SpaceX Rallies From a 52-Week Low, but the Real Pressure Arrives With Earnings and a $109 Billion Lockup

SpaceX shares climb 6% as first quarterly earnings since IPO approach; $109B insider lockup expires Aug 6. Analysts average target $243, but risks include $63 fair value.

SpaceX shares snapped a seven-day losing streak on Tuesday, climbing 6.12% to €111.38 as traders pivoted toward the company’s inaugural quarterly earnings report since its June IPO. The bounce left the stock roughly 6% above its 52-week low, touched on July 20, but the relief may prove fleeting: a torrent of insider shares worth an estimated $109 billion becomes tradable just two days after the earnings release.

The lockup expiration on August 6 will unlock up to 911.5 million insider shares — a package equivalent to 143% of the original IPO volume and roughly 20% of all insider holdings. Additional tranches will be released every 15 to 20 days through the end of 2026, though founder Elon Musk and core management are locked until June 2027. A conditional 10% release of the restricted shares depends on the stock closing above $175.50 for five of the ten trading days before the report — an unlikely scenario given that the shares closed at $119.85 on July 20, nearly 45% below their record high of $225.64 set on June 16. The IPO itself priced at $135, with the stock opening at $150 before rocketing to a valuation above $2.6 trillion at its peak.

Against this backdrop, SpaceX will deliver its first public quarterly report on August 4 after U.S. markets close. Analysts expect Q2 revenue in a range of $5.3 billion to $8.1 billion, while the company posted a net loss of $4.9 billion on full-year 2025 sales of $18.7 billion. The Starlink division, with roughly 10.3 million subscribers, continues to drive growth — revenue jumped 50% year-over-year. Capital expenditure for the xAI unit reached $7.72 billion in the first quarter alone. A recently announced bond issuance of at least $20 billion reportedly wiped out about $600 billion in market capitalization within three days.

Wall Street’s take on the stock is a study in contrasts. Bank of America rates SpaceX a Buy with a $235 target, forecasting a Q2 loss of $0.16 per share. Macquarie, also at Outperform with a $250 target, highlights the AI infrastructure angle, including a partnership with Anthropic that gives it access to the Colossus 1 cluster featuring 300 megawatts of power and 220,000 Nvidia GPUs, along with multi-year AI contracts from Alphabet. Morgan Stanley’s base case sits at $300, its bull case at $600, and its bear case as low as $75. Deutsche Bank holds a Buy with a $255 target. On the bearish side, Morningstar pegs fair value at just $63, while investor Whitney Tilson warns that the stock’s price-to-sales ratio — around 42 times based on current levels — already exceeds historical bubble thresholds; he argues the multiple was as high as 92 times at the recent peak. The broader analyst consensus remains optimistic, with 23 Buy ratings, 5 Holds, and 1 Sell, and an average price target of $243.81. Cathie Wood’s ARK funds took advantage of the July 20 sell-off, purchasing 170,634 additional shares at an average price of $120.14, and now hold over 4 million SpaceX shares.

Short sellers have piled in aggressively. Short interest as a percentage of the float surged to 32%, up from just 5–7% a month ago, representing roughly $25 billion in bearish bets. Elon Musk publicly warned short sellers that their survival chances are “very low.” So far, the shorts have paper profits of $8.7 billion, having ridden the stock down about 30% from its June high.

Operational turbulence adds to the uncertainty. A Starship test flight on July 16 was aborted after four Raptor engines failed to ignite, a setback that erased an estimated $100 billion in market value. A second attempt, designated Flight 13, is scheduled for July 23 at 18:45 ET from Starbase, Texas, and aims to deploy 20 Starlink V3 satellites on a suborbital trajectory, followed by a booster landing in the Gulf of Mexico and a controlled ocean splashdown. A separate Falcon 9 launch was also called off on July 20.

Whether the August 4 report can satisfy investor expectations will likely determine how the stock absorbs the lockup wave just days later. With analyst price targets ranging from $63 to $600, the direction is anything but clear.