Wall Street Worried SpaceX Shares Would ‘Crash’ Friday. They’re up 21% Ever Since.
Wall Street braced for a brutal selloff when SpaceX's 911-million-share lockup expired, and the bears had the data to back up their doom. Then something unexpected happened.
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SpaceX (NASDAQ:SPCX | SPCX Price Prediction) went public in June 2026 and has been the talk of the town ever since. Its first earnings report as a public company on August 4, 2026 should have set the mood. Revenue jumped 92% year over year to $7.81 billion, the AI segment revenue skyrocketed by 247%, and Starlink subscribers doubled year-over-year to 12.0 million. Instead, the conversation shifted immediately to Friday, August 6, when a 911.5 million share lockup expiration was poised to flood the market with insider stock.
The Crash That Never Came
The pre-unlock coverage was widely grim. Morningstar analyst Nicolas Owens argued SpaceX was “significantly overvalued” and “trading at twice its fair value,” maintaining a $62 fair value estimate. Yahoo Finance UK ran the math on peak buyers, noting an investor who put £10,000 into SpaceX at its $225 peak on June 16th would now have approximately £5,100. On Reddit, the most-upvoted post heading into Friday was titled ominously: “SpaceX will plummet on 8/6.” It drew 743 upvotes and captured a sentiment score of 22, the most bearish reading of the week.
Shares actually opened the week at $114.53 on August 3. By August 10, they closed at $138.74, a 21.14% weekly gain. The dominant post on r/wallstreetbets suddenly became “How did SPCX maintain its share price today despite adding 900,000,000 more shares?”
The Semi Analysis Thesis That Flipped Sentiment
The bullish catalyst was a widely circulated Semi Analysis research note arguing Elon Musk’s gigawatt commentary on the earnings call was credible. The firm wrote that Musk “conservatively” aims to build and deliver an incremental 6-8GW in 2027 alone, with potential for that number to be well above +10GW. At 50B per GW, that’s $300-500B in capex in 2027, on par with what we expect from AWS and Google.”
Its conclusion: “We see SpaceX on track to build about 10GW by year-end 2027,” implying a path to $300B of ARR by the end of 2027. Semi Analysis models a Q4 2027 exit rate of $305 billion in ARR, with $235 billion from renting compute, $26 billion from AI applications, $37 billion from Starlink, and $7 billion from space launches. On the high side of the spectrum, Wall Street currently projects revenue of $148.69 billion in 2027.
Which Fundamentals Are Backing the Rally?
The Q2 numbers gave the bull case oxygen. Adjusted EBITDA was $3.54 billion, up 191% year over year, EPS loss of -$0.09 beat the -$0.2893 consensus, and cash sits near $93.52 billion. Capex hit $18.37 billion in the quarter, fueled by $15.83 billion aimed at AI compute, and the pending $60 billion coding startup Cursor acquisition is slated to close in Q3. SpaceX now carries a market cap near $1.76 trillion. Whether Semi Analysis is right about 10GW will likely decide if the post-unlock rally holds. For now, the crash narrative has been sidelined.
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Gerelyn Terzo is the author of dividend investing handbook "Dividend Investing Strategies: How to Have Your Cake & Eat It Too." A veteran financial journalist, she covers agri-finance for outlets like Global AgInvesting and the broader stock market and personal finance for 24/7 Wall Street. She began at CNBC and later helped launch Fox Business in New York. Gerelyn currently resides in Woodland Park, Colorado and dabbles in nature photography as a hobby.
