Last week, SpaceX launched Starship’s 13th test flight, the spacecraft designed for future Moon and Mars missions. While the mission was successful, a partial engine failure during the Super Heavy booster landing burn may have damaged the launch pad and did little to help SpaceX shares, which fell to $113.50 on Monday, almost 20% below their $135 IPO price.
And the stock may not have bottomed yet.
According to Aswath Damodaran, aka the “Dean of Valuation”, SpaceX is worth about $1.3 trillion, or almost $100 per share, assuming the AI market is worth tens of trillions, xAI faces lower margins due to competition and high costs, and SpaceX will need to spend heavily on infrastructure. Now, if the company overestimates the AI market and keeps pouring money into xAI despite weaker economics, the investment case could deteriorate even further.
Another headwind could come from upcoming lockup expirations. About 20% of insider-held shares will become available for sale two days after SpaceX reports its first earnings as a public company, potentially flooding the market with nearly 1 billion shares. For comparison, only 629 million shares were sold in the June 12 IPO. Another wave hits around August 20, when 455.8 million more shares could enter the market.
On top of that, tech sentiment has turned increasingly volatile in recent weeks.
Yet bulls aren’t backing down. Morgan Stanley, for example, said Flight 13 boosted confidence in Starship’s progress, with a successful Flight 14 tower catch seen as the next major catalyst, and kept its Overweight rating with a $300 price target versus Wall Street’s $237 average.
As for what could drive the stock higher, positive SpaceX catalysts could trigger a short squeeze, forcing bears to cover and pushing shares higher.
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