Staged Share Release and Dueling Businesses Put SpaceX Stock to the Test
Published on 07/19/2026 at 20:12 | Redaktion boerse-global.de
The clock is ticking toward SpaceX’s first public quarterly report as a listed company, and the stock is already feeling the pressure. Shares closed at €108.40 on Friday, down 5.39% on the day and a whisker above the 52-week low of €107.34 set just last week. That low was triggered by the aborted Starship test flight on July 17 — a setback that compounded a slide already underway since the company joined the Nasdaq-100 on July 7, erasing roughly 17% of its value in that span.
The deeper anxiety, however, is structural. SpaceX’s unusual lockup arrangement means that as many as 1.37 billion shares could become tradable in the coming months, with the first and largest wave tied directly to the earnings release expected on August 6. The company has not formally confirmed the date, but market participants are bracing for a report that will offer the first public look at its books since the June IPO.
That initial lockup release will free approximately 911.5 million shares, representing about $123 billion in value at current prices. A second tranche of 455.8 million shares — worth roughly $62 billion — is conditional: it will unlock only if the stock closes at or above $175.50 on at least five of the ten trading days prior to the earnings release. Given that the share price has fallen more than 44% from its June 16 high of €194.46 and currently sits at €108.40, that condition appears out of reach. Short sellers have capitalized on the weakness, with S3 Partners estimating book profits of roughly $5 billion on a short interest of about 30% of the float.
Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying SpaceX?
The lockup structure itself is designed to avoid the sudden supply shock that often follows a single expiration date. After the August tranche, additional packages of roughly 7% of locked shares will become tradable in September, October, and November. By December 8, when the full 180-day lockup period ends, some 40% of all SpaceX shares could be freely traded. Elon Musk’s personal stake, however, remains locked until 2027 — the biggest potential seller of all, but one who cannot act for another year. At the IPO, less than 5% of shares were floated, a scarcity that briefly drove the market capitalization to roughly $2.1 trillion.
That lofty valuation now sits uneasily against the company’s financials. SpaceX reported 2025 revenue of $18.674 billion and a net loss of $4.9 billion. The split between its businesses is stark: Starlink generated $11.387 billion in revenue and an operating profit of $4.423 billion, while the AI division posted an operating loss of $6.355 billion. In the first quarter of 2026, the company’s loss of $4.3 billion nearly matched the entire 2025 figure, on revenue of just $4.7 billion. Free cash flow over the trailing twelve months stood at negative $19.8 billion, and total debt reached $60.5 billion — swollen by a $25 billion bond issuance.
Analysts remain broadly bullish despite the carnage, though the justification is shifting. Piper Sandler initiated coverage with a neutral rating and a $156 price target, explicitly citing the lockup overhang and uncertainty around a potential Tesla acquisition. Evercore recommends buying, Morgan Stanley has a target of $225, Raymond James is at $800, and Stifel at $190. The average of 37 analysts tracked by LSEG is $234.78, with 27 of 32 rating the stock a buy, four neutral, and one sell. The bull case increasingly rests not on rocket launches or satellite subscribers, but on the AI business: SpaceX rents idle computing capacity from its Colossus data-center complex, and The Wall Street Journal reports it is negotiating a multi-billion-dollar cloud-computing contract with the Pentagon for AI model training, in addition to existing deals with Google and Anthropic.
With a relative strength index of 34.6 and annualized 30-day volatility above 93%, the stock is edging into oversold territory. The coming weeks will test whether early investors and employees choose to hold their shares or cash out at the first opportunity. The earnings release on August 6 will provide the first real data point — and for a company trading at roughly 49 times expected revenue, the margin for disappointment is slim.
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