SpaceX's Lock-Up Pivot: How a 911.5 Million-Share Flood Became a Springboard for Bulls

SpaceX defies lock-up selling fears with 23% rally, strong Q2 revenue, but capex and valuation remain key debates.

The script was supposed to flip the other way. When SpaceX's insider lock-up expired on August 6, releasing roughly 911.5 million shares and swelling the freely tradable float by 143 percent to 1.55 billion shares, the consensus on Wall Street braced for a wave of selling pressure. Instead, the stock ripped higher — climbing about 23 percent across the next two trading sessions and leaving the bears to reassess their playbooks.

The rebound capped a volatile stretch for the freshly listed company. After posting blowout second-quarter numbers on Tuesday of last week, shares initially tumbled more than 7 percent in after-hours trading as investors digested a hefty $18.4 billion capital expenditure bill. The stock closed Friday at 115.14 euros, up 15.66 percent on the day, with a weekly gain of 15.84 percent. Even so, the equity remains roughly 41 percent below its 52-week high of 194.46 euros, reached on June 16, and sits 9.48 percent in the red on a 30-day basis.

A Quarter That Beat the Street — and Priced In a Lot of Spending

The fundamentals underpinning the rally are hard to argue with. Revenue for the second quarter hit $7.8 billion, a 92 percent jump year over year and comfortably ahead of the roughly $6.9 billion consensus estimate. The net loss narrowed to $541 million, or 9 cents per share, against a $1 billion loss in the prior-year period, while adjusted EBITDA nearly tripled to $3.5 billion.

Connectivity led the charge: the segment generated $4.3 billion in revenue and added 1.7 million net new subscribers, bringing Starlink's total base to 12 million. The AI division grew 247 percent to $2.6 billion in revenue, though it still posted an operating loss of $1.3 billion — a nuance that has become central to the bull-bear divide. Management reaffirmed its target of reaching a $100 billion annualized revenue run rate by the end of 2026 and pulled forward its internal timeline for hitting $1 trillion in annual sales from 2031 to 2030. An additional $6.7 billion in cloud contracts have already been signed for the current quarter, set to ramp over six months starting in October.

The sticking point for skeptics is the cost of that ambition. Capital expenditures of $18.4 billion in the quarter represented a 550 percent increase year over year, and analysts estimate the company needs at least $400 billion in investment through 2028 to hit its 20-gigawatt AI compute target. At roughly 17 times forward annual revenue, the valuation leaves little room for execution stumbles.

The Analyst Spectrum: From $75 to $800

The post-earnings flurry of analyst notes has produced an unusually wide dispersion of views. Morgan Stanley's Adam Jonas reaffirmed an Overweight rating with a $300 price target — a 125 percent premium to the recent U.S. closing price of $133.11 — arguing that the AI business accounts for more than half of the company's fair value. He also pointed to a $100 billion cash reserve and a $47.5 billion order backlog as supporting pillars.

Goldman Sachs rates the stock a Buy with a $220 target, framing SpaceX as a more compelling AI play than Palantir, which it rates only Neutral. Elsewhere, Argus Research sits at $160, Wells Fargo at $215, Cantor Fitzgerald at $246, and Needham at $250. JPMorgan's Doug Anmuth lifted his target from $225 to $240 on August 5, while Bank of America's Ronald Epstein reaffirmed a Buy with a $235 target, noting that both revenue and profitability beat expectations.

Piper Sandler remains the outlier at $140, the most cautious positive stance in the group. The consensus across 31 ratings lands at $229.54, with individual targets spanning an extraordinary $75 to $800 range. That dispersion tells its own story: the market is genuinely split on how quickly the AI-heavy investment cycle converts into sustainable profits.

Lock-Up History Says the Panic Was Overdone

The market's reaction to the lock-up expiry — or rather, the absence of the anticipated sell-off — has historical precedent. Studies of lock-up expirations over the past four decades show the average stock reaction on such dates is just minus 1.5 percent, largely because the market prices in the additional supply well in advance. SpaceX shareholders appear to have internalized that lesson.

More supply is on the way. Another lock-up tranche representing 7 percent of shares comes due on August 20, with additional unlocks staggered through December 8. Whether the pattern holds remains an open question, but the initial evidence suggests the float expansion has been absorbed without distress.

Terafab and the Next Launch Milestones

Beyond the financials, SpaceX and Tesla confirmed on Sunday a joint venture to build Terafab, a chip fabrication facility spanning roughly 100 million square feet in Grimes County, Texas. The first phase carries a price tag of $16.8 billion and targets more than one terawatt of compute capacity per year, with Intel handling manufacturing on its 14A process. Texas Governor Greg Abbott has approved the associated tax agreements after two affected school districts signed off; formal execution before construction begins is the next step.

On the launch side, operations remain at full throttle. Last week alone saw multiple Starlink missions, including the Starlink 17-38 launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base and the BlueBird 11-13 mission from Cape Canaveral, where the first stage landed on a recovery ship for the 30th time. The Starlink constellation now stands at 12,644 satellites launched, with 10,898 in orbit and 10,882 operational.

Late August brings the 14th Starship flight — the system's first orbital launch attempt. Elon Musk has said the mission will deploy the new Starlink V3 satellite generation into operational orbit and will try, for the first time, to catch the upper stage at the launch tower, a maneuver previously reserved for soft ocean landings in the Indian Ocean. The attempt awaits regulatory approval, and Musk has suggested launch frequency could climb to at least one flight per day within a year.

For now, the market's verdict is clear: the lock-up that was supposed to sink SpaceX shares has instead become a catalyst. The harder question — whether the AI capex supercycle translates into the kind of returns the bulls are pricing — will take considerably longer to answer.