#夏日创作营 SpaceX: a dream or a nightmare!

Iron Man was still human after all—not a god. The essence of business isn’t creating myths, it’s manufacturing value. SpaceX’s stock price volatility is precisely proof of that.
When the market cooled down from IPO frenzy and returned to rationality, investors began scrutinizing every expense, every launch, and the operational data of every satellite—under a magnifying glass.
On June 12, its first day of trading, the close price of SpaceX’s $86 billion—its biggest IPO in history—was $160.9, up more than 19% from the $150 offer price. After listing, the stock surged 50% within three days,
On June 16, it hit a historical high of $225.6, corresponding to a total market cap of $2.66 trillion. For a period it even surpassed Amazon to enter the global top five for listed-company market value, and Musk became the first trillionaire on earth.
However, starting June 22, Space X plunged 16.4% in a single day, wiping out $400 billion in market value—marking the second-largest one-day contraction in U.S. stock market history;
On July 7, after being added to the Nasdaq 100 index, it fell 6.83% on its first trading day, dropping below the $150 opening price;
On July 15, it first fell below the $135 issue price intraday and closed down for four consecutive trading days;
On July 16, the “Starship” was forced to terminate the launch due to an engine malfunction;
On July 21, after the Falcon 9 rocket was ignited, the launch was urgently aborted. In just one month, SpaceX’s stock price was cut in half from its $225 peak; its market cap evaporated by more than $1 trillion. Musk’s net worth fell from $1.45 trillion to $760 billion. As of the time of writing, Space X has just crawled out of a streak of seven consecutive declines—its lowest price has already touched $119.68. The “trillionaire” title for Iron Man Musk lasted less than two weeks, and the story of the tattooed Asian girl holding the SpaceX rocket ignition button only carried it for a month too. From the world’s first space IPO to a breach of issue price—he finished in one month the road others take for a year!
A month ago, the company was still the “chosen one” of global capital markets, the “light of humanity.” Musk wasn’t only a dreamer who could get humans to Mars in five years and explore the starry seas in ten; he was also a wealth creator who made the net worth of thousands of early employees exceed one million dollars. But Musk’s most impressive part was never simply sending people to Mars—it was taking a money-burning, smoke-belching space business and force-branding it into a deal that could be listed, raise funds, and make employees get rich along with it. If you only listen to press conferences and watch PPT slides, it feels like another leap in human civilization—Musk would be like Magellan, opening a new route between humanity and outer space. But once you dig into the ledgers—looking at equity, supply chains, and the underlying logic—you find a painfully stark truth: SpaceX isn’t selling the dream of the stars and the starry seas. It’s selling scarce narratives—selling monopolistic positions—selling the world’s relentless intoxication with the “Musk myth.” You think you bought a ticket to Mars, a dream to board for the future, but actually you only bought a portion of fuel to make the company’s valuation soar. And this fuel is burning away at a speed visible to the naked eye.
Because SpaceX’s business model is, at its core, a meticulously designed “narrative arbitrage.” Next, let’s break down step by step how SpaceX’s “narrative arbitrage” works.

