SpaceX Stock Falls Below IPO Price as Lock-Up Expiry Looms and Starship Delays Mount

SpaceX shares fell sharply on Wednesday, with SPCX dropping 6.7% to $115.26 and trading below its $135 IPO price for the first time since the company began public trading on June 12, 2026. The selloff wiped out the last of the stock's post-IPO premium and placed the market capitalization near $1.52 trillion, down from roughly $1.8 trillion at the offering price.

Three overlapping pressures drove the decline.

August 6 lock-up expiration looms

The most significant near-term overhang is a scheduled lock-up expiration on August 6, when roughly 900 million insider-held shares could become eligible for sale, according to Motley Fool analysis published Wednesday. Lock-up expirations routinely weigh on newly public companies in the weeks before the date as investors anticipate additional supply hitting the market. For SpaceX, the August 6 event will be the first major test of insider conviction at current price levels.

Shares that were granted or purchased before the IPO carry large embedded gains even at $115: the private-market tender offer price from late 2025 was well below the $135 IPO price. That means insiders who received pre-IPO shares still have reasons to sell once the lock-up lifts, even if the stock has retreated below the public offering price.

Starship V3 abort renews reliability questions

SpaceX scrapped a Starship V3 launch attempt on July 16 after four of the booster's 33 Raptor engines failed to ignite one second before liftoff. The abort highlighted what analysts described as a persistent multi-engine coordination challenge in the Raptor system, a concern raised during prior Starship test campaigns. No rescheduled launch date has been announced.

Starship is central to SpaceX's long-term commercial and government launch pipeline, including NASA Artemis lunar lander missions. Repeated aborts delay revenue-generating flights and increase the cost basis of the program, two dynamics that matter more for a public company than they did for a private one.

Tesla earnings create Elon-stock contagion

Tesla is scheduled to report second-quarter earnings after the market close on Thursday, July 23. Elon Musk's high-profile leadership roles at both Tesla and SpaceX have historically created correlated trading between the two stocks: a weak Tesla result tends to generate selling in SPCX as investors reassess Musk's bandwidth and focus, a dynamic Yahoo Finance noted in its Wednesday market coverage.

Tesla shares have underperformed the broader market in 2026, and investors have been cautious heading into the print.

What the drop means for SpaceX investors

At $115.26, SPCX sits roughly 15% below the $135 IPO price and approximately 49% off its intraday peak of $225.64, reached on June 16 in the euphoria following the public debut. The stock has shed about 26% over the past month, a stretch that coincides with the Starship abort, news of the August lock-up, and broader profit-taking in high-multiple growth names.

With a market cap near $1.52 trillion and 2026 revenue estimates not yet published, the company trades at a valuation that leaves little room for execution missteps. Motley Fool analysts, writing Wednesday, noted that SpaceX's valuation at peak implied roughly 64 times price-to-sales, a multiple that compresses quickly when sentiment shifts.

The next scheduled company event is expected around August 4, when SpaceX could report quarterly results, per Motley Fool reporting from July 22. The August 6 lock-up date follows two days later.

For background on SpaceX's IPO, current price, and how to buy SPCX, see the StartupHub.ai SpaceX stock guide. For coverage of other high-profile private-company listings, see the IPO Watch index.

Not investment advice.