SpaceX Stock Caps Whiplash Week With 15.7% Surge as Lock-Up Fears Fade and AI Ambitions Take Center Stage
Published on 08/08/2026 at 22:31 | Redaktion boerse-global.de
The first full week of August delivered a study in contrasts for SpaceX investors. After the stock touched a fresh all-time low midweek, it closed Friday at €115.14, up 15.66% on the day and 22.53% higher on the week. The rebound marks a decisive shift in sentiment, yet the shares still sit 40.79% below their 52-week high — a reminder of how volatile trading has been since the company's Nasdaq debut in June.
Lock-Up Release Proves a Non-Event
Much of the anxiety heading into the week centered on the expiration of the first tranche of SpaceX's nine-stage lock-up period, which took effect on August 6. The release made 911.5 million shares held by employees and early investors tradable — roughly 43% more stock than was issued at the initial public offering. The free float more than doubled from 4.9% to 11.8% of outstanding shares, with the newly unlocked paper valued at approximately $101 billion at current prices.
Many market participants braced for a wave of selling. Instead, the stock closed up 6.1% on the day the lock-up expired, demonstrating that demand absorbed the additional supply with relative ease. Bloomberg data shows the tradable float expanded from 639 million to 1.55 billion shares. Analysts caution, however, that the remaining eight tranches could still exert downward pressure into December as more shares trickle into the market.
Record Quarter Overshadowed by Losses — Briefly
The catalyst for the turnaround came from SpaceX's first earnings report as a public company, released Tuesday. Revenue surged 92% year over year to $7.8 billion, comfortably beating the Wall Street consensus of roughly $6.9 billion. Adjusted EBITDA nearly tripled to $3.5 billion. Yet the bottom line showed a net loss of $541 million, or 9 cents per share, and the stock initially slid more than 7% in after-hours trading as investors weighed persistent losses against the headline growth.
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Capital expenditures told a striking story of their own, jumping more than sixfold year over year to $18.37 billion — with $15.83 billion earmarked for artificial intelligence alone, exceeding the $13.22 billion analysts had projected. Cash reserves ballooned from $24.7 billion at the end of the first quarter to $93.5 billion, while debt and finance leases grew from $22 billion to $36.8 billion over the same stretch. Starlink subscriptions doubled year over year to 12 million, up 17% from the prior quarter.
AI Business Emerges as the Growth Engine
The real mood-shifter came from the AI segment's performance. Revenue in that division soared 247% year over year, according to CNBC, while adjusted EBITDA swung from a year-ago loss to a positive $1.146 billion. A deal with Reflection AI underpins much of the momentum: SpaceX is supplying the company with Nvidia chips valued at $150 million per month. Management also disclosed on the earnings call that additional cloud contracts worth $6.7 billion were signed in the early weeks of the third quarter, set to ramp over a six-month period starting in October.
CEO Elon Musk used the call to double down on the company's hardware strategy, stating that all of SpaceX's AI data centers will be equipped exclusively with Nvidia chips. The company aims to exit the year with over 2 gigawatts of computing capacity, scaling to nearly 10 gigawatts by the end of 2027. Bank of America pegged current AI compute capacity at 1.4 gigawatts as of quarter-end, with a target of more than two gigawatts by late 2026 and five to ten gigawatts the following year, supported in part by anticipated capacity agreements with Anthropic and Google.
Musk also struck an upbeat tone on the company's longer-term trajectory, pulling forward internal projections for $1 trillion in annual revenue from 2031 to 2030 — with what he described as a "non-negligible chance" of hitting that milestone as early as 2029. Management reaffirmed its goal of reaching a $100 billion annualized revenue run rate by the end of 2026.
Wall Street Splits Wide Open
The earnings response produced an unusually fractured analyst community. JPMorgan's Doug Anmuth raised his price target from $225 to $240 on Wednesday, maintaining an Overweight rating and citing the company's "extreme vertical integration." At the opposite end of the spectrum, Phillip Capital issued a rare Sell rating with a $75 price target on Friday — only the second firm among more than three dozen covering the stock to take such a bearish stance, after Morningstar.
Between those poles, Wells Fargo trimmed its target to $215 from $230, citing heavy AI spending, while Piper Sandler cut its target to $140 from $156 on valuation concerns, the lock-up release, and uncertainty around long-term AI cloud demand. Bank of America and Mizuho held firm with Buy ratings and targets of $235 and $200, respectively, and UBS initiated coverage with a Buy recommendation.
Argus Research added fresh momentum Friday when analyst Steve Silver upgraded the stock from Hold to Buy with a $160 price target, pointing to the rapid payback on AI investments and what he termed the "robust growth" of the company's computing capacity.
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Cursor Deal Nears Completion
On the M&A front, SpaceX is pushing toward closing its $60 billion all-stock acquisition of AI company Cursor (Anysphere), announced in June. The transaction would fold Cursor's workforce into the existing SpaceXAI structure, with future products potentially branded under "Grok." Musk confirmed on the earnings call that regulatory review is nearly complete and the deal should finalize "fairly soon," with media reports suggesting closing could occur within weeks, pending final approvals.
Launch Cadence Continues Unabated
Operationally, the rocket business showed no signs of slowing. A Falcon 9 launched the NROL-95 mission for the National Reconnaissance Office in late July. On August 4, another Falcon 9 lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base carrying 24 Starlink satellites — the 90th Falcon 9 flight of the year. The following day, a Falcon 9 launched from Cape Canaveral with three BlueBird satellites for AST SpaceMobile, marking the 30th landing of a first-stage booster on a drone ship.
The 13th test flight of the Starship system took place in late July, with the upper stage completing a successful suborbital hop and deploying third-generation Starlink satellites. The Super Heavy booster splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico, though company officials acknowledged the landing was not flawless. Bank of America identifies the 14th Starship test flight — expected in late August or early September — as the next major milestone to watch.
President Gwynne Shotwell also highlighted new Starlink direct-to-cell partnerships with SoftBank, NTT DoCoMo, and Spark New Zealand, along with an FCC-approved spectrum transfer tied to the planned integration with EchoStar.
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