SpaceX Stock Caught Between Record Growth, a $60 Billion AI Bet, and a Looming Supply Wave
Published on 08/20/2026 at 15:02 | Redaktion boerse-global.de
The arithmetic of SpaceX's second quarter is enough to make most growth investors salivate — revenue nearly doubling, losses narrowing sharply, and a cloud business compounding at triple-digit rates. Yet the stock has spent the past week drifting lower, and the culprit isn't the business itself. It's the calendar.
Shares closed at 119.66 euros on Wednesday, down 3.5 percent on the day, as traders braced for the release of 319 million previously restricted shares — roughly 7 percent of the company's lock-up stock — that became eligible for sale. The move extended a seven-day losing streak that now stands at 2.4 percent, though the stock remains up 10 percent on the month. At current levels, the equity sits 38 percent below its 52-week high of 194.46 euros.
A Second Lock-Up Wave Arrives
Wednesday's unlock marks the second major lock-up expiration since SpaceX went public on June 12. Early August saw 911.5 million shares — about 20 percent of restricted stock — freed for trading, and the market shrugged it off with a surprising 6.1 percent gain. Whether that pattern repeats remains an open question, but investors have little time to catch their breath: another roughly 700 million shares are slated for release on September 1, keeping supply pressure elevated through the end of summer.
Regulatory filings offer a window into who holds those shares. Alphabet is the largest institutional stakeholder with 551.2 million shares, followed by Fidelity at 302.6 million, Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund at 154.1 million, and Nvidia at 123 million.
Anysphere Deal Closes, AI Spending Intensifies
The lock-up news wasn't the only headwind. SpaceX confirmed the completion of its roughly $60 billion acquisition of Anysphere, the developer behind the AI coding assistant Cursor, in an 8-K filing with the SEC dated August 14. The all-stock transaction is now fully executed, with SpaceX aiming to embed machine learning more deeply into its aerospace software pipelines.
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The deal arrives as the company's AI ambitions grow increasingly capital-intensive. Second-quarter capital expenditures reached 18.4 billion dollars, nearly double the 10.1 billion spent in the prior quarter. Of that, 15.8 billion — 86 percent of total outlays — went into AI capacity, primarily data-center hardware. The spending spree triggered a brief after-hours sell-off of up to 8 percent when results were first published.
The financial picture underneath those outlays is nonetheless striking. Revenue hit 7.8 billion dollars in Q2 2026, up 92 percent from 4.1 billion a year earlier. The net loss narrowed by 467 million to 541 million dollars, while adjusted EBITDA surged 191 percent to 3.5 billion. The AI segment alone generated 2.56 billion in revenue, a 247 percent year-over-year jump driven by new cloud-service contracts — though it also posted an operating loss of 1.26 billion.
Starlink Scales, Pricing Softens
Starlink remains the growth engine, doubling its subscriber base to 12 million within a year and adding a record 1.7 million net new customers in the quarter alone. Average revenue per user, however, slipped from 85 to 66 dollars monthly as expansion into lower-priced markets dilutes the mix. The spaceflight segment grew 55 percent quarter-over-quarter and 29 percent year-over-year to 962 million dollars, helped by additional large-customer launches. The government and enterprise division climbed 108 percent to 1.8 billion, buoyed by new contracts for the secure Starshield satellite network worth over 6 billion dollars.
CFO Bret Johnsen struck an upbeat tone, saying the company remains on track to reach an annualized recurring revenue run-rate of 100 billion dollars by year-end. Management also disclosed that SpaceX has already secured an additional 6.7 billion dollars in cloud revenue over a six-month period starting in October. The balance sheet shows 100 billion dollars in cash and marketable securities, with a backlog of 47.5 billion.
Analysts Split on Valuation
Wall Street remains divided on where the stock goes from here. Argus Research upgraded SpaceX to Buy from Hold on August 7 with a 160-dollar price target, expressing confidence that the heavy capital outlays will pay off quickly given robust compute-capacity growth. UBS reiterated its Buy rating on Wednesday with a 210-dollar target, pointing to Starlink subscriber growth as the central value driver. Bernstein raised its target from 240 to 248 dollars on Tuesday, citing the potential of orbital AI data centers, while maintaining an Overweight rating.
At the other end of the spectrum, Phillip Securities issued a Sell recommendation in mid-August with a price target of just 75 dollars, questioning the sustainability of the company's revenue streams. The next quarterly results, due November 3, will offer the first fresh evidence to adjudicate that debate.
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Launch Tempo Uninterrupted
Operationally, none of the financial noise has slowed the launch cadence. The company completed its 100th mission of 2026 on Tuesday with the Starlink 17-50 launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base, pushing the constellation past 11,000 satellites in low Earth orbit. Over the weekend, SpaceX pulled off two launches within 38.5 minutes — a record. CEO Elon Musk has also signaled that the next Starship mission will attempt to catch the booster with the launch tower for the first time, pending regulatory approval, and will carry Starlink V3 satellites on their debut flight.
Not everything has gone smoothly. A Falcon 9 upper stage that lost control in early August left an 18-meter crater near the Einstein crater on the Moon, confirmed by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. The spent stage from Starship Ship 40, which splashed down in the Indian Ocean in late July, has been towed to Christmas Island for technical inspection. And China's LandSpace successfully recovered the first stage of its Zhuque-3 rocket, a reminder that SpaceX's technological lead is not unassailable.
For now, the fundamental story is one of extraordinary growth meeting extraordinary spending. The lock-up calendar adds a layer of near-term uncertainty, but with blue-chip institutions holding large positions and a launch tempo no competitor can match, the longer-term narrative remains intact — provided the AI bet pays off as quickly as management promises.
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