SpaceX's Whiplash Week: How a $8.1 Billion Pentagon Deal Rewrote the AI Spending Narrative
Published on 08/13/2026 at 04:01 | Redaktion boerse-global.de
The same capital expenditures that sent SpaceX shares into a tailspin just days ago are now being celebrated as the company's growth engine — a reversal so swift it has left even seasoned traders scrambling to recalibrate.
The catalyst for the latest leg higher arrived Wednesday when the Pentagon awarded the company $8.1 billion in missile-defense contracts covering the Space Data Network and the AMTI satellite constellation, designed to track moving aerial targets. Shares responded by climbing 8.8 percent to €125.66, extending the seven-day gain to 34 percent. That followed Tuesday's close at €126.50, which capped a 9.5 percent single-day advance and left the stock up 27 percent on the week.
From Record Low to Rally in Two Weeks
The recent price action has been nothing short of violent. On August 3, the stock touched a record low, only to recover within the same session. Two days later, the real damage landed: second-quarter results triggered a 13 percent sell-off, with investors recoiling at the scale of artificial intelligence-related spending. The market's verdict was swift and harsh — until it wasn't.
By August 7, the stock had jumped 15.83 percent, and the weekly gain stood at 22.8 percent. The following session, shares closed at $133.11 on volume of 242.1 million — the largest daily gain since the company's June debut. On August 12, the stock climbed 4.2 percent intraday to $138.93, touching $141.67 at its peak, as CNBC framed the move as part of a broader sentiment shift following the earnings report.
The narrative flip is stark: the very AI expenditures that triggered the early-August rout are now viewed as evidence of future growth rather than a warning sign. Morgan Stanley's Adam Jones reinforced that view Wednesday, reaffirming his Overweight rating with a $300 price target and projecting that AI-related revenue could surpass all other business segments by September 2026. His conviction draws partly on "Terafab," the joint semiconductor venture with Tesla announced earlier this month — a 100 million square foot fabrication facility in Grimes County, Texas.
Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying SpaceX?
Not everyone is buying it. The analyst community remains deeply fractured, with price targets spanning from $200 at Citi to $800 at Raymond James. In between sit J.P. Morgan at $240, Deutsche Bank at $235, Goldman Sachs at $220, Wells Fargo at $215, and UBS at $210 — a dispersion that underscores how uncertain the market is about weighting the AI pivot against the established space and Starlink franchises.
The Supply Question Lingers
The rally has unfolded against a backdrop of looming share supply. A lock-up expiration on August 11 triggered a 4.5 percent pullback to $132.57, as investors braced for the release of roughly 320 million shares that could become tradable on August 20. The earlier expiration of a separate lock-up — covering 911.5 million insider shares from the June IPO, which raised approximately $86 billion — has already passed, and the stock has climbed 27.1 percent since that overhang cleared.
That context helps explain the persistent volatility. The annualized 30-day figure stands at a staggering 92 percent, while the relative strength index sits at a neutral 58 — neither overbought nor oversold. Despite the recent surge, shares remain 35 percent below the 52-week high of €194.46 set in June, though they now trade 38 percent above the early-August trough.
The Fundamentals Beneath the Noise
Operationally, the company is growing at a breakneck pace, albeit at a cost. Second-quarter revenue climbed 92 percent year over year to $7.8 billion, while the net loss narrowed to $541 million from a billion-dollar deficit in the prior-year period. Starlink's connectivity business expanded 66 percent to $4.3 billion, with CEO Elon Musk pegging the subscriber base at over 13 million residential customers and 22 million monthly users of Starlink Mobile.
The defense pipeline, meanwhile, is becoming a meaningful second pillar. Late July brought an 18-launch contract from the US Space Force valued at $1.6 billion under the NSSL Phase 3 Lane 1 program, covering communications and targeting satellites through 2027. On the operational front, the company logged its 50th launch of the year from Vandenberg Space Force Base, pushing the active satellite constellation to 10,923 units.
Regulatory headwinds have also eased somewhat: the FAA closed its investigation into Starship Flight 12, accepting SpaceX's proposed corrective measures on the engine and alarm systems — a modest win for NASA's Artemis program, which is currently conducting cryogenic stress tests on the lander.
With the August 20 lock-up expiration now the next major test, the question is whether fresh supply will once again stall the rally — or whether the Pentagon's checkbook and the AI story prove strong enough to absorb it.
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