SpaceX shares test IPO price as Starship launch nears

SpaceX shares briefly slipped below their $135 initial public offering price on Wednesday, a notable reset for investors who bought into one of the year’s most closely watched market debuts. The move matters because the stock has quickly become a public scorecard for how much investors are willing to pay for Elon Musk’s space ambitions.

TechCrunch reported that SpaceX fell under $133 a share Wednesday afternoon before moving back toward $135 and at times trading above that level. The $135 price was the level SpaceX and Musk selected before the company’s June 12 IPO, or initial public offering, when a private company sells shares to public investors for the first time.

The offering brought in nearly $86 billion, according to TechCrunch. In the days after the listing, shares climbed above $200, briefly putting SpaceX’s market value in the same neighborhood as major technology companies including Amazon and Microsoft.

That early surge has faded. TechCrunch reported that SpaceX shares have declined in most weeks since reaching their post-IPO high, with Wednesday’s dip bringing the stock back to the level where public investors first got access.

Why the stock is moving sharply

Part of the volatility comes from the structure of the listing. TechCrunch reported that only 4% of SpaceX’s total shares are trading on the Nasdaq. That portion is known as the float, meaning the shares available for regular public trading.

A small float can make a stock more sensitive to buying and selling pressure. If only a thin slice of the company is available to trade, modest shifts in demand can have a bigger effect on the price than they would for a company with more shares in circulation.

SpaceX also attracts unusually heavy attention because of Musk, the company’s launch business and its long-term plans beyond Earth orbit. TechCrunch reported that the decline has come alongside a broader pullback in technology stocks over the past month. Bonds sold by SpaceX after the IPO have also weakened, according to the Financial Times report cited by TechCrunch.

The stock’s performance is being watched beyond SpaceX. TechCrunch reported that the IPO has helped set expectations for other large technology companies considering public listings, including Anthropic and OpenAI, both of which have filed confidentially for IPOs. Neither company has set a public listing date, according to TechCrunch.

Starship adds another test

SpaceX faces another high-profile moment Thursday, when it plans to launch Starship for the first time since becoming a public company, according to TechCrunch. Starship remains in development, and SpaceX has used what TechCrunch described as a “fly, fail, fix” approach, testing hardware in flight and making changes after failures.

The flight will also be the first Starship launch since a booster failure in May, TechCrunch reported. SpaceX does not plan to recover either the booster or the upper stage on this test. Instead, both parts are expected to simulate landings in the Gulf of Mexico.

That means both major pieces of the Starship system are expected to end in explosions even if the test follows its planned flight path, according to TechCrunch. For investors, the launch will arrive at a sensitive moment: SpaceX’s first month as a public company has already shown that enthusiasm for the business can move quickly in both directions.

This story draws on original reporting from TechCrunch.