SpaceX shares hit a fresh record low as the IPO lockup officially expired, with capital spending surging to $18.4 billion from just $2.8 billion a year earlier. Here's the full picture.
As covered in our post on Wednesday's 14% plunge, SpaceX's share lockup expiry was always going to be the dominant story this week — and Thursday confirmed it. With the lockup officially expiring and roughly $101 billion worth of previously restricted shares becoming tradeable, SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX) shares fell to a fresh record low, extending a decline that's now erased more than half the stock's value since its June IPO peak.
The capex number that changed the conversation
Buried within otherwise solid headline results — SpaceX beat on revenue, adjusted EBITDA, and losses — was a figure that appears to have reshaped how investors are reading the entire report: capital spending came in at $18.4 billion, compared to just $2.8 billion in the same period a year earlier. That's more than a sixfold increase in capex, a scale of spending acceleration that's proven difficult for the market to look past even against a backdrop of genuinely strong operating results.
Fitting a pattern seen across this entire earnings season
SpaceX's reaction lines up precisely with the "who writes the cheque, who banks it" dynamic we've tracked across recent posts covering AMD, SanDisk, and now SpaceX itself. As one market commentary summarized the week bluntly: "SpaceX beat on revenue, adjusted EBITDA and losses and fell 13.6% to a record low, because capital spending came in at $18.4 billion against $2.8 billion a year earlier." The market appears to be treating that capex jump as a signal that near-term free cash flow will remain under pressure, regardless of how strong current revenue growth looks.
The lockup expiry compounds the pressure
Thursday's technical dynamics made a difficult fundamental story even harder to absorb. With the lockup now officially expired, the $101 billion supply overhang we flagged earlier this week has moved from a looming risk to an active reality — meaning any investor holding previously restricted shares can now sell into a stock that's already under heavy pressure from the capex disclosure. That combination of a genuine spending concern landing on the same day as a massive new share supply helps explain why SpaceX's decline has proven so persistent.
A stock that's become a proxy for AI-spending sentiment
SpaceX's slide is notable beyond its own shareholders. As we noted in our post on the broader chip-sector divergence this week, markets have grown increasingly selective about rewarding heavy capital expenditure, even from companies with genuinely strong growth. SpaceX's reaction — a beat across nearly every headline metric, still punished for spending — reinforces just how consistently that pattern has held across wildly different types of companies this earnings season, from memory chipmakers to satellite and rocket companies alike.
What investors should watch
- Whether meaningful insider selling actually materializes now that the lockup has expired, or whether the market's fears prove overstated
- Management commentary on the capex trajectory, and whether spending is expected to moderate or continue accelerating in coming quarters
- Whether the stock finds a floor at this new record low, or continues testing fresh lows as the lockup-driven supply gets absorbed
- Starlink and launch services revenue trends, the underlying growth drivers that remain genuinely strong beneath the capex-driven selloff
Bottom line
SpaceX's slide to a fresh record low shows just how forcefully a single line item — capital expenditure — can overwhelm an otherwise strong earnings report in the current market environment. Combined with Thursday's lockup expiry, the stock now faces both a fundamental spending concern and a genuine technical supply overhang at the same time, a difficult combination for any stock to absorb quickly.
This post is based on reporting from Sensei.news, TheStreet, and Goodreturns as of August 6, 2026. This content is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.
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