SpaceX Stock Falls 16% Post-IPO as Tech Investors Get Nervous About AI Spending

SpaceX shares have dropped 16.4% from their debut price and fallen below the $150 launch price for the first time, according to Yahoo Finance as of June 23, 2026. The stock tumbled 3.6% in a single session on Thursday alone, per Reuters and Barron's.

The immediate reason is the same worry that hurt technology stocks in 2024: investors are unsure whether the massive spending tech companies are pouring into artificial intelligence — building the servers, networks, and infrastructure to power AI — will actually make back its money. Reuters reported that the entire tech sector pulled back as concerns mounted about how much capital these companies are spending on AI infrastructure, especially after Meta and Microsoft sharply increased their spending plans in 2024 and Amazon kept expanding its own AI budget.

Here's what makes SpaceX's slide notable: SpaceX is not one of those AI-focused companies. It makes money from launching rockets and Starlink, its satellite broadband service — not from cloud computing or AI services. Yet after its IPO, SpaceX trades in a market where mood swings about capital-intensive technology companies become the dominant force for newly listed stocks. When investors lose confidence in growth-heavy tech firms, newly listed companies with high entry valuations get hit the hardest.

Oracle's Cuts Point to the Same Anxiety

Oracle, a major enterprise software company, conducted a large workforce reduction in March 2026, laying off an estimated 20,000 to 30,000 employees, per Statesman. CNBC reported that the cuts were tied directly to the company's AI spending strategy. The layoffs hit divisions including Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, Media Services, and Sovereign Cloud. Employees learned of the cuts via email at 6 a.m., according to HR Executive.

SpaceX's stock fall and Oracle's layoffs are separate events, but they're rooted in the same concern: the industry is recalculating what the shift to AI will actually cost. Oracle is cutting jobs to fund or offset its AI capital spending. SpaceX is being sold because it listed just as the market started questioning whether any technology-adjacent growth story justifies its price tag. The mechanism differs; the underlying anxiety is identical.

What Interest Rates Have to Do With It

The Federal Reserve held its benchmark interest rate at 3.50%–3.75% at its June 2026 meeting, per U.S. Bank. This isn't an emergency low rate, but it's not particularly helpful for investors either. At this level, the discount rate — the number investors use to calculate what distant future profits are worth today — remains a real problem for high-priced growth stocks.

When SpaceX priced its IPO, the share price assumed the company would earn substantial profits down the road. But now those future profits are worth less in today's dollars because interest rates aren't low. Add in the uncertainty about when AI spending will actually turn into revenue, and you stretch the profit timeline even further out. That makes it harder to justify a high stock price now.

The broader picture matters here. New stocks are inherently fragile — they lack the earnings history and index inclusion (the automatic buying from mutual funds tracking the S&P 500, for example) that props up established mega-cap tech stocks. A 16.4% drop in the first weeks is painful for IPO buyers, but the real test is whether Starlink's subscriber growth and SpaceX's launch frequency can eventually prove the stock's value independent of day-to-day market sentiment. That will take years to play out, not months.

The tech industry as a whole is grappling with a genuine tension: AI infrastructure spending is accelerating and the bills are arriving now, but the revenue payoff is uncertain and could take years. Oracle's answer is to restructure costs and keep investing. SpaceX's stock price reflects investors stepping back until the returns become clearer. Neither path will resolve quickly.