SpaceX shares have dropped below their $135 IPO price after the company's record-breaking Nasdaq debut. The slide follows a first-day pop that briefly pushed the company's valuation past $2.1 trillion and made Elon Musk the world's first trillionaire. Profit-taking and a broader reassessment of AI infrastructure spending appear to be behind the reversal.
SpaceX shares have fallen below their $135 IPO price by mid-July 2026, erasing the gains from a debut that raised approximately $85.7 billion, the largest initial public offering ever conducted. The stock trades on Nasdaq under the ticker SPCX.
A record-setting debut
SpaceX opened at $150 on June 12 and closed its first session near $161, a roughly 19-20% pop from the IPO price. That surge pushed the company's market capitalization above $2.1 trillion and briefly made Elon Musk the world's first trillionaire.
The company had priced 555.6 million shares at $135 each on June 11, initially raising $75 billion. After underwriters Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley fully exercised their overallotment option, adding 83.3 million shares, gross proceeds climbed to roughly $85.7 billion. The debut valuation landed around $1.77 trillion. For context, that raise dwarfs Saudi Aramco's 2019 listing, the prior record holder, which raised about $25.6 billion.
The pullback since the pop
Shares have since declined more than 14% from the first-day close, slipping back under the IPO price. Two forces appear to be driving the pullback.
First, investors who bought at $135 and watched shares spike 19% in hours had an incentive to lock in gains. Second, a broader market reassessment around AI infrastructure spending has weighed on high-growth technology names, and SpaceX's Starlink satellite internet business sits at the intersection of aerospace and digital infrastructure, making it sensitive to shifts in tech capex sentiment.
What the listing means for markets
An $85.7 billion raise absorbs a large share of institutional capital in a single transaction, which could crowd out smaller IPOs competing for the same allocation dollars. The listing also removes one of the last arguments for staying in private markets, since SpaceX had long been the crown jewel used to justify the illiquidity of venture-stage allocations.
For investors weighing whether the current price is a buying opportunity or a warning sign, the key variable is SpaceX's revenue trajectory. In the fiscal year leading up to its IPO, SpaceX reported revenues of $18.67 billion, bolstered by Starlink's subscription revenue. Whether that growth justifies a valuation still near $1.8 trillion after the selloff depends on quarters yet to come.
Source: Crypto Briefing
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