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SpaceX dips below IPO price after historic debut
SpaceX briefly fell under its $135 IPO price on Wednesday, a sharp reversal after last month’s record-breaking debut and early surge.
Image: Hacker News
SpaceX shares fell below their $135 initial public offering price for the first time on Wednesday, a sharp comedown for a stock that had jumped more than 50% in its first days of trading last month. The shares later recovered some ground and closed at $135.27.
The IPO valued the company at $2.2 trillion, briefly making Elon Musk the world’s first trillionaire. His net worth is now about $800 billion. On July 7, SpaceX was added to the Nasdaq-100 after a rule change allowed companies to join 15 days after their IPOs.
The company raised $86 billion after underwriters exercised their option to sell additional shares, on top of the $75 billion initially raised, making it the largest IPO in history.
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Based near Austin, Texas, SpaceX remains the world’s leading launch services company, with its Falcon 9 rocket responsible for most satellites launched last year. It also leads in satellite broadband through Starlink. Investor excitement around the IPO was also tied to Musk’s plan to turn the company into an AI player, including orbiting solar-powered satellite data centers for AI workloads.
Since going public, SpaceX has pushed further into that strategy. Last month, it said it would acquire AI coding startup Cursor for $60 billion, with the deal expected to close in the third quarter. The San Francisco company, founded in 2022, lets engineers give software coding tasks in English. Musk also merged xAI into SpaceX earlier this year, and the combined entity recently said it was leasing computing capacity to Anthropic and Google from two terrestrial data centers.
Lockup expiry could add more pressure
Investors have grown wary of the company’s spending plans and debt load. More volatility may be ahead as lockup restrictions expire on insider-held shares.
At least 20% of shares will be released after second-quarter results are disclosed in the coming months, with all lockups set to expire in December.
The pattern is not unprecedented. Meta, then called Facebook, also sank well below its $38 IPO price after listing in May 2012. The stock dropped nearly 50%, bottoming at $19.69 in August 2012, and did not reclaim $38 until July 2013.
Enterprise Editor
Marcus follows the money. He covers enterprise software, cloud architecture, and the tectonic shifts in Big Tech strategy. He translates dense earnings calls and complex M&A activity into actionable insights about where the industry is actually heading. If a tech giant makes a silent pivot, Marcus is usually the first to notice.
via Hacker News
