SpaceX's Stock Faces a Crowded August: Lock-Up Waves, a $60 Billion AI Acquisition, and a Record Launch Cadence
Published on 08/20/2026 at 08:13 | Redaktion boerse-global.de
The euphoria that greeted SpaceX's public market debut in June is giving way to a more complicated narrative. The company's shares have been caught between an extraordinary operational tempo and a wall of supply that keeps hitting the market with each new lock-up expiration. After shedding 3.5 percent on Wednesday to close at EUR 119.66, the stock now sits 38 percent below its 52-week high of EUR 194.46 — yet it remains up 10 percent on a monthly basis, a sign that the bulls haven't entirely abandoned the story.
The immediate catalyst for the latest dip is straightforward: roughly 319 million shares of restricted stock, representing about 7 percent of the total, are set to become freely tradable. This marks the second major lock-up release since the June 12 initial public offering, and investors are bracing for potential selling pressure. The first wave came in early August, when 911.5 million shares — approximately 20 percent of the locked-up float — were freed, and the stock defied expectations by climbing 6.1 percent. Whether that pattern repeats remains an open question, but the calendar offers little respite: another 700 million shares are scheduled for release on September 1.
A $60 Billion All-Stock Bet on AI Software
Amid the share-supply drama, SpaceX has quietly closed one of the largest acquisitions in its history. According to an 8-K filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission dated August 14, the company has completed its roughly $60 billion, all-stock purchase of Anysphere, the developer behind the Cursor coding assistant. The deal, fully financed with equity, is designed to embed machine learning more deeply into SpaceX's aerospace software pipelines — a strategic move that aligns with the company's broader push into artificial intelligence.
That AI ambition comes with a hefty price tag. In the second quarter of 2026, SpaceX spent $18.4 billion on capital expenditures, with $15.8 billion of that directed toward AI infrastructure. Management maintains the payback period for new compute capacity is under a year and expects to reach more than two gigawatts of computing power by year-end. Since the close of Q2, the company has also signed an additional $6.7 billion in cloud contracts. And in early August, SpaceX and Tesla announced a joint commitment of $16.8 billion to build Terafab, an advanced AI semiconductor complex in Grimes County, Texas.
The market's reaction to this spending spree has been decidedly mixed. While the operational metrics point to robust growth, investors appear wary of overinvestment in AI capacity without immediately visible returns. The 12 percent drop on August 5, following the company's first quarterly report as a public entity, underscored those concerns — even as management presented strong growth figures alongside the heavy spending numbers.
Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying SpaceX?
Blue-Chip Investors Signal Confidence
The share price weakness hasn't deterred some of the world's most prominent institutional investors from building or expanding positions. Regulatory filings reveal a who's who of heavyweight backers: Alphabet holds 551.2 million shares, valued at roughly $94 billion based on its June 30 stake — a remarkable return on its initial $900 million investment made back in 2015. Fidelity owns 302.6 million shares, Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund holds 154.1 million, and Nvidia has accumulated 123 million shares.
Elon Musk, in a mandatory disclosure, reported a 48.4 percent stake as of June 30. Tiger Global Management has also disclosed a position worth approximately $64.1 million, while Norway's Government Pension Fund Global made its first-ever entry with a holding valued at $1.22 billion. These moves suggest that institutional players are interpreting the recent volatility as a buying opportunity rather than a reason to retreat.
Launch Tempo Unmatched
While the financial headlines focus on lock-ups and AI outlays, the core space business continues to operate at a pace no competitor can match. SpaceX compressed the interval between two missions to a record 38.5 minutes — one carrying a Globalstar satellite replacement, the other flying for the U.S. Space Force. On Wednesday, the company completed its 100th mission of 2026 with a Falcon 9 launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base, deploying 24 additional Starlink satellites and bringing the constellation to more than 11,000 spacecraft in orbit.
Not everything has gone smoothly. China's LandSpace successfully recovered the first stage of its Zhuque-3 rocket, a technological milestone that narrows the gap with SpaceX's reusable launch systems. And NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter confirmed an 18-meter-wide crater near the Einstein crater on the moon, caused by the impact of an uncontrolled Falcon 9 upper stage in early August. Meanwhile, the upper stage of Starship Ship 40, which splashed down in the Indian Ocean in late July, has been towed to Christmas Island for technical inspection.
Analysts Split on Valuation
Wall Street remains divided on where SpaceX goes from here. UBS reiterated its buy recommendation on Wednesday with a price target of $210, pointing to Starlink subscriber growth as the primary value driver. Bernstein raised its target from $240 to $248 on Tuesday, citing the potential for orbital AI data centers, while maintaining its overweight rating.
At the other end of the spectrum, Phillip Securities set a price target of just $75 with a sell recommendation in mid-August, questioning the sustainability of the company's revenue base. The fundamental picture, for now, shows second-quarter revenue up 92 percent year-over-year to $7.81 billion, alongside a net loss of $541 million. The next earnings report is scheduled for November 3, which will give investors their next opportunity to judge whether the AI spending spree is laying the groundwork for future profits — or eroding them.
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