SpaceX stock dropped below its $135 starting price for the first time on July 15, 2026. The fall capped a wild five weeks: the company had shot up to a value above $2.6 trillion, then lost about 34% to land near $1.75 trillion (QZ).

When a company goes public for the first time, it sells shares to everyday investors through an event called an IPO, or initial public offering. The IPO price is what the first buyers pay. After that, the price moves up or down based on what investors are willing to pay. The total value of all a company's shares is called its market cap.

The Sale

SpaceX sold its shares at $135 each, raising $75 billion. All of that money went to the company itself — none of it went to existing owners cashing out. The deal included something called a greenshoe option, which lets the banks running the sale buy extra shares to prop up the price if it starts falling. As of June 2, SpaceX was targeting a $1.75 trillion total value including that option (Reuters). The $75 billion offering size was reported by Bloomberg in late May (Bloomberg).

A Target That Kept Moving

The $135 price was the end of a target that shifted several times. In January 2026, the Financial Times reported SpaceX was considering a mid-June IPO at roughly $1.5 trillion, aiming to raise as much as $50 billion (Reuters). By April, Bloomberg reported the company was aiming above $2 trillion. By late May, after consultations, that target was lowered to at least $1.8 trillion (Bloomberg). Before going public, SpaceX's shares traded privately at a value of about $1.25 trillion, according to a June Bloomberg opinion piece (Bloomberg).

An April 8 Reuters analysis assumed cash flow and revenue would need to double in 2026 from reported 2025 levels to justify the $1.75 trillion value (Reuters). SpaceX reported $18.67 billion in revenue for 2025 (Reuters).

The Rise

On its first day of trading, SpaceX opened worth $1.8 trillion and closed at $2.1 trillion, up 19% from the IPO price (MarketWatch). Before the listing, informal bets placed on cryptocurrency platforms had been suggesting a value of roughly $2.2 trillion (Bloomberg).

By June 12, the value reached $2.274 trillion, passing TSMC and falling just short of Amazon's $2.55 trillion (MarketWatch). On June 16, shares rose 4.8% to close at $201.80, pushing the value to roughly $2.655 trillion, surpassing Amazon by about $800 billion (Reuters). SpaceX gained $673.8 billion in value, a 37% increase, per a MarketWatch comparison to Intel's IPO history (MarketWatch). At that point, SpaceX reached $2.45 trillion before pushing higher to its peak above $2.6 trillion (MarketWatch; QZ).

The Fall

The drop was steep. From the peak above $2.6 trillion, the stock fell about 34%, dropping below the $135 starting price for the first time on July 15 and bringing the value to approximately $1.75 trillion (QZ; MarketWatch). As of July 15, Meta Platforms sat in eighth place by value at roughly $1.72 trillion, according to Dow Jones Market Data, placing SpaceX's value just above that threshold (MarketWatch). For context, the world's most valuable stock was worth about $4.7 trillion as of July 7 (Bloomberg). Also in that July 7 report, a SpaceX bull projected the company's value could reach roughly $10.5 trillion.

Micron Technology also crossed a trillion-dollar value during this period, per the same MarketWatch report that tracked SpaceX's trajectory (MarketWatch).

The Broader Picture

The broader context here is a story of a round trip. The IPO price valued SpaceX at $1.75 trillion. The first day of trading added $350 billion in value in a single session. At the June 16 peak of $2.655 trillion, SpaceX had added over $900 billion in value above the IPO price in under two weeks. Then the stock gave back roughly $900 billion, landing right back at $1.75 trillion — except now trading below the $135 starting price.

What stands out is the symmetry. The $75 billion raised went to the company's own accounts, not to existing shareholders selling out, which is unusual for a deal this large. The greenshoe option was designed to help keep the stock from falling, but the shares broke below the starting price about five weeks after listing, suggesting those safety nets had been used up or pulled back. The $18.67 billion in 2025 revenue against a $1.75 trillion value means investors were paying about $93 for every $1 of the company's yearly sales at the IPO price — a very high number that climbed even higher during the rally before coming back down. Whether SpaceX's revenue actually doubles in 2026, as the Reuters analysis said would be needed to justify the IPO value, is the core question under all the price swings. The case for a $10.5 trillion valuation requires the business and the price investors will pay to both grow roughly tenfold from here.