SpaceX Shares Rebound Sharply as Lock-Up Fears Fail to Materialize

SpaceX shares jump 23% in two sessions as lock-up selling fails to materialize, with short interest collapsing and analysts split on valuation.

The first major test of SpaceX's post-IPO trading life has come and gone — and the market blinked, but not in the direction many had braced for. Shares of the company surged roughly 16 percent on Friday to close at $133.11 on the Nasdaq, with the stock changing hands at €115.14 in German trading, a one-day gain of 15.66 percent. The two-session advance of approximately 23 percent has added roughly $327 billion to the company's market value, though the equity still sits 40.79 percent below its 52-week high of €194.46, set back in June.

The Lock-Up That Wasn't

The catalyst for the move was the expiration of the first post-IPO lock-up period. On Thursday, as many as 911.5 million shares — worth around $100 billion — became tradable, more than doubling the free float from 639 million to 1.55 billion shares. That lifted the freely traded portion of the company from under 5 percent to roughly 12 percent of all outstanding stock. In the run-up, short sellers had positioned aggressively: short interest had reached 34 percent of the float, with 95 percent of all lendable shares already out on loan, according to Teslarati.

The feared selling wave never arrived. Instead, institutional buyers absorbed the additional supply, driving the stock up 23 percent over two sessions and pushing the US-listed shares back toward the $135 IPO price. The squeeze was amplified as short interest collapsed from over 36 percent to 16 percent of the float. The episode echoes the stock's volatile debut: SpaceX listed in June at $135 per share — the largest US IPO on record, valuing the company at roughly $1.77 trillion — jumped 19 percent on day one, then slid back below the offer price in the weeks that followed.

Notably, the lock-up story isn't finished. Additional tranches are scheduled for release through December, which would bring roughly 40 percent of shares into circulation. Elon Musk's own holdings remain restricted until mid-2027, per Teslarati. The next scheduled unlock arrives at the end of August.

Analysts Split Down the Middle

The rally drew fuel from the sell side as well. Argus Research upgraded the stock from Sell to Buy with a $160 price target, while Wall Street Zen lifted its rating from Sell to Hold. Of the 40 analysts tracked by the investment community, the majority now rate the shares positively, with an average price target of $227.31 — though the median sits closer to $221, according to the secondary source. Argus projects a revenue run-rate of roughly $100 billion for 2026 and $110 billion for 2027.

The bull-bear dispersion is striking. Some houses have published targets near $800, while others peg fair value at around $63. The most bearish voice belongs to investor George Noble, who sees the stock at just $30 — implying a drop of roughly 72 percent from current US levels. TV personality Jim Cramer has called SpaceX a "generational asset" comparable to historic railroad bonds, but has urged patience, suggesting investors wait for a better entry point. He also pointed to the stock's 13.61 percent plunge on August 5, when second-quarter capital expenditures exceeded expectations by more than $5 billion.

A Quarter of Two Halves

The fundamental picture underlying the price action is decidedly mixed. Second-quarter revenue grew 91.9 percent to $7.81 billion, comfortably beating the consensus estimate of $6.93 billion. The net loss narrowed to $541 million, or $0.09 per share, versus the $0.26 loss analysts had projected — a marked improvement from the roughly $1 billion loss in the prior period.

The Starlink division continues to provide ballast, doubling its subscriber base year over year to 12 million users and posting an operating profit of $1.66 billion. Average revenue per user, however, has slipped from $85 to $66 monthly. The AI segment tells a different story: revenue surged 247 percent to $2.6 billion, supported by new cloud contracts worth up to $14.1 billion, but the division recorded an operating loss of $1.3 billion. AI infrastructure absorbed $15.83 billion of the company's $18.4 billion in total capital expenditures — roughly 86 percent — a spending level that had spooked investors earlier in the quarter.

On the earnings call, Musk pulled forward his $1 trillion revenue target from 2031 to 2030, describing a "non-vanishing" chance of reaching that level by 2029. He also flagged a persistent memory-chip shortage — supply growing around 20 percent annually against demand rising roughly 200 percent — which should keep upward pressure on AI buildout costs. He singled out robotics as an underappreciated opportunity, sketching visions of satellites as autonomous robots and future manufacturing on the Moon.

Terafab and the Texas Buildout

Adding to the narrative, SpaceX and Tesla unveiled plans for a joint semiconductor fabrication facility, "Terafab," in Grimes County, Texas. The first phase carries a price tag of $16.8 billion, with total investment potentially reaching $119 billion. The plant will span roughly 100 million square feet, create more than 3,000 jobs, and use Intel's 14A process technology — powered by on-site natural gas plants rather than solar. SpaceX purchased $295 million worth of Tesla battery storage for the project in the second quarter. These infrastructure outlays help explain the stock's post-earnings slide before the recent recovery took hold.

Operationally, the space division offered its own headlines: Musk said a recovery attempt for the 52-meter hull of a Starship test vehicle from the Indian Ocean is unlikely to succeed, though it should yield valuable heat-shield data. Separately, a Falcon 9 launch was confirmed to have created a lunar crater. For traders, however, the near-term focus remains the late-August lock-up release — and whether the market's appetite for SpaceX shares holds up the second time around.