The most eventful week in SpaceX’s brief public-market life has ended with the stock back near its IPO price, a remarkable turn given that roughly $100 billion worth of insider shares became tradable just days earlier. Investors who braced for a supply glut instead watched institutional buyers step in with enough conviction to drive the equity up 23 percent across two trading sessions.
Friday’s session alone delivered a 15.66 percent gain, closing the stock at EUR 115.14. The weekly advance came in at 22.53 percent. Yet even after that surge, the shares remain 40.79 percent below the June peak of EUR 194.46 — a reminder of how violently the stock has swung since its record-breaking debut.
A Lock-Up That Didn’t Bite
The catalyst was the expiration of the first post-IPO lock-up period on Thursday. Up to 911.5 million shares, valued at roughly $100 billion, became eligible for sale, doubling the free float from 639 million to 1.55 billion shares. That lifted the tradable portion of the company from under 5 percent to nearly 12 percent of all outstanding stock.
The initial reaction was a dip to fresh lows, but the selling quickly evaporated. Institutional demand absorbed the extra supply within two trading days, adding approximately $327 billion to SpaceX’s market capitalization in the process. In US trading, the stock moved back toward the $135 IPO price from June, when the company listed in what stands as the largest American initial public offering ever, at a valuation of around $1.77 trillion.
The overhang hasn’t fully cleared. Further tranches are scheduled for release through December, which would bring roughly 40 percent of shares into circulation. Elon Musk’s own holdings remain locked until mid-2027. Positioning data from Teslarati suggests the market had braced for trouble: short sellers had already borrowed 34 percent of the free float before the lock-up expiry, with 95 percent of lendable shares out on loan.
The Texas Chip Gambit
Against this volatile backdrop, SpaceX and Tesla confirmed plans for a joint semiconductor facility in Grimes County, Texas. The Terafab plant, as it’s being called, would span more than 100 million square feet — potentially the largest building on the planet. Governor Abbott has signed off on the project, which carries a first-phase price tag of at least $16.8 billion and could eventually reach $119 billion in total investment.
Texas is chipping in $30 million from the Texas Enterprise Fund, with around 3,000 jobs expected, most filled locally. Water will come from the Gibbons Creek Reservoir, while dedicated natural gas plants and battery storage will handle power needs. Intel is contributing its 14A manufacturing process as technology partner.
Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying SpaceX?
SpaceX is slated to take roughly three-quarters of the chip output, which will feed into Optimus robots, the Cybercab, and space-based data centers. A terrestrial mobile network is also in the pipeline. The cooperation had been foreshadowed in the second quarter, when SpaceX placed a $295 million order for Tesla Megapack battery storage.
Pentagon Contracts and a Cursor Acquisition
The military side of the business is also expanding. The Space Force awarded a $1.6 billion contract covering 18 Falcon 9 missions through the end of 2027, working out to about $89 million per launch. A separate $2.29 billion deal covers a military data network built on Starshield satellites — previously known as MILNET — with a first prototype due in 2027 to support the Pentagon’s Golden Dome missile defense program.
Beyond hardware, SpaceX completed its acquisition of software firm Cursor in the second quarter, a roughly $60 billion all-stock transaction. Musk has also pulled forward his revenue target, now aiming for $1 trillion in annual sales by 2030 rather than 2031.
Earnings Tell a Two-Sided Story
The quarterly numbers that rattled investors earlier in the week show why sentiment remains divided. Revenue grew 92 percent year over year to $7.8 billion, comfortably beating the $6.93 billion consensus. But the bottom line still showed a net loss of $541 million, or $0.09 per share.
Starlink continues to provide ballast, with 12 million subscribers and $1.66 billion in operating profit. The AI segment tells a different tale: revenue there jumped 247 percent to $2.56 billion, yet operating losses reached $1.3 billion. AI spending consumed $15.83 billion — about 86 percent of total capital expenditures — a figure that triggered a 13.61 percent sell-off on August 5 when it first became known.
Analysts Split Down the Middle
Wall Street can’t agree on what this all adds up to. Argus upgraded the stock to “Buy” with a $160 target, while Morgan Stanley holds an “Overweight” rating with a $300 target. Wall Street Zen moved from “Sell” to “Hold.” The roughly 40 analysts covering the stock cluster around a “Moderate Buy” consensus with an average target of $227.31, though the median sits closer to $221. Skeptics point to targets near $160, citing heavy AI spending and persistent GAAP losses. The bear case gets more extreme from there: investor George Noble sees fair value at just $30, implying a 72 percent decline from current US levels. Jim Cramer recommends the stock long-term but warns of near-term turbulence, noting the next lock-up date at the end of August could bring fresh volatility.
Operationally, the space division offered mixed news: Musk described efforts to recover a 52-meter Starship test vehicle’s hull from the Indian Ocean as unlikely to succeed, though the attempt should yield valuable heat-shield data. A Falcon 9 launch was also confirmed to have created a lunar crater on a prior mission. For now, though, the market’s attention is fixed on the calendar — and the next batch of shares due to hit the market before the year is out.
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