Finance05 August, 20263 min read
SpaceX Stock Drops 13.6% As 911.5M Share Unlock Looms After AI Spending Surge
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About 911.5 million SpaceX shares unlock, representing ~7% of outstanding shares. Stock fell about 13% after AI spending surge overshadowed quarterly results.
Unlock Looms for SpaceX
SpaceX shares were pressured as investors weighed a major insider lockup expiration, with Gary Black warning that “This makes no sense with 911.5M new SPCX shares potentially entering SPCX’s float tomorrow, which will double its size,” in a post on X. Benzinga said the upcoming lockup expiration covers only about 7% of SpaceX’s approximately 13.09 billion shares outstanding, and that the release would more than double SpaceX’s freely tradable float. CNBC reported that SpaceX shares sank 13.6% on Wednesday after a surge in artificial intelligence spending rattled investors and clouded an otherwise expectation-beating quarter.
In its first earnings report as a public company on Tuesday, SpaceX said capital expenditures jumped sixfold to $18.4 billion in the second quarter, with the majority of the spending going toward AI, according to CNBC. CoinDesk said traders were watching a roughly $101 billion stock unlock Thursday, as it described “roughly $101 billion of stock becomes tradable Thursday as the first lockup expires.”
Earnings, AI Spend, and Demand
Fortune said nearly a billion shares of SpaceX held by early employees and pre-IPO investors would break free from lockups on Thursday, describing the shares as “more of a supply shock than the entire IPO itself.”
Fortune also quoted Gil Luria, head of technology research at D.A. Davidson, saying the accelerated path into index funds was “a little bit of a bailout,” because it spread out buying when “there’s a lot of supply coming.”
CNBC reported that SpaceX’s CFO, Bret Johnsen, told investors the company had been “efficient” with its spending and said, “On the AI compute side, we're able to deploy capital in such a way that we're getting less than a one-year payback.”
CNBC added that Musk told investors SpaceX would hit $1 trillion in annual revenue in 2030 versus a previous forecast of 2031, while Steve Westly said on “Squawk Box Europe” that people still had questions about “how quickly can they grow? How big are the costs going to be before this thing gets to profitability?”
Benzinga said the stock fell about 52% from its post-IPO peak of about $225 reached just days after its June debut, and it cited price action showing shares fell 13.61% on Tuesday to close at $108.27.
What Traders Are Watching Next
CoinDesk said Bitcoin steadied above $64,000 as traders watched the SpaceX unlock, while it noted that “roughly $101 billion of stock becomes tradable Thursday as the first lockup expires.”
CoinDesk also reported that Korea's Kospi dropped 4.4% as the AI trade wobbled, and it said the MSCI All Country World Index snapped a five-day run to fall 0.2% as chipmakers retreated.
The Motley Fool said up to 911.5 million shares of Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SPCX) become eligible for sale tomorrow, Thursday, Aug. 6, and it said the IPO on June 12 put roughly 639 million shares into public hands.
The Motley Fool added that by Dec. 8, as much as 40% of the company could be tradable, while the remaining 60%, including Elon Musk's stake, would stay restricted until the middle of 2027.
Benzinga said the stock had pared some losses in extended trading to gain 1.61% and that Benzinga edge rankings indicate SPCX has a negative price trend across the short, medium, and long term.