SpaceX Sheds $620 Billion in Two Days: Is the Post-IPO Slide Just Starting?

SpaceX (SPCX) shares have dropped 18% from their post-IPO peak, and the average investor who bought in the open market is now nearly breaking even, raising the question of whether the historic debut has already peaked.

Shares closed Thursday at $184.98, down 3.6% on the day. According to CNBC, the stock’s five-day volume-weighted average price sat at $181.71, a closely watched measure of where the typical post-debut buyer is positioned. That slim margin above cost basis marks a sharp reversal from Tuesday’s intraday high above $225.

From $3 Trillion to Seventh Place

The two-day slide has erased roughly $620 billion in market value, pulling SpaceX’s valuation from nearly $3 trillion down to $2.37 trillion. The company, which briefly ranked fourth globally ahead of Amazon and Microsoft, has since slipped as low as seventh place, competing closely with TSMC.

The trigger was SpaceX’s June 16 announcement that it would acquire Anysphere, the company behind AI coding tool Cursor, for $60 billion in an all-stock deal. The transaction carries roughly 3.4% dilution of SpaceX’s $1.77 trillion IPO valuation.

Morningstar responded by trimming its fair value estimate to $62 from $63, noting the deal adds share dilution on top of a stock it had already flagged as significantly overvalued. The firm’s best-case scenario puts fair value at $169, below where the stock is currently trading.

Retail Frenzy Cools Fast

The speed of the reversal underscores how sentiment-driven the initial rally was. Vanda Research data showed retail investors poured $369.8 million into SPCX over its first three sessions, more than four times the amount flowing into Nvidia over the same period. That pace slowed sharply by Thursday, June 18, with net retail buying cooling to $9.1 million by midafternoon.

Retail investors who received IPO allocations at $135 through platforms like Robinhood, Fidelity, and SoFi still hold gains, though many received only a fraction of the shares they requested. Those who chased the stock higher in the open market are now sitting on paper losses. As BeInCrypto reported ahead of the drop, smart money in the perpetuals market had already positioned for a correction.

Not everyone is bearish. Oppenheimer analyst Timothy Horan raised his price target to $250 following the Cursor deal, arguing the acquisition gives SpaceX access to AI talent, training data, and an established developer user base.

However, with a lockup expiry looming in late July that could double the tradeable float, and a potential $20 billion bond sale tied to xAI financing, the supply-side pressure on SPCX is only set to grow.

Whether this is a healthy correction or the start of a longer post-IPO unwind may hinge on SpaceX’s first earnings report as a public company, due in late July.