SpaceX's Lock-Up Calendar and a Wave of Blue-Chip Endorsements Put the Stock in a Squeeze

SpaceX's second post-IPO share unlock lands as institutional buying surges, but 91% volatility and capex concerns keep sentiment split.

The next tranche of SpaceX shares hits the open market on Thursday, and it lands at an awkward moment. Another 319 million shares become tradable as part of the staggered post-IPO unlock schedule, just as the stock finds itself caught between a parade of heavyweight institutional endorsements and a market still digesting the company's eye-watering capital expenditure plans.

Wednesday trading in Germany had the shares at €122.70, down 1.2% on the day, with a 3.0% decline over the week. The 30-day picture is friendlier — a 17% gain — but that masks a volatility profile that would make most mega-caps blush. Annualized 30-day volatility sits at 91%, a figure that underscores just how violently sentiment has swung between the growth narrative and the spending debate.

The Unlock Schedule Keeps Piling On

Thursday's release marks the day-70 milestone following the IPO, the second major step in a lock-up calendar that still has a long way to run. The first wave, roughly 912 million shares, came on August 6 and — somewhat counterintuitively — actually helped lift the stock at the time. The market's reaction to what comes next is far from guaranteed.

Two further slugs of around 700 million shares each are slated for September and October, with full liberation of the float set for December 8. Elon Musk's own 6.4 billion shares remain locked until June 2027, and a separate tranche of 455.8 million shares only becomes eligible once the price clears $175.50 — a level that currently looks distant, with the stock sitting 37% below its 52-week high of €194.46, set in June, and about 35% above the €91.04 trough touched in early August.

Lock-up expirations tend to juice both volume and volatility, and the ownership data explains why this one matters. The stock is already 91% volatile on an annualized 30-day basis — extraordinary for a company of this heft.

The Institutional Stampede

Yet even as supply looms, the demand side is telling its own story. The Harvard Management Company disclosed a $2.2 billion position over the weekend, per Fortune, while the University of California's investment arm reported a stake of roughly $1 billion. Endowments at the University of North Carolina and Washington University in St. Louis also appear to have ridden the IPO wave.

The heaviest hitters, though, are the giants of long-term capital. Norges Bank Investment Management — Norway's sovereign wealth fund — publicly revealed a $1.22 billion holding on August 12, representing a 0.05% stake valued as of June 30. The fund also posted a record first-half profit of $184.3 billion, giving it ample dry powder for further accumulation.

The 13F filings paint a one-way street: nine institutions built or added to SpaceX positions in the second quarter, and not a single one sold. Alphabet remains the largest single holder with 551.2 million shares — a position that has swelled from a $900 million investment in 2015 to roughly $94 billion today. Nvidia holds 122.8 million shares.

The Spending Question Won't Go Away

The counterweight to all this institutional conviction is the capex machine. SpaceX's second-quarter results, released August 4, showed revenue of $7.81 billion — up 92% year over year and comfortably ahead of the $6.9 billion consensus — with adjusted EBITDA climbing 191% to $3.54 billion. The net loss narrowed to $541 million from roughly $1 billion a year earlier.

But it was the investment line that spooked the market, sending the stock down about 8% in after-hours trading. SpaceX plowed $18.37 billion into capital expenditures during the quarter, including $15.83 billion for AI infrastructure — 39% more than analysts had penciled in.

CFO Bret Johnsen told the earnings call that the company is on track for a $100 billion annualized recurring revenue run rate by the end of 2026, and that $6.7 billion in cloud-service contracts had already been signed in the early weeks of Q3, with the ramp set to begin in October. The balance sheet can absorb the strain: post-IPO liquidity stands at $93.5 billion, up from $24.7 billion in Q1, though debt and finance leases have grown to $36.8 billion.

KeyBanc's Michael Leshock flags the scale of what's ahead: SpaceX needs between $250 billion and $300 billion by the end of 2027 to fund its AI capacity build-out. That kind of requirement explains why the analyst community is all over the map. UBS sees fair value at $210, Citi at $200, while Phillip Securities' Glenn Tumm warns of a slide to $75, citing heavy investment burden, customer concentration, and temporary cloud contracts. The consensus across 31 houses sits at $232.35 — with a range stretching from $75 to $800 that speaks to the extraordinary uncertainty surrounding the valuation.

Growth Metrics Keep Moving

Operationally, the story remains one of relentless momentum. Starlink now counts more than 13 million end-customers, up from 12 million as of August 4, alongside 22 million monthly users of Starlink Mobile, the direct-to-cell service. Average revenue per user runs at $66 per month. The satellite business saw revenue climb 66%, while the AI segment surged 247% to $2.6 billion.

The launch cadence shows no sign of letting up either. On August 15, SpaceX set a record with two Falcon 9 missions — for Globalstar and the US Space Force — separated by just 38.5 minutes from opposite US coasts, the shortest span ever between two orbital flights by the same company. Earlier in the week, the 100th mission of 2026 lifted off from Vandenberg, with two more launches following within 38 minutes the next day.

For investors, though, the near-term focus is less about launch frequency and more about absorbing the supply hitting the market. The lock-up calendar, the capex trajectory, and a valuation debate that spans an $800 range — something has to give, and Thursday's unlock will be the first test of how the market handles it.