SpaceX Stock Caught Between AI Windfall and Lock-Up Storm as Starship Flight 13 Looms

SpaceX shares hover near $140 after AI deals with Alphabet and Anthropic promise $26B annual revenue, but lock-up expirations and net losses pressure the stock.

SpaceX shares are performing a high-wire act. On Monday, the stock touched an intraday low of $140.49 — a whisker above the $135 IPO price from just over a month ago — before recovering to around $145.29. That recovery was aided by fresh evidence of the company’s pivot into artificial intelligence infrastructure, most notably a blockbuster deal with Alphabet that will pump $920 million per month into SpaceX’s coffers starting this October.

The Alphabet contract, running through June 2029, secures the search giant access to a cluster of roughly 110,000 Nvidia GPUs and associated computing resources. A further agreement with AI lab Anthropic to use SpaceX’s Colossus-1 data center has analysts estimating that if these deals are fully realized, they could generate roughly $26 billion in annual revenue — a staggering leap from the $18.7 billion the company posted in 2025. That 2025 figure represented 33% growth from the prior year, though SpaceX still booked a full-year net loss of $4.9 billion, largely attributed to the merger with xAI. The first quarter of 2026 added another $4.28 billion net loss to the tally.

Despite the encouraging revenue pipeline, the stock remains under pressure from a trio of overhangs. The most immediate is the looming expiration of lock-up agreements: some 911 million insider shares become tradable after second-quarter earnings are released at the end of July, with further tranches due to unlock through October 2026. Market watchers fear a wave of selling from early investors and employees looking to cash out. The stock’s post-IPO peak of $225.64 — reached on June 16, just days after listing — now looks distant, with the current price sitting nearly 36% below that high. The company’s market capitalization stands at roughly $1.92 trillion.

Analyst sentiment remains split. Bernstein’s Douglas Harned reiterated an “Outperform” rating and a $239 price target, implying roughly 70% upside from current levels. On the other end, Wall Street Zen analysts only upgraded the stock from “Sell” to “Hold” on Sunday, July 12, reflecting lingering caution. That upgrade came as the stock was already in a slide from its post-IPO high, and the firm noted that the shares still trade well above the $135 IPO price, suggesting the worst of the sell-off may have passed. Several other brokerage houses initiated coverage only this month after analyst quiet periods expired.

Operationally, the company is preparing for a critical test. The FAA has cleared Starship for its 13th integrated flight, now expected as early as July 16 from SpaceX’s Starbase facility in Texas. The mission will deploy 20 prototype Starlink V3 satellites, each boasting a downlink capacity of 1 terabit per second — ten times that of the current generation. Some of the satellites carry specialized heat cameras to monitor the Starship’s thermal shield during reentry. A successful flight would demonstrate the technical scalability of the Starship-Starlink combination, a key driver for more stable satellite and communications revenue.

That stable core remains Starlink itself. On Saturday, July 11, a Falcon 9 first stage (B1071) completed its 35th successful flight, delivering 24 Starlink satellites into orbit from Vandenberg Space Force Base. The network now serves roughly 10.3 million users through a constellation of more than 9,600 operational satellites. The reliable cash flow from Starlink underpins the company’s ambitious Starship development and its expansion into orbital data centers.

The next major inflection point for investors will be the first quarterly earnings report since the IPO, scheduled for August 6. That report will provide initial clarity on margins from the newly integrated AI division and may determine whether the stock can break out of its current trading range. For now, the combination of a massive AI revenue tailwind, a crowded lock-up calendar, and a high-stakes Starship launch leaves SpaceX shares suspended between competing forces — with the $135 IPO floor acting as the last line of defense.