SpaceX stock drops to a new low and loses $1 trillion in value in a month
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Elon Musk's SpaceX has come crashing back down to Earth since its blockbuster IPO.NurPhoto/Getty Images
Jul 17, 2026, 7:28 AM ET
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SpaceX's IPO honeymoon seems to be over.
Five weeks after the company's record-breaking debut, about $1 trillion in market value has evaporated — and the selling isn't letting up.
The stock first slipped below its $135 IPO price on Wednesday, touching $132.75 before recovering to close above it.
There was no recovery on Thursday: shares closed at $131.11 — their first finish below the IPO price — and fell by almost 5% on Friday. The stock was trading below $125 in morning trade.
It means the rocket and AI company has lost roughly $320 billion in market value since IPO day and is down about $1 trillion since its June 16 peak.
The latest drop came after SpaceX called off its first Starship launch since going public, which had been planned for Thursday at the company's Starbase facility in South Texas.
"Some of the engines didn't start, triggering an automatic launch abort," CEO Elon Musk said in a post on X, adding that the company would try again, with a targeted launch timing of "early next week."
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To be confident of a good flight, 2 Raptors will be removed & replaced. Most probable launch timing is early next week.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 17, 2026
SpaceX raised more than $85 billion in its June 12 IPO, the largest public debut in history. The stock climbed in the days after its IPO before beginning a steady retreat.
Thursday's scrubbed launch was meant to mark Starship's return to flight, after the debut of the upgraded V3 vehicle in May, which ended in a booster mishap.
Starship carries much of the weight of SpaceX's future plans. The fully reusable rocket is designed to launch its next generation of Starlink satellites, and NASA has contracted a modified version of the vehicle to land astronauts on the moon under its Artemis program.
Looming lockup expirations have also weighed down the stock. Rank-and-file employees and some early investors will be able to sell 911.5 million shares shortly after SpaceX's first quarterly report, expected in August, the first in a series of selling restrictions set to lift in the coming months.
The drop means investors who bought at the IPO price are now underwater.
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Georgia is a fellow at Business Insider's London office.Before joining Business Insider, she worked at Japan's largest newspaper, The Yomiuri Shimbun, and interned at the Financial Times. She is an NCTJ-qualified journalist with a degree in Philosophy from the University of Birmingham. You can contact her via email at ghennessy@insider.com
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