SpaceX Faces a Second Lock-Up Wave as Starship Timeline Slips

SpaceX shares slide 4.7% as lock-up share supply swells; Starship catch attempt delayed, but 100th launch and regulatory wins boost outlook.

The supply of tradable SpaceX shares keeps swelling, and the market is once again punishing the stock for it. Thursday saw the company's equity drop another 4.7 percent to €114.02, extending a slide that began when the second post-IPO lock-up expiry unlocked roughly 319 million shares — about 7 percent of the outstanding float — through the so-called 70-day tranche.

That follows a far larger release on August 6, when approximately 911.5 million shares from the first lock-up hit the market, lifting the free-float from roughly 5 percent to 12 percent of total shares outstanding. The cumulative effect has been a steady drip of supply that demand has yet to absorb, a familiar pattern for early investors and employees cashing out of staggered holding periods. The stock now trades about 8.3 percent below its 50-day moving average of €124.38, a sign that this weakness runs deeper than a single session's reaction.

Starship's Catch Attempt Slips, Flight 14 Stays on Course

Adding to the noise, Elon Musk announced via X that the first attempt to snag Starship's upper stage with the launch tower's mechanical arms will be delayed by several months. The maneuver had originally been penciled in for the upcoming Flight 14 mission. The launch itself, however, remains scheduled for August 28, when the vehicle will try to reach orbit for the first time and deploy next-generation Starlink V3 satellites. Preparations are already underway at Massey's Test Site, where Ship 41 has completed static-fire tests while Booster 21 sits at launch pad 2 in Starbase.

Elsewhere in the program, the upper stage from Flight 13 — Ship 40, which landed intact in the Indian Ocean on July 24 — was recovered after a 24-day salvage operation and towed to Christmas Island for technical evaluation.

Record Cadence and Regulatory Tailwinds

The operational side of the business keeps humming even as the capital markets story sours. Wednesday marked the company's 100th orbital launch of 2026, a Falcon 9 mission from Vandenberg Space Force Base carrying 24 Starlink satellites, pushing the constellation past 11,000 units in orbit — 11,003 to be precise.

Regulatory momentum is also building. ExxonMobil has withdrawn a lawsuit against SpaceX, which analysts say could clear the path for a planned launch facility in Louisiana. The company has additionally filed comments with the US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management seeking permits for offshore launch and recovery platforms in federal waters.

Not everything is moving in SpaceX's favor on the regulatory front. The FAA has proposed exempting commercial space launch and reentry permits from 13 federal environmental laws, including the Endangered Species Act. The public comment period runs until August 31, and environmental and tribal groups have already signaled strong opposition. As the biggest beneficiary of streamlined launch approvals, SpaceX has a direct stake in how that process shakes out.

Valuation Debate Intensifies

The expanding float has reignited questions about what SpaceX is actually worth. NYU Stern professor Scott Galloway weighed in on Tuesday with a bearish call, labeling the stock "crazy overvalued" and pegging fair value at just $10 to $30 per share. His argument rests on market mechanics — specifically, an artificially low float ahead of the lock-up releases that distorted pricing.

The fundamental numbers tell a different story. Second-quarter revenue came in at $7.81 billion, comfortably ahead of the $6.82 billion consensus, with adjusted EBITDA of $3.54 billion. Starlink generated $4.3 billion in revenue and now counts 12 million active subscribers, while the AI division tripled sales to $2.6 billion — a 91.9 percent year-over-year gain for the company overall.

Competitive pressure is building too. Chinese firm Landspace is planning a first-stage landing attempt as part of its Zhuque-3 campaign, underscoring how quickly international rivals are closing the gap on reusable rocket technology. And NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has confirmed an 18-meter-wide impact crater on the moon, the result of an unintended collision involving a spent Falcon 9 upper stage on August 5.

For investors, the central tension remains whether operational growth can outrun the overhang of newly tradable shares. Flight 14 at the end of August — with its orbital insertion attempt and Starlink V3 deployment — will be an early test of that question.