SpaceX's stock price has fallen for the first time. Why is the pressure on the company mounting?

Shares of Elon Musk’s aerospace corporation SpaceX are down for the first time since its IPO—on June 17, they hit a low of $192.50 per share, down 4.6% from the previous close. They later recovered some of those losses and, at the time of publication, were down 2.6%, trading around $196 per share. At their peak since the IPO, SpaceX shares surged to $213, representing a gain of more than 40% compared to the offering price.

Traders, Barron's notes, are already pricing in potential downward pressure on Musk's company's stock price. Research firm AgentSmyth has detected activity in September put options, which may indicate expectations of a decline in the stock price when the supply increases (SpaceX shares are currently subject to restrictions that prevent insiders and early investors from selling their shares during the post-IPO lock-up period). Gary Black, co-founder of Future Fund Active ETF, called the aerospace company’s current stock price “artificially inflated” due to the existing selling restrictions and the virtual impossibility of taking a short position.

Investors “are acting out the story itself; they’re acting out the stock’s performance; they’re acting out the hype; they’re reacting to Elon Musk, but at some point, the moment of truth arrives, when the fundamentals will have to live up to that hype,” said Peter Bukvar, Chief Investment Officer at One Point BFG Wealth Partners, on CNBC on June 17 while commenting on SpaceX’s stock performance. “If they can deliver results, then there is certainly growth potential, but the company’s valuation is so enormous that it will really have to work very hard to live up to it. I think that will take at least a couple of years,” he added.

The day before—on the third trading day following the IPO—SpaceX’s market capitalization briefly approached $3 trillion; by that measure, Musk’s company had then surpassed Amazon and Microsoft, entering the top four most valuable companies on the U.S. market. However, trading in SpaceX shares on June 16 ended with more modest results—the company’s market value fell back to $2.6 trillion (on that day, SpaceX shares rose by about 4%).

According to the company’s prospectus filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission prior to its IPO, SpaceX’s revenue jumped 33% in 2025 to $18.67 billion, compared with $14.02 billion a year earlier, however, the company reported a net loss of $4.94 billion, compared with a profit of $791 million in the previous period.

According to The Wall Street Journal, citing sources, investment bank Goldman Sachs projected that SpaceX’s revenue would exceed $470 billion in 2030, while Morgan Stanley expected that figure to reach nearly $330 billion by that time. Meanwhile, Musk himself stated on June 15 that SpaceX could generate $1 trillion in revenue by 2030.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor