SpaceX's Earnings Debut Arrives With a $24 Billion Short Bet and a Lock-Up Flood Looming
Published on 08/04/2026 at 07:11 | Redaktion boerse-global.de
The first real test of SpaceX as a public company begins tonight — and it could not come at a more precarious moment for the stock.
Two days before insiders are cleared to sell a block of shares larger than the entire current float, SpaceX releases its inaugural quarterly report as a Nasdaq-listed company. The timing has turned the event into a high-wire act, with short sellers having piled into the stock at levels that now eclipse the bearish positioning against Tesla.
A Stock Halved From Its Peak
Monday's session offered a glimpse of the tension coursing through the market. The shares climbed 5.67 percent, a bounce that comes after the stock had sunk to a fresh 52-week low of 91.04 euros on August 3. Even after that rebound, the equity remains roughly 49 percent below its June record of 194.46 euros. Over the past 30 days, the decline stands at 29.29 percent.
Technical indicators suggest the selling may be nearing exhaustion. The 14-day relative strength index sits at 37.1, approaching oversold territory, while 30-day annualized volatility has run to 57.29 percent — a reflection of just how violent the swings have been since the June listing.
Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying SpaceX?
The Numbers Wall Street Will Scrutinize
Analysts expect the company to post second-quarter revenue of $6.87 billion, a substantial jump from the $4.7 billion recorded in the first quarter. The adjusted loss per share is projected at $0.25, with adjusted EBITDA seen at $2.03 billion. For context, the company closed out 2025 with a net loss of $4.9 billion, and the first quarter of 2026 added another $4.28 billion to that tally.
All eyes will be on Starlink, the satellite-internet unit that is the lone profitable corner of the business. As of March 31, 2026, the service counted roughly 10.3 million subscribers across 164 countries, a 105 percent year-over-year increase. Starlink generated $11.4 billion in revenue in 2025 and now accounts for 61 percent of the company's top line. Analysts anticipate a 35.9 percent margin from the connectivity segment — a figure that will need to absorb the operating losses still bleeding from the space-launch and artificial-intelligence divisions.
A Lock-Up Wave Unlike Anything Seen Before
The earnings report is merely the opening act. On Thursday, August 6, the first major lock-up period expires, freeing employees and select early investors to sell. The potential supply is staggering: up to 911.5 million shares, representing 12 percent of the total share count and more than the entire number of shares currently trading on the open market.
That overhang has drawn short sellers into the stock in force. Short interest has swelled to roughly $23.6 billion, surpassing the approximately $22 billion in bearish bets outstanding against Tesla. Leerverkäufer — short sellers — are estimated to hold around 206 million SpaceX shares, equivalent to 32.2 percent of the free float.
Sam Pierson, research director at S3, frames the trade succinctly: the wager is on the share release itself. The bet is that quarterly results will not deliver anything capable of offsetting the sheer volume of shares about to hit the market.
Wall Street's Deep Divergence
The analyst community is far from united on what comes next. Since the IPO, 23 analysts have issued buy ratings, six say hold, and two recommend selling — a moderately positive tilt that masks a wider split. Across 34 analysts covering the stock, the consensus is "buy" with an average price target of $236.71. But the range of individual targets tells a different story: from a low of $62 to a high of $800.
Morgan Stanley stands at the optimistic end with a $300 target, a level that would imply a market valuation approaching $4 trillion. At the opposite extreme, Phillip Securities has initiated coverage with a sell rating and a $75 price target, arguing that while the launch business is dominant and satellite internet is growing quickly, the company's new AI ambitions remain pure speculation.
SpaceX at a turning point? This analysis reveals what investors need to know now.
The Cost of Ambition
The bears point to a balance sheet under strain. SpaceX is spending heavily to fund its expansion, with an estimated $40 billion annually flowing into AI infrastructure and the rocket program. The company has signed multi-billion-dollar monthly GPU contracts with Google and Anthropic, and recently agreed to acquire AI coding startup Cursor for roughly $60 billion in stock.
That diversification complicates the investment thesis. With the stock trading at 49 times sales, the valuation rests almost entirely on Starlink's ability to keep delivering subscriber growth and margin expansion. Skeptics argue the deep unprofitability elsewhere in the business makes that multiple increasingly difficult to justify.
What Tonight Must Deliver
The report due after the U.S. market close will need to do more than simply beat expectations. It must convince traders that the fundamentals can absorb the coming supply of shares — and that the company's cash burn is under control.
Management commentary on Starship's commercialization timeline and the path to profitability for the newly integrated AI unit will carry as much weight as the headline numbers. For a stock that has lost half its value since its record debut, tonight's numbers may determine whether Monday's bounce was the start of a genuine recovery or merely a pause before Thursday's flood.
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