In February 2026, it incorporated loss-making xAI and the X platform into SpaceX and conducted the acquisition entirely in stock. It redefined traditional aerospace companies as “the world’s first space-grade general-purpose AI infrastructure provider,” and replaced the single rocket-launch valuation model with a closed-loop story of “orbital data centers” and “Starlink network + xAI computing power.” It forcibly positioned itself against AI giants like Nvidia rather than traditional industrial stocks, expanding valuation upside. At the same time, this merger and acquisition transferred the $17.5 billion junk debt of xAI and the X platform to SpaceX’s balance sheet via a $20 billion bridge loan, and it was agreed that SpaceX would repay it six months after going public; this is like wrapping a bunch of hot potatoes in gold leaf labeled “space AI” and stuffing them into the mouths of investors that were already participating in—and about to participate in—investment.
In early May to June 2026, SpaceX successively signed long-term AI computing contracts with Anthropic (a monthly $1.25 billion) and Google (about $0.92 billion per month), locking in total recurring revenue of more than $2.1 billion per month. By disclosing these big deals on the eve of the IPO, the essence was using the AI story to underwrite a high valuation.
Although its AI business (xAI) was still in severe loss at the time (loss of $2.5 billion in 2026 Q1), these contracts made the market believe in its profit outlook, supporting an IPO valuation as high as $1.77 trillion. The prospectus claimed a potential market size of $26.5 trillion (mainly driven by imagination of AI and computing). It emphasized that after Starship was fully reused, costs would drop by two orders of magnitude—creating the illusion of a “guaranteed surge.”
On June 4, 2026: it kicked off the roadshow, designed “hunger marketing” to create scarcity of stock, and planned to issue about 556 million shares at $135 per share, raising $75 billion. On the one hand, the IPO only offered 4.2% of total shares outstanding, manufacturing scarcity; on the other hand, it opened subscription of tradable shares to retail investors, allocating 20% of the seats, using “retail frenzy” and a structure of “low float + high sentiment” to trigger a rush, pushing up the first-day share price.
On June 12, 2026: it officially listed, and the stock price skyrocketed. After listing on Nasdaq, its first-day share price rose by about 20%; then over several subsequent trading days it kept climbing, with market cap once nearly reaching $3 trillion. The price-to-sales ratio (P/S) exceeded 100x; the extremely low float ratio (4.2%) and heavy retail buying (net purchases of $405 million in the first five trading days) together magnified stock volatility, achieving the effect of manipulating market value.
On June 14, 2026: media interpreted the prospectus details, disclosing that Musk, through a multi-class equity structure (Class B shares: 1 share equals 10 votes) and an “extreme challenge” incentive plan, controlled about 82.4% of SpaceX’s voting power via A- and B-class share structures, which was diluted to about 82.3% after the IPO. This “one share, ten votes” super-voting architecture allowed Musk to enjoy the capital market premium while being almost completely unconstrained by any external checks. The cost, however, was this: when the company needs continuous financing, issuing bonds, and mergers and acquisitions, the market becomes increasingly cautious about the governance structure of “one person decides everything.”
On June 16, 2026, SpaceX announced that it would acquire Anysphere, the parent company of AI programming tool Cursor, via an all-stock transaction. The implied valuation for Cursor was $60 billion. The deal was expected to be completed in the third quarter of 2026. Anysphere would become a wholly owned subsidiary of SpaceX as a surviving company. (In April 2026, both sides had already announced a model training collaboration, giving SpaceX an option to acquire, which it exercised after the IPO.) At this point, the stock price reached a peak intraday of $225.64, providing a hefty amount of “chips” for the transaction. This kind of operation—“buying strategic assets with peak stock prices”—is essentially a high-stakes gamble: the bet is that boosting the business map can keep the myth going; the bet is that building a bubble on top of a bubble will continue to work.
On June 23, 2026: SpaceX announced it would issue about $20 billion of investment-grade bonds to repay the bridge loan for the earlier xAI acquisition. After the news was released, the stock price evaporated about $600 billion over three days, the largest drop since listing—this was the combo of selling at high prices and cashing out, then financing by issuing bonds to repay.
(1) After listing, use the soaring share price and credit rating (investment grade) to issue bonds at extremely low cost, repaying the short-term high-interest loans used for the xAI acquisition and optimizing the debt structure;
(2) Although Musk personally did not directly reduce his holdings, by financing through the bond issuance, it effectively used market funds to “pay the bill” for the previous acquisitions—achieving disguised cashing out.
The market began voting with its feet: investors realized the company had taken on large new debt again within less than two weeks of listing, and the profit outlook for its AI business was unclear (xAI losses exceeded $6 billion in 2025), triggering a sell-off wave. Market confidence wavered. SpaceX’s stock price fell from the $225.64 peak all the way toward around $180, with nearly $1 trillion wiped out in market value.
Wall Street analysts began questioning Musk’s “financial reshuffling tactics”: issuing bonds at inflated valuations, swapping bonds for assets, and then using those assets to tell stories to maintain valuations.
Next, on July 7, 2026: after being added to the Nasdaq 100 index, it fell 6.83% on the first trading day, dropping below the $150 opening price; on July 15, it first fell below the $135 issue price intraday and closed down for four consecutive trading days;
On July 16, the “Starship” was forced to terminate the launch due to an engine malfunction;
On July 21, after the Falcon 9 rocket was ignited, the launch was urgently aborted. After several setbacks, SpaceX’s stock price was already down about 15% below the issue price, and its market cap had shrunk by more than 40% from its peak.
The market started summarizing that week with a “triple blow”: the index-inclusion effect faded, launch missions ran into repeated setbacks, and losses in the AI business kept expanding. More fatally, investors began doubting SpaceX’s core narrative—whether it is truly a “space exploration company,” or “Musk’s capital instrument.”
When the narrative of “space exploration” gets covered by doubts about “financial reshuffling,” the market’s valuation logic for SpaceX shifts from “dream premium” to “risk discount.” And this roller coaster ride from peak to trough reveals the essence of the capital market: when the story is no longer believed, the skeleton that supports the bubble collapses.
When the story is no longer believed, the bubble loses the skeleton that supports it. According to estimates by financial analysis firm S3 Partners, currently about 206 million shares of SpaceX are being shorted, representing about 32% of the company’s publicly tradable float. The nominal short position size is about $25 billion. Compared with about 185 million shares (29% of float) from last week, it increased. Compared with about 40 million shares estimated about a month ago (about 5% to 7% of float), it has surged significantly.

Facing rising short positions, Musk responded on social media: “Investors who short SpaceX will ultimately suffer losses.” “For institutions that have maintained heavily short positions long-term, their survival probability is extremely low.” He also said, “I’ve said that if we achieve our goals, SpaceX’s value will surpass the entire Earth—this is beyond doubt.” Of course, the prerequisite is that “if” can be achieved. The issue Musk now needs to address is that SpaceX will release its first quarterly earnings report since listing after the close of U.S. stock trading on August 4, and starting August 6, shares worth up to $116 billion in restricted stock will be unlocked. Once early investors cash out, retail investors will be forced to take the bag. And the upcoming earnings report will also be the first time investors get a detailed look at the company’s operating situation—becoming a key test for the next round of bull-bear game.
Of course, SpaceX’s story is far from over. Up in the sky, Starlink is still growing; on the ground, Starship is still in test flights; Mars’s soil is still calling; and the AI bubble has not yet burst. But the capital market has already voted with its share price: fix the problems in front of you first, then discuss the stars and the starry seas.
In fact, for all corporate executives, decision-makers, and investors, SpaceX’s IPO break is a $1 trillion-worth lesson in value. From IPO to listing, every step was a perfect business plan book meticulously calculated and packaged. Each step accurately drained the wallets of different investors, and Musk remains the world’s richest man, still the most disruptive entrepreneur. It’s just that this time, the market reminded him: in front of capital, maybe no one can always talk only stories and never facts. $SPCX ‌