Only a few times every ten years does SpaceX’s stock experience one of those spectacular openings. The demand was nearly insane when shares started trading on the Nasdaq on June 12 at $150. Some investors were unable to fulfill their orders at all. In a matter of days, the price had risen to an intraday high of $225.64, which briefly brought back memories of the early days of Tesla or Amazon, when people were still debating whether or not anyone would actually purchase books online.
Then the air began to escape. The majority of those gains had been lost by late June, when SpaceX’s stock briefly fell below its opening price of $150, erasing about $600 billion from its peak market value. Shares ended what had momentarily appeared to be a recovery as of July 1 at $157.54, down nearly 8% on the day alone. Anyone who bought in at the top has had a difficult few weeks.
The drop hasn’t happened at random. On July 1, the stock was severely impacted by two distinct events. The first was the announcement that SpaceX had been placed on an internal “prohibited investment holding list” for its employees by the Federal Aviation Administration. This is a standard conflict-of-interest measure in theory, but it’s the kind of headline that institutional funds don’t exactly ignore. Regulatory optics are important, and they’re not clear at the moment.
Then Musk himself appeared on X, dispelling a rumor that had been subtly boosting the stock. According to reports from The Wall Street Journal and other publications, SpaceX allegedly showed off a svelte new AI handheld device to significant shareholders during a roadshow. The device is thinner than an iPhone and is built on xAI and Qualcomm chips. Four words summed up Musk’s response: “This is completely false.” In a matter of hours, the stock fell even more.
However, there is a compelling case to be made for Musk’s actions. Prior to this IPO, SpaceX was already valued at more than $2 trillion. The SEC and the Pentagon would have been under intense regulatory scrutiny if the market had been permitted to reprice the company as an AI hardware play stacked on top of a rocket company. It would have been a different kind of issue if he had allowed that story to escape him. Even if the short-term suffering is genuine, it is difficult to avoid perceiving the denial as deliberate.
Some of this is simply the nature of initial public offerings (IPOs). Excitement generated by a huge debut is unrelated to fundamentals. Because they don’t want to miss the next Nvidia, people purchase. Demand then naturally decreases after the most eager buyers have received their shares. On June 22, SpaceX announced a $25 billion bond offering, which startled investors who realized how capital-intensive the company’s goals truly are. AI infrastructure, satellite networks, and rockets are all expensive.
There are two impending catalysts. When SpaceX joins the Nasdaq-100 on July 7, index funds will be needed to purchase shares. That ought to offer a temporary floor, at the very least. The first insider unlock period, which will allow early investors to begin selling up to 20% of their locked-up shares, will then begin with the first earnings report, which is anticipated in August. The kind of thing that tends to move stocks is the combination of fresh information and possible selling pressure.
When everything is resolved, where does SpaceX end up? It’s really difficult to say. For the first quarter of 2026, the company reported revenue of $4.69 billion, up over 15% from the previous year. Starlink is still growing. A commercial workhorse is the Falcon program. Even though it will take years for earnings to fully reflect the long-term AI infrastructure story, which SpaceX estimates is worth $26.5 trillion. As it digests a historic IPO month that was both thrilling and brutal in roughly equal measure, the stock is currently trading between $150 and $170.
