SpaceX slips to $135 IPO price, dampening tech listing hopes

SpaceX shares closed at $135.27 on Wednesday, slipping back to the exact price set by chief executive Elon Musk for the company’s blockbuster June 12 listing, which raked in nearly $86 billion. The stock spent much of the day below that threshold, dipping beneath $133 before a late recovery.

The retreat marks a sharp reversal from the initial exuberance that saw the stock surge past $200 in the days following the debut. At that peak, SpaceX briefly commanded a valuation on par with established tech giants like Amazon and Microsoft. Since reaching those heights, the shares have lost value almost every week, and the bonds the company sold in the wake of the IPO are now suffering alongside the equity.

A portion of this extreme volatility is structural. Only 4% of SpaceX’s total shares are floating on the Nasdaq, a tiny supply that naturally magnifies price swings under the weight of constant public attention. However, the consistent downward trajectory reflects a market that is actively sobering up on Musk’s ambitious promises. This aligns with a broader deflation across tech stocks over the last month.

For European and global investors, the prolonged downturn has implications well beyond a single company. SpaceX was the first major test of whether public markets would sustain massive valuations for businesses built on futuristic, unproven business models. Its stock price acts as a direct signal of how investors view these types of ventures.

Consequently, SpaceX is being closely watched as a barometer for the highly anticipated listings of Anthropic and OpenAI. Both artificial intelligence firms have filed confidentially for an IPO, though neither has set a date. The success of those future offerings hinges largely on whether the current skepticism around SpaceX proves to be a temporary correction or a lasting shift in market sentiment.

SpaceX will face an immediate test of investor nerves on Thursday with the first Starship launch since going public. The rocket system remains deep in development, adhering to a "fly, fail, fix" engineering philosophy that accepts high-profile failures as an inevitable part of the process.

Thursday’s flight follows a booster failure in May. The company does not plan to recover the Starship booster or the upper stage, instead having them simulate a landing in the Gulf of Mexico. By design, both components will end in an explosion regardless of whether the flight encounters any problems, a spectacle that could easily inject further volatility into the stock.