SpaceX, the rocket, satellite, and AI powerhouse led by Elon Musk, has rocketed into the public markets with a bang—and now faces a critical test that could reshape its future. On August 4, 2026, the company delivered its first-ever quarterly earnings report as a publicly traded entity, revealing remarkable revenue growth and narrowing losses. Yet, even as the numbers wowed Wall Street on paper, a looming wave of insider share sales threatens to send the stock price on a turbulent ride.
Just two months after its record-setting June IPO, which raised $85.7 billion and briefly gave SpaceX a jaw-dropping $2 trillion valuation, the company reported second-quarter revenue of $7.8 billion. That figure not only smashed analyst expectations of $6.8 billion, according to FactSet, but also marked a sharp jump from last year’s performance. The net loss for the quarter was $541 million—still in the red, but a significant improvement over the $1 billion loss reported a year ago. All three of SpaceX’s core business units—Space, Connectivity, and AI—posted revenue numbers ahead of consensus estimates, with the Connectivity segment, led by Starlink, pulling in $4.3 billion as subscribers doubled to 12 million.
Elon Musk was quick to highlight the company’s momentum. “It’s not out of the question that at some point, Starlink will deliver the majority of the world’s internet,” he told analysts during the earnings call, according to AFP. Musk also set out a bold vision for the company’s Starship program, declaring, “SpaceX expects to deliver well over 1 million tons to orbit per year,” far outpacing the rest of the world’s estimated 300 tons.
Yet, as the financial results rolled in, investors seemed less than convinced. SpaceX shares, which had soared to an intraday high of $225.64 on June 16, have since tumbled nearly 50%, closing at $116.40 in after-hours trading on August 4—well below the IPO price of $135 per share. The stock’s slide has been so steep that it recently cost Musk his trillionaire status, as reported by the New York Times.
The timing of SpaceX’s earnings release couldn’t be more dramatic. On Thursday, August 6, the company’s first post-IPO lockup period expires, unleashing a torrent of shares onto the market. More than 912 million shares—over twice the number currently tradable—will suddenly become eligible for sale by employees and early investors. This flood comes on top of the roughly 639 million shares that have been available since the IPO, potentially boosting the total tradable pool to about 1.55 billion shares, according to Forbes.
Lockups are a standard feature of IPOs, designed to prevent insiders from immediately cashing out and destabilizing the stock. But as Forbes points out, when these restrictions lift, selling pressure often follows. Some employees, who may have received a large portion of their compensation in SpaceX stock, might see this as their first real chance to diversify their holdings after years of patience. Venture funds, meanwhile, have their own timelines and obligations to return capital to investors, making them likely candidates to sell at least part of their stakes.
“The market will not ask why they sold. It will only have to absorb the shares,” Forbes observed, underscoring the market’s indifference to individual motivations in the face of a potential supply surge.
Short sellers have also crowded into the fray, betting that SpaceX’s stock price has further to fall. By late July, short interest had ballooned to 219.3 million shares—about 34% of the float and worth $24.6 billion—surpassing even Tesla’s short interest, according to S3 Partners and Forbes. This is a staggering increase from just 40 million shares sold short in late June, reflecting growing skepticism about SpaceX’s sky-high valuation.
“Nearly $25 billion worth of SpaceX stock, more than a third of its tradable shares, is currently held by short sellers betting the price keeps falling,” noted the New York Times. One Morgan Stanley analyst went so far as to predict that the stock could realistically drop to $100, even as he maintained a bullish long-term outlook. Clearly, for a company that made history just two months ago, the road ahead is anything but smooth.
But it’s not just about the numbers. The IPO itself was unusual, with less than 5% of the company available for public trading at launch—creating a scarcity premium that may have artificially inflated the stock’s value. “Buyers were not valuing the entire company in a deep, liquid market. They were competing for a fraction of it,” Forbes explained. Now, with the lockup ending, that scarcity is about to evaporate, and the market will have to re-price SpaceX based on a much larger, more liquid float.
Some observers have drawn parallels to Uber’s IPO, where overwhelming demand and industry-transforming potential failed to guarantee long-term gains for public shareholders. As Forbes put it, “A company can transform an industry, attract overwhelming demand and still disappoint public shareholders who paid a price that left no room for friction, delay and changing market conditions.”
Still, there’s plenty of optimism about SpaceX’s core business. The company racked up $18.7 billion in revenue last year, though it posted a net loss of more than $4.9 billion. Its Starship rocket, launched in late July, is targeting a moon landing in 2028, and the AI division booked $2.6 billion in revenue for the quarter. Musk remains undeterred, envisioning a future where SpaceX not only dominates space launches but also powers solar data centers and sends ships to Mars.
For now, though, the focus is squarely on the coming days. The lockup expiration is expected to trigger heavy trading volume, and while not all 912 million newly eligible shares will hit the market at once, even a fraction could put significant pressure on the stock price. Additional lockup restrictions are set to lift through December, with as much as 40% of the company potentially tradable by year’s end. The remaining 60%, including Musk’s own stake, will stay restricted until mid-2027.
Investors will be watching the $135 IPO price closely—it may not represent fundamental value, but it’s a psychological anchor for both insiders and the public. A sustained recovery above that level could signal renewed demand; continued weakness would make selling easier for those who bought in early.
Ultimately, as Forbes succinctly put it, “The IPO allowed the public to buy a small piece of SpaceX. The lock-up expiration begins with the harder part: determining the value of the company when more of its owners are free to make their own decisions.” The coming weeks won’t settle every question about SpaceX’s future, but they promise to reveal far more about how the market truly values one of the world’s most ambitious companies.