Why SpaceX (SPCX) Has Crashed Nearly 50% Since Its IPO Peak

​SpaceX’s highly anticipated June 2026 IPO was billed as the market event of the decade, and it certainly started off with a bang. After pricing at $135 and raising over $75 billion, the stock rocketed to an intraday high of $225.64 in just four days, briefly giving the company a staggering $2.5 trillion valuation.
​But gravity works fast on Wall Street. Since that mid-June peak, SPCX has plunged nearly 50%, trading down into the $110–$115 range and wiping out a trillion dollars in market capitalization.

The Hidden xAI Cash Burn
​Investors bought into SPCX expecting a space exploration and satellite internet (Starlink) monopoly. Instead, the IPO prospectus revealed that the company is massively subsidizing Elon Musk's artificial intelligence venture, xAI.

​Massive Capex
The AI segment lost over $6.3 billion on $3.2 billion in revenue during its first year on the books. In Q1 2026 alone, a staggering $7.72 billion in capital expenditure went to the AI division more than the Space and Connectivity segments combined. The market quickly realized it was funding a cash burning AI data-center buildout with a rocket company attached to it.

​The Debt Load
To fund this expansion, SpaceX issued a massive $20 billion bond offering in late June to refinance xAI-related bridge loans, confirming that the AI segment's voracious cash requirements are weighing heavily on the balance sheet.

​The Coming Lock-Up Avalanche
​When SpaceX went public, they deliberately starved the market of supply. Only about 4% to 5% of the company's total shares were actually floated for public trading.

​The Float Trap: This artificial scarcity, combined with massive retail and institutional demand, is what drove the initial parabolic spike to $225. Once that immediate buying pressure exhausted itself, there was very little fundamental support underneath the price.

​The Expiration: That scarcity is about to end. The massive insider lock-up periods begin expiring in early August. Analysts estimate that insiders could sell up to 44% of the total outstanding shares by September, effectively expanding the tradable float by 900%. The market is aggressively selling off now to front-run this impending flood of new supply.

​ Sky-High Valuation
​Even after a 50% drawdown, SpaceX is still trading at around a $1.5 trillion market cap. That represents a massive ~80x multiple on its 2025 consolidated revenue of $18.7 billion.

​ Analysts are struggling to justify the premium. When breaking down the value of Starlink and the launch business using standard infrastructure multiples, and assigning a fair value to a money-losing AI segment, many bear models put the actual value of the company closer to $900 billion (or roughly $69 per share).