FAA Green-Lights Starship’s Return, But SpaceX Stock Keeps Drifting Toward $135 IPO

FAA clears Starship Flight 13, but SpaceX shares slide 4.2% to $139, just above IPO price, as lock-up expiration and losses weigh on stock.

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration has closed its investigation into the booster failure that derailed Starship Flight 12 on May 22, removing the final regulatory roadblock for the next test flight. Yet the good news did little to stem the sell-off in SpaceX shares, which closed Monday at $139.14 — a 4.2% daily drop that leaves the stock just 1.3% above its $135 initial public offering price from June 12.

That puts SpaceX in a precarious spot. The company has shed roughly $1.1 trillion in market value since touching a post-IPO high of $225.64 in mid-June, and its current valuation of about $1.83 trillion has slipped to seventh among the largest U.S. companies, with Broadcom now sitting above it. The decline has accelerated in recent weeks — the stock fell 12% last week alone — even as the company cleared key milestones like its July 7 inclusion in the Nasdaq-100, which triggered $4.3 billion in passive fund buying that quickly faded.

Now investors are bracing for two events that could define the next leg of the stock’s trajectory. On Thursday, SpaceX will attempt Flight 13 of its Starship system, the first to carry a live payload: 20 next-generation Starlink V3 satellites, each capable of boosting the broadband network’s capacity. The mission, launching from the company’s Starbase facility in Texas during a 90-minute window opening at 5:45 p.m. local time, will also test a controlled booster landing in the Gulf of Mexico, a first in-space Raptor engine burn, and upgraded heat-shield tiles monitored by cameras mounted on several satellites during re-entry.

The lock-up overhang

But the more pressing concern for the stock is the approaching expiration of insider share lock-ups. Market observers note that around 20% of all restricted shares could become tradable in late July or early August. Analyst Gary Black has warned that the resulting supply glut could push the stock below its IPO price, a level that is already within striking distance after Monday’s intraday low of $136.78.

The anxiety around dilution is compounded by SpaceX’s still-heavy loss profile. The company posted a net loss of $4.9 billion for fiscal 2025 and added another $4.28 billion in red ink during the first quarter of 2026 — even as revenue climbed to $18.7 billion. That gives the stock a price-to-sales ratio of roughly 99, compared with a Nasdaq-100 average of 6.4, a valuation that analysts say is hard to defend unless the growth story accelerates dramatically.

Management has been anything but cautious. In late June, SpaceX raised $25 billion in bonds due 2056 to refinance a $20 billion bridge loan, and it is pursuing a $60 billion all-stock acquisition of Anysphere, the developer behind the Cursor coding platform. Separate contracts with Anthropic and Alphabet aim to build out the company’s AI infrastructure, though revenue from those deals is unlikely to appear before later reporting periods.

Analysts see both moonshots and fire sales

Wall Street remains deeply split on where SpaceX goes from here. Raymond James rates the stock a Strong Buy with a price target of $800, implying a future market cap of more than $10.5 trillion. Morgan Stanley is Overweight at $300 but sees a bear-case floor of $75. CFRA has a Sell rating, while Morningstar pegs fair value at $63, criticizing the company’s capital allocation and execution risks. The chasm between the highest and lowest targets — a factor of more than 12 — underscores how little consensus exists around a business that is simultaneously bleeding cash, spending voraciously, and pushing the boundaries of aerospace engineering.

For now, the immediate test is Thursday’s flight. A successful Flight 13, with the first operational Starlink deployment and the in-space engine test, would demonstrate tangible progress on both the technology and revenue fronts. But even that may not be enough to halt the slide toward $135 — especially with the lock-up expiration looming and the sheer weight of a 99-times-sales multiple pressing down.