Shares of SpaceX plunged about 16 percent on Monday, June 22, closing near $155 — their lowest level since the company’s record-setting initial public offering on June 12 — as a brief post-listing rally unravelled. The fall was measured from the June 18 close of $185.00; the shares remained well above the $135 price at which the offering was sold.
The single-day drop wiped roughly $400 billion from the company’s market value and extended a three-day slide to about 23 percent, leaving SpaceX with a valuation just above $2 trillion. It was the third consecutive losing session for a company that only 10 days earlier had orchestrated the largest IPO ever.
The stock had soared after its debut, peaking near $225 on June 16 before the direction abruptly turned. By Monday’s close it had given back the bulk of those gains, though it stayed above both its $135 offering price and its $150.00 opening trade. On Tuesday the shares clawed back some ground, edging up toward $162 in a partial rebound.
The latest leg down accelerated after SpaceX said it would sell investment-grade bonds for the first time, a debut debt offering that is expected to be the opening move in a large borrowing program to fund the company’s artificial-intelligence and orbital ambitions. The disclosure unsettled investors who had treated the IPO as a one-way bet.
Skeptics point to an uncertain path to profitability despite the company’s vast cash pile, the heavy capital demands of its space-based data-center plans, and a valuation that rests heavily on confidence in Elon Musk rather than near-term fundamentals. Bulls counter that SpaceX dominates global launch and satellite-internet markets with no comparable rival.
The sell-off did not occur in isolation. It coincided with a broad retreat from technology and AI-linked shares, as investors reassessed stretched valuations across the sector and braced for a less accommodative Federal Reserve.
For all the volatility, SpaceX remains one of the most valuable public companies in the world. But the speed of the round trip — from record IPO to below-issue price in under two weeks — has become an early test of how public markets will value a company whose ambitions stretch years into the future.