SpaceX went public on June 12, 2026, selling its shares at $135 each. On the first day of trading, the stock opened at $150 — about an 11% jump — and pushed the company's total value above $2 trillion (CNBC). The IPO (short for initial public offering, which is when a company first sells its shares to the general public) had been priced the night before, June 11, following paperwork filed with the SEC on May 20, 2026 (Yahoo Finance; NYC Comptroller). By the end of that first day, shares closed at $160.95, a 19.2% gain from the $135 starting price (Forge Global).

Before going public, SpaceX shares traded privately at much lower prices. A tracking price called the Forge Price stood at $550 per share in early February 2026, then rose to $604.39 by April 15, which suggested the company was worth about $1.03 trillion at that point (Forge Global; Forge Global). The IPO itself valued the company at $1.77 trillion (Hiive).

The excitement carried into the next week. On Monday, June 15, SpaceX stock surged another 20%, closing at $192.46. That two-day rally from June 12 to June 15 added $412 billion in market value (Los Angeles Times). The highest price the stock reached during trading — $225.64 — came on June 16, 2026 (SmartAsset).

Then the momentum broke. SpaceX had its first stretch of back-to-back daily drops since going public, falling 3.6% on a Thursday in mid-June (Barron's). That turned into a three-day losing streak where the stock lost nearly 24% of its value. The slide ended on Tuesday, June 23, when shares closed nearly 1% higher (CNBC).

By June 30, SpaceX had settled to $170.86, still up 26.6% from the $135 IPO price (Forge Global). On July 1, shares opened near $171 and closed at about $157.54 (NBC Bay Area / Facebook). Around July 7, several Wall Street banks started covering the stock with positive ratings, and at least one set a price target of $236 (Bloomberg). By July 10, shares were trading near $149 (Motley Fool).

The sell-off got worse in mid-July. On July 15, SpaceX shares briefly dropped below the $135 IPO price for the first time since going public, then closed at $135.27, down 0.6% for the day (Bloomberg). Two days later, on July 17, shares fell again during a broader sell-off across technology stocks (MarketWatch).

The path from that $225.64 high to a close barely above the $135 IPO price in about a month unfolded in two stages. The first was the three-day drop from June 18 to June 23, when the stock fell nearly 24%. That looks like profit-taking — investors cashing out after a two-week surge that added over $400 billion in value. The second stage, through early to mid-July, came during a wider sell-off in tech stocks that wasn't specific to SpaceX, though its high price after the IPO left it more exposed to the decline.

The broader context here is the gap between Wall Street's optimism and what the market was actually doing. Banks started coverage on July 7 with targets as high as $236, but by then shares had already fallen from their $225.64 peak and were still dropping. That $236 target would have meant a big jump from the July 10 price near $149. Instead, the stock kept falling for another week, dipping below the $135 IPO price on July 15 before closing just above it.

The shift from private to public valuation also matters. The pre-IPO Forge Price of $604.39 in April suggested a $1.03 trillion company. The IPO priced SpaceX at $1.77 trillion, and the first-day close pushed it above $2 trillion. For large investors who held private shares at the April price levels, the public market still delivered strong returns even at the July 15 close of $135.27. But the drop from the $225.64 high to the $135 IPO price is a 40% decline in about one month.

For everyday investors who bought near the June 16 high, the situation is very different. Shares that traded at $225.64 on June 16 were back near $135 just four weeks later. The $236 Wall Street price target from early July would now require a 75% gain from the July 15 closing price. Whether that target reflects a careful look at the company's fundamentals or just enthusiasm after a big-name IPO is something the market is still working out.