SpaceX's Market Value Has Dropped Over $1.2 Trillion from June Peak, Stock Price Falls Below IPO Price
SpaceX's stock price has declined from an intraday high of $225.64 on June 16 to around $113–131 recently, representing a cumulative drop of nearly 50%. Its market value has evaporated by over $1.2 trillion from a peak of approximately $2.66 trillion, a reduction nearly equivalent to Tesla's current total market value.
The stock was listed on June 12 with an IPO price of $135, closing its first day at about $160.95. It then surged sharply, pushing Elon Musk's net worth above $1 trillion. However, starting in July, the stock price fell for several consecutive days, first approaching and then dropping below the $135 IPO price, and further dipping below $120, leading investors who bought at the IPO price to face paper losses for the first time. Market sentiment quickly shifted from "the largest IPO frenzy in history" to a re-evaluation of valuation and prospects.
In terms of market and funding mechanisms, SpaceX's rapid correction has coincided with a significant increase in short positions: several institutions estimate that approximately 180–190 million shares of SpaceX stock are currently shorted, accounting for about 29–30% of the float, with a nominal short position of about $25 billion. Coupled with doubts about AI infrastructure costs and xAI commercialization prospects, the approaching expiration of the first lock-up period, and news of bond issuance, funds are correcting the early surge through short selling and reducing positions. Musk's personal net worth has also seen a decline of over $100 billion within several trading days.
Source: Public Information
ABAB AI Insight
Historically, SpaceX's IPO was designed as a capital event to "unlock Musk's asset value and finance AI and Starlink": the IPO price of $135 corresponded to an estimated valuation of about $1.77 trillion. Within a few days of listing, the stock price surged to $225, briefly surpassing Amazon's market value, making Musk the first individual in history to exceed a net worth of $1 trillion. This honeymoon phase essentially reflected the market's concentrated premium on the long-term narrative of "rockets + Starlink + xAI computing network," indicating strong expectations of its potential monopoly in aerospace, communications, and AI infrastructure.
From a capital perspective, the current $1.2 trillion market value decline represents a "price re-evaluation" of this narrative: as investors begin to reassess the capital expenditures for rocket launches and Starlink expansion, the profitability paths of xAI's cutting-edge models and computing networks, as well as regulatory and geopolitical risks, the stock price, originally priced at extremely high growth multiples, starts to revert to more realistic cash flow and profit expectations. Additionally, with the first lock-up period approaching, some early shareholders and employees may feel the urge to cash out, increasing selling pressure and the potential for short positions to be added. The evaporation of market value has reduced Musk's personal wealth on paper but has also adjusted the price anchors for future equity issuance, bond financing, and employee stock incentives from extreme bubble ranges to more sustainable levels.
Compared to other "super growth stocks," Amazon and Tesla also experienced similar cycles of soaring and deep corrections in their early stages, but SpaceX's starting valuation and absolute volatility are significantly larger: the $2.6 trillion peak corresponds to a super platform vision integrating "aerospace + global internet + AI computing," while the $1.2 trillion market value evaporation indicates that the market cannot digest such concentrated growth assumptions in the short term and must restore the balance of risk and return through price and position adjustments—this is the first structural fluctuation as the "capital frenzy of AI and space internet" transitions from euphoria to rational assessment.
From a structural judgment perspective, this plunge is a typical process of "pricing power shifting from narrative back to financial statements": in the early stages of listing, pricing power was mainly held by the underwriting syndicate and the sentiment-driven secondary market, with valuation anchors based on "stories, narratives, and visions"; as the stock price falls, short interest rises, and the interest rate environment and regulatory expectations become clearer, pricing power gradually shifts to long-term funds, short-selling institutions, and fundamental analysts. In the future, SpaceX's market value level will be more determined by launch frequency, Starlink subscriptions, and enterprise solution revenues, as well as the actual profitability of xAI models and computing networks, rather than solely driven by the brand premium of "Musk + cutting-edge technology." Whoever holds the pricing power over these cash flows will have the advantage in the next round of "space and AI infrastructure" valuation reconstruction.
ABAB News · Cognitive Laws
At the moment when valuation shifts from narrative back to financial statements, what evaporates in market value is never a dream, but unfulfilled growth assumptions.
The market value a company can support is not determined by how many stories it tells, but by how much cash flow can be discounted.
The common essence of soaring and plummeting is the rotation of pricing power between different types of funds.