SpaceX's post-IPO plunge sets tense backdrop for first earnings report — SkimNews
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- SpaceX has lost over $500 billion in market cap since its June 12 trading debut, with shares more than 50% off their intraday high and closing at $108.37 on Friday
- Short sellers have gained approximately $8.3 billion in paper profits since the IPO, marking one of the most aggressive bearish builds S3 Partners has seen ahead of a mega-cap earnings report
- Starship completed its 13th test flight on July 24, but the Super Heavy booster experienced a 'hard splashdown' after only partially relighting engines for landing, raising concerns about reusability timelines
- SpaceX expects Starship to begin payload delivery to orbit in the second half of 2024, a milestone critical to lowering launch costs and expanding Starlink and orbital data center deployments
- SpaceX secured a $920 million monthly deal with Google for AI compute capacity and previously agreed to supply Anthropic and Reflection AI, creating a new revenue stream from its data centers
- Bernstein analysts recommend buying SpaceX stock ahead of earnings, citing management's projected confidence on growth over near-term financials, with a $239 price target
- Cantor analysts view SpaceX as approaching a bottom before earnings, believing hosted-compute profits and funding clarity could alleviate pressure from upcoming lock-up expirations
Why it matters: With nearly twice as much debt as cash and no current profitability outside Starlink, SpaceX must convince investors that its massive capital burn is justified by tangible progress on Starship and AI compute deals — or risk further devaluation as early shareholders prepare to exit. The $920 million monthly Google contract alone represents a material shift toward monetizing infrastructure before Mars ambitions can materialize.
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