Breaking! Starship launch countdown hits 1 second and is urgently aborted. Musk’s stock price falls below the offering price—are retail investors being buried alive?

Let me tell you something that just happened—so you’d better perk up and listen.

SpaceX’s massive Starship, originally slated for the 13th flight test, saw its engine fail to ignite about 1 second before liftoff, and the system immediately triggered an abort procedure. The rocket stayed calmly on the launch pad and didn’t move.

According to the plan, this Starship would circle the Earth for half a lap, flying toward the edge of space. That’s now a bust. SpaceX said: first, investigate the cause of the engine anomaly; before it’s clear, don’t plan another flight.

This Starship is about 124 meters tall and is equipped with 33 Raptor engines—global’s highest and most powerful rocket. It’s not just a toy for Musk; it’s also a cornerstone for the Starlink satellite network and NASA’s lunar landing missions.

Once the engines were supposed to start, they shut down. SpaceX immediately announced replacing two Raptor engines. On the X platform, Musk said, “Some engines didn’t start, which triggered an automatic abort.” He added that the fastest next attempt would be early next week.

If this test had succeeded, it would have marked the first flight of the upgraded Starship V3. In May this year, during the V3 test, the rocket did lift off, but multiple engines at the bottom of the first-stage booster failed to relight—then it crashed into the Gulf of Mexico, with no soft landing possible.

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) had previously required SpaceX to investigate that anomaly, and only approved a return to flight this Monday. The investigation report pointed to two most likely causes: propulsion-system components being damaged by thermal effects during ascent, and the engine alarm system being misconfigured. SpaceX carried out four corrective actions, including upgrading hardware and software.

Another highlight of this 13th test: the plan was to carry 20 new-generation Starlink satellites, release them during flight, and then establish communications with the Starlink satellites already in orbit. It would also take thermal-blanket (heat shield) images for technical verification. About 20 minutes after the satellites are released, they will “self-destruct” by reentering the atmosphere.

But the Starship test schedule directly affects NASA’s “Artemis” lunar landing plan. NASA selected SpaceX and Blue Origin to develop lunar landers. Both companies must make the landers flight-capable by next year so that the “Artemis III” astronauts can practice docking in Earth orbit. The earliest, “Artemis IV” in 2028, would use one of these landers to send two astronauts to the Moon’s south pole.

As the test is delayed, SpaceX’s stock price has also been bleeding. At IPO, it was $135 per share; on its first day on the Nasdaq on June 12, it rose to $193, and then slid steadily. It closed Thursday at $131.11, down more than 3%, and after-hours it even dipped to $124, marking the first time it fell below the issue price.

SpaceX raised $85.7 billion via its IPO—one of the largest in history. But soon after listing, it issued $25 billion in debt. At present, paper short positions against SpaceX are close to $4 billion. Retail investors who bought on the first day at $150 per share are now down more than 11%. The market cap has shrunk by more than $1.2 trillion from the June 16 peak. Based on the first-day price, the market cap has evaporated by about $250 billion.

Musk’s wealth has also been shrinking. After the IPO, his net worth briefly surged to $1.32 trillion; now, according to Bloomberg’s billionaire index, it’s down to around $850 billion. Still, Musk continues to paint a big picture: SpaceX could achieve about $1 trillion in revenue by 2030.

Wall Street analysts as a whole still lean positive on the long term, but in the coming weeks the company will have to release its first earnings report after listing, plus some shareholders’ stock lock-up periods are set to expire—so the share price could face continued pressure. Historically, large IPOs falling below the issue price isn’t rare—Meta Platforms (META.O) traded below the issue price for more than a year after its 2012 IPO, and Uber (UBER.N) was the same in 2019; but both companies later turned things around.

So don’t just watch the fireworks on the launch pad—watch the numbers in your account. That’s the real deal.

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