SpaceX Faces a Two-Front Test: A Historic Share Release Meets a $15.8 Billion AI Spending Question
Published on 08/06/2026 at 15:11 | Redaktion boerse-global.de
The timing could hardly be more awkward. On the very day SpaceX's first post-IPO lock-up expires and roughly 911.5 million Class A shares become eligible for sale, the stock is trying to steady itself after a bruising reaction to its debut earnings report. The convergence of a potential supply glut with investor anxiety over the company's aggressive artificial-intelligence spending has created the most consequential trading session since the June listing.
Markets opened the day with the shares trading in positive territory, up 2.55 percent to EUR 95.84. That modest bounce, however, does little to mask the damage done over the past month: the stock remains down 26.83 percent over 30 days and sits just 5.27 percent above its 52-week low. The previous session had been particularly brutal, with the shares closing at EUR 93.46 after shedding 14.12 percent — leaving the equity barely 2.66 percent above the trough touched on August 3.
A Lock-Up Wave Unlike Any Other
The scale of today's share release is unprecedented for the young listing. The 911.5 million newly tradable Class A shares represent roughly 140 percent of the current free float, according to reports from Business Insider and Bloomberg. The tradable portion of the company's equity is set to more than double, from 4.9 percent to 11.8 percent of shares outstanding.
Notably, this is merely the opening salvo. Because the stock never reached the $175.50 threshold required for early release, an additional 455.8 million shares remain locked up for now. Elon Musk's personal stake of 42 percent — equivalent to 6.4 billion shares — stays blocked until June 2027. By mid-2027, roughly 12.9 billion further shares are slated to emerge from lock-up restrictions, making today's event the first of several supply waves.
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A Quarter That Beat Expectations but Raised Eyebrows
The earnings report that triggered Wednesday's sell-off was, on its face, strong. Second-quarter revenue climbed 92 percent to $7.8 billion, comfortably ahead of the $6.9 billion consensus estimate. The net loss narrowed to $541 million from approximately $1.0 billion in the year-ago quarter. Starlink continued to prove its worth as the company's profit engine, with the satellite-internet division generating $4.29 billion in revenue and $1.66 billion in operating income while doubling its subscriber base to 12 million active users.
The trouble lay on the balance sheet. Total quarterly expenditures reached $18.3 billion, of which $15.8 billion went to AI infrastructure and data-center investments — a figure that some reports put at $18.4 billion in capital expenditures, roughly six times the year-earlier level. CFO Bret Johnsen sought to reassure investors that these AI outlays would pay for themselves in under a year, while signaling similarly elevated spending for the next two quarters.
Wall Street Splits on the Path Forward
The analyst community has responded to this mix of growth and spending with sharply divergent conclusions. JPMorgan's Doug Anmuth raised his price target from $225 to $240, maintaining an "Overweight" rating and citing the company's accelerated goal of reaching $1 trillion in annual revenue by 2030 — a timeline Musk pulled forward from his original 2031 target.
Piper Sandler struck a far more cautious tone, cutting its target from $156 to $140 and holding a "Neutral" stance. The firm pointed to the lock-up's doubling effect on the free float, a 2027 capex estimate that is $17 billion higher than previously forecast, and the risk of cancellable AI contracts. Wells Fargo's Ken Gawrelski also trimmed his target, from $230 to $215, though he maintained a "Buy" rating while lifting his 2027 capex projection to $296 billion, with $263 billion earmarked for AI. Other houses, viewing the post-earnings decline as a buying opportunity, have clustered their targets near $239.
What Comes Next
Operationally, the company shows no sign of slowing. A Falcon 9 launched three BlueBird Block 2 satellites for partner AST SpaceMobile from Cape Canaveral on Wednesday, and the spent upper stage of a January 2025 Falcon 9 mission made its expected impact near the Einstein and Bell craters on the lunar surface, monitored by NASA and the European Southern Observatory.
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Attention now turns to Starship Flight 14, which Musk has confirmed for late August. The mission is slated to carry its first payload to orbit and will attempt the inaugural capture of the upper stage at the launch tower. The defense side of the business remains active as well: the US Space Force's SB-AMTI program, for which SpaceX secured a $4.16 billion contract in May, awarded an additional $615 million to Rocket Lab and two other providers on Tuesday.
For investors, the calculus is unenviable. A 92 percent revenue surge and a narrowing loss are genuine achievements, but they collide with an extraordinary capital appetite and a historic supply event on the same day. Whether early backers such as Founders Fund, Craft Ventures, Valor Equity, and Alphabet choose to monetize their positions — or hold firm — will determine whether the current support level holds or gives way.
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