SpaceX’s Historic IPO: One Month Later, the Hype Meets Reality
When SpaceX made its debut on the public markets on 12 June, it was supposed to be the moment that defined a decade. In many ways, it was — just not in the way many early retail investors had hoped.
The company, co-founded and led by Elon Musk, priced its shares at $135 each. Within hours, that figure was a memory. The stock opened at $150, climbed as high as $176 intraday, and closed its first session at $160.95. By every conventional measure, it was the largest initial public offering in history.
But a month on, the euphoria has cooled considerably. SpaceX shares are now trading at around $145 — roughly 18% below their first-day closing high and 35% below the peak of $225 reached the following week. For the thousands of individual investors who piled in during those heady first days, the math is unforgiving.
The AI Narrative That Drove the Frenzy
What fueled the initial surge was not, primarily, rockets. It was artificial intelligence.
“With Elon Musk, any company he touches gets people excited,” said Keith Snyder, an analyst at investment research firm CFRA. “But this was also the first time people felt like they were able to invest in something that was being marketed as an AI play.”
Willy Lee, an investor at Neosteller, a firm that helps individuals invest in private companies, echoed that assessment. “Everyone saw SpaceX as an AI story,” he said.
There was some substance behind the narrative. Earlier this year, SpaceX acquired Musk’s AI start-up xAI — recently renamed SpaceXAI — best known for the chatbot Grok. The company has also begun leasing data centre capacity to other tech firms. Those moves gave investors a story that connected SpaceX to the most powerful trend in technology markets.
But SpaceX’s core business remains what it has always been: the manufacture and launch of rockets and the operation of its Starlink telecommunications satellite network. The gap between the AI narrative and the operational reality became visible when Starlink announced price cuts in the Memphis, Tennessee area, where local concerns have grown over a massive data centre project. SpaceX shares dropped 8% that day.
A Stock That Started to Behave Like a Meme
The volatility has not been limited to single-day reactions. Even as broader tech stocks endured a turbulent stretch, SpaceX has taken a disproportionately hard hit.
On 7 July, when SpaceX was added to the Nasdaq100 index, the index itself closed down 1.7%. SpaceX fell 4.4%. An earlier inclusion in the FTSE Russell index had provided a brief lift, but the momentum did not hold.
Snyder, of CFRA, drew an uncomfortable parallel. “It started to look a lot like a meme stock,” he said, pointing to GameStop and, more recently, Wendy’s — cases where retail investors drove share prices higher through online enthusiasm rather than fundamental analysis.
He now expects SpaceX to fall further, to approximately $115 per share, based on the company’s actual business performance. Even at that level, the company would carry a valuation of roughly $1.5 trillion.
Two Investor Classes, Two Very Different Outcomes
The divergence in outcomes among SpaceX investors is stark, and it follows a familiar IPO pattern.
“If you’re an IPO investor, you’re ok,” said Samuel Kerr, who leads analysis of equity capital markets for Mergermarket. He was referring to those who secured shares at the $135 offering price or held pre-IPO equity as insiders. “If you bought in the first few days, you’re not very happy right now.”
Snyder was more blunt: “If you bought around the first tick you’re definitely underwater.”
SpaceX did not respond to a request for comment from AXO News.
Musk’s Trillion-Dollar Vision — and His Use of Stock as Currency
Despite the pullback, Musk has shown nothing but confidence in the company’s trajectory. The IPO made him the world’s first trillionaire, and he has since projected that SpaceX will generate $1 trillion in annual revenue by 2030.
To put that in context: SpaceX currently operates at a loss. Last year, according to financial disclosures filed ahead of the IPO, the company generated $18 billion in revenue. Musk’s projected $1 trillion target represents roughly 55 times that figure.
Musk has also demonstrated a willingness to use SpaceX’s volatile shares as acquisition currency — and to do so with precise timing. On 16 June, when the share price was near its peak, SpaceX announced it was acquiring Cursor, a start-up behind an AI-powered code-writing bot, in an all-stock deal valued at $60 billion. Because SpaceX stock had appreciated so sharply by that point, the acquisition effectively cost the company little in real terms.
“It showed a level of market sophistication that almost no other issuer has,” Kerr said of the Cursor deal.
What Comes Next: Earnings, Lock-Ups, and a $300 Price Target
Morgan Stanley, one of the lead bankers on the SpaceX IPO, evidently sees the current dip as temporary. The firm initiated analyst coverage last week with a target price of $300 per share — a 33% premium over SpaceX’s highest trading price to date.
Whether that target proves prescient may depend on what happens in the coming weeks. Anticipation is building around SpaceX’s first public earnings report, which the company has not yet dated but which analysts expect in early August.
The earnings release will likely coincide with the expiration of the so-called “lock-up” period — the window during which SpaceX employees who received shares as compensation are barred from selling. Once that period ends, a wave of new supply could hit the market, potentially pressuring the share price further.
At the same time, the earnings report may provide investors with the most detailed public accounting yet of SpaceX’s business segments, cost structure, and growth roadmap. That combination — more shares in circulation and more financial clarity — could produce significant price swings in either direction.
Kerr, for his part, framed the stakes with characteristic precision: “If SpaceX can do all the things it says it will do, yes, investors are sitting on the most valuable company ever. But it’s got a lot of work to do to get there.”
For now, SpaceX’s first month as a public company has delivered a clear lesson. The IPO was historic. The enthusiasm was real. But markets, as they always do, eventually demand that the numbers match the narrative. Whether SpaceX can close that gap is a question that will define not just the stock’s trajectory, but the legacy of one of the most anticipated public debuts in living memory.