SpaceX’s IPO valuation has become one of the most dramatic stories in recent market history — not because of how high it went, but because of how fast it came back down. The company that priced the most expensive IPO ever on June 11 has now watched more than a trillion dollars evaporate from its peak market cap in just over a month, raising hard questions about what the market actually paid for when it bid SpaceX into the stratosphere.
Summary
Key takeaways
- SpaceX’s IPO on June 11 raised roughly $75 billion at $135 per share, the most expensive in history.
- Shares peaked at an intraday high of $225.64 on June 16, briefly giving SpaceX a market cap of $2.95 trillion — surpassing Amazon and Microsoft.
- The stock has since slipped below $140 per share, wiping out approximately $1.1 trillion from the peak valuation.
- Morningstar pegged fair value at $63 per share, while Michael Burry publicly questioned whether SpaceX is worth even $1 trillion.
- SpaceX’s Nasdaq 100 inclusion on July 7 — expected to boost the stock — instead triggered a drop exceeding 6%.
Historic SpaceX IPO and the three-day frenzy
When SpaceX priced its shares at $135 on June 11, selling 555,555,555 shares and raising roughly $75 billion, it set a record immediately. No IPO in history had raised that much. Then the real spectacle began.
The stock opened at $150 on June 12 and closed that first day at $160.95 — a 19% gain over the offering price in a single session. Elon Musk, according to CNBC, briefly became the world’s first trillionaire on the back of that surge.
It didn’t stop there. By June 16, just three trading days in, SpaceX touched an intraday high of $225.64, pushing its market capitalization to $2.95 trillion. At that moment, the rocket company had vaulted past Amazon and Microsoft on the global leaderboard of public companies. Analyst Keith Snyder at CFRA described the frenzy partly as an AI bet: “With Elon Musk, any company he touches gets people excited. But this was also the first time people felt like they were able to invest in something that was being marketed as an AI play.”
SpaceX had earlier acquired Musk’s AI startup xAI, recently renamed SpaceXAI, and had begun leasing data center capacity to other tech companies — ingredients that made investors see a broader technology story beyond rockets and satellites.
Rapid Decline in Share Price and Market Capitalization
The reversal was almost as swift as the ascent. From a peak of $2.95 trillion, SpaceX’s market cap has fallen to under $1.8 trillion — a drawdown of roughly $1.1 trillion, or about 38% from the June 16 high.
Peak Valuation and Quick Drawdown
The stock’s worst single session since the debut came on June 22, when it fell 16% to close at $154.60. Then, when Starlink announced price cuts in the Memphis, Tennessee area — connected to local concerns over a data center project — SpaceX shares dropped 8% on that day alone. Each headline that shifted the focus away from speculative AI narratives and back toward the company’s actual business — rocket launches and satellite internet — appeared to chip away at the premium investors had assigned.
That dynamic matters because it reveals something important about the original rally: much of it was priced around growth stories that don’t yet generate revenue. SpaceX’s IPO filing reported 2025 revenue of $18.7 billion against a net loss of $4.9 billion. The gap between the financial reality in that document and the $2.95 trillion valuation it briefly commanded is what drew sharp reactions from professional investors.
Who Is Actually Losing Money
The losses are not evenly distributed. Any investor who bought at the $135 IPO price remains marginally in profit — about 3% in the green at current levels. But ordinary retail investors who accessed the stock at its $150 opening price on June 12 are now roughly 7% underwater. Those who chased the peak near $225 are sitting on losses approaching 38%. The difference between being an IPO insider and a public-market buyer has rarely been more stark in a single month of trading.
Investor Skepticism and the Valuation Debate
Not everyone was swept up in the initial enthusiasm. The skepticism was vocal, pointed, and — so far — well-founded.
Michael Burry’s Critique of Valuation
Michael Burry, the investor made famous by his prescient bet against the housing market in The Big Short, wrote that “nothing in that S-1 suggests it is worth $1 trillion let alone $2 trillion.” His analysis pointed directly to the IPO filing’s financials: $18.7 billion in projected 2025 revenue set against a $4.9 billion net loss. Burry explored the idea of shorting SpaceX but ultimately walked away, concluding that borrowing fees and options premiums made betting against the stock too costly even if he thought the valuation was unjustified.
Analyst Valuations and Price Targets
Morningstar was more precise. The research firm pegged fair value at $63 per share at the time of the IPO — less than half the offering price and well under a third of what the stock reached at its peak. That $63 figure sits at one extreme of a now very wide spectrum. Oppenheimer raised its target to $250, Jefferies recently added $25 to its price target, and other banks have initiated coverage with targets as high as $300 per share. The divergence in analyst opinion is itself a signal: no one has a confident grip on what SpaceX is actually worth.
Impact of Index Inclusion on Stock Performance
One of the more counterintuitive moments of SpaceX’s first month came on July 7. The stock’s addition to the Nasdaq 100 index — an event that typically delivers a mechanical boost through passive fund buying — instead produced a drop exceeding 6%. Investors who had bought the rumor sold the news. The exchange had revised its rules specifically to allow new public companies to join the index within a month of going public, making SpaceX’s inclusion unusually fast. That the stock still fell suggests the passive buying wave was more than offset by profit-taking from those who had positioned for the event.
There is a broader lesson embedded in that dynamic. When a stock is as widely discussed and speculatively positioned as SpaceX was in its opening weeks, even genuinely positive catalysts can become selling opportunities. The Nasdaq 100 inclusion was real, the passive demand was real, but the positioning for it had already run too far ahead of the event.
As of Monday, shares were trading around the mid-$130s — bringing the stock back toward its original $135 IPO price. A second consecutive day of declines, combined with the FAA closing a review into a Starship booster failure from a May flight test, kept sentiment fragile. The FAA’s decision does clear SpaceX to proceed with Starship Flight 13, with a launch window opening Thursday at 6:45 p.m. ET — a reminder that the company’s operational calendar continues regardless of where the stock trades.
With OpenAI and Anthropic both having confidentially filed IPO prospectuses with the SEC this summer, the market’s reception of SpaceX’s valuation rollercoaster may quietly shape how aggressively those companies — and their underwriters — approach their own pricing decisions.
FAQ
What was notable about SpaceX’s IPO pricing?
SpaceX’s IPO on June 11 was the most expensive in history, priced at $135 per share and raising roughly $75 billion through the sale of 555,555,555 shares.
How did SpaceX’s stock perform immediately after the IPO?
The stock surged on its first trading day, opening at $150 and closing at $160.95 — a 19% gain over the IPO price. It peaked at an intraday high of $225.64 within three days, briefly giving SpaceX a market cap of $2.95 trillion.
Why has there been skepticism about SpaceX’s valuation?
Investor Michael Burry stated that nothing in SpaceX’s S-1 filing justified a $1–2 trillion valuation, citing the company’s 2025 revenue of $18.7 billion against a net loss of $4.9 billion. Morningstar placed fair value at just $63 per share, well below both the IPO price and the peak trading price.
How has SpaceX’s addition to the Nasdaq 100 index affected its share price?
On July 7, when SpaceX was added to the Nasdaq 100 index, the stock dropped more than 6% as investors who had bought ahead of the inclusion sold into the event — a classic “buy the rumor, sell the news” reaction.
Article produced with the assistance of artificial intelligence and reviewed by the editorial team.
