194.46, reached in June. On Friday, the shares changed hands at €127.36 in Frankfurt, down 1.1 percent on the day — though that modest dip masks a 36 percent surge over the past month and a 4.2 percent weekly gain.
A Wide Spread of Analyst Targets
Wall Street can’t agree on what SpaceX is worth. Oppenheimer sees the stock at $280, a level that implies substantial upside from current prices. Bernstein and JPMorgan are more measured, with targets of $248 and $240 respectively, while Morningstar and UBS have cautioned against buying at these levels. The divergence reflects genuine uncertainty about how to value a company that remains deeply unprofitable on an operating basis.
The skeptics point to the balance sheet. SpaceX posted negative free cash flow of $25 billion in the first half of 2026. Meanwhile, the capital demands ahead are staggering: ARK Invest estimates that expanding chip manufacturing — including the planned Terafab complex in Texas — could require investments of up to $1 trillion, a bill SpaceX would have to share with Tesla. That funding need sits awkwardly alongside the dilution from the lockup releases.
A Leak Grounds the Next Crew Mission
While the market digests those fundamentals, SpaceX is dealing with an operational hiccup of a different kind. NASA and SpaceX have postponed the Crew-13 mission after engineers discovered an oxidizer leak in the propulsion system of the Dragon capsule during prelaunch checks. The mission had been scheduled for September 12; no new launch date has been announced, suggesting the root-cause analysis is still underway.
Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying SpaceX?
The delay stands in sharp contrast to the cadence of SpaceX’s uncrewed operations. On September 1, a Falcon 9 lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base carrying 27 Starlink V2-Mini satellites — the company’s 104th orbital launch of 2026 and its 79th Starlink mission of the year. Starlink has clearly become the operational backbone of the business, but crewed flights demand a far more rigorous review process, and technical findings that might be tolerated on a satellite deployment are deal-breakers when astronauts are involved.
Regulatory Tailwinds for Starship
On the approval front, however, SpaceX is making steady progress. The FAA has issued a final, tiered environmental review with a finding of no significant impact for Starship reentry operations in the Pacific Ocean, along with an additional landing trajectory. The decision expands contingency landing options and updates the vehicle’s operator license — a sign that the regulatory groundwork for future Starship test flights continues to advance.
SpaceX has also filed with the FCC for reserve ship radio frequencies for Starship Flight 14. The application explicitly references an orbital second stage operating from the Starbase launch site in Texas, with a requested operating window from September 15 to March 15, 2027 — the next concrete regulatory milestone for the program. In a more combative move, the company has petitioned the FCC to block or impose strict operational conditions on rival Viasat’s planned satellite fleet, demonstrating that SpaceX is willing to use regulatory channels aggressively to defend its position in the satellite market.
The September Test
For investors, the immediate question is how the September lockup tranches will be absorbed. The more institutional early investors who sell once their holding periods expire, the more pressure the stock will face — particularly while operating losses and heavy capital requirements weigh on the growth narrative. The company is pressing ahead with expansion plans, including the 80th Starlink mission of the year launched Sunday from Vandenberg, a constellation now exceeding 11,000 active satellites, and the $100 billion Starbase expansion in Louisiana, with construction slated to begin in late 2027.
But none of that changes the arithmetic of the next few weeks. With the free float set to expand by nearly half again by the end of September, and the stock trading barely above its IPO price, the market is about to find out just how much demand exists for SpaceX shares at current levels.
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