SpaceX’s 911.5 Million Share Unlock Hits Tomorrow. What Investors Need to Know.

Up to 911.5 million shares of Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SPCX -13.61%) become eligible for sale tomorrow, Thursday, Aug. 6. It’s the first major release since the company’s blockbuster initial public offering (IPO) on June 12.

Given that IPO put roughly 639 million shares into public hands, tomorrow’s unlock more than doubles the number of shares available for sale, though there is no guarantee the early investors and employees that own them will choose to actually sell. But with the numbers we’re talking about, it wouldn’t take much to really move the stock price.

Space Exploration Technologies

Today’s Change

(-13.61%) $-17.06

Current Price

$108.27

Key Data Points

Market Cap

$1.7TMarket cap calculated using publicly traded shares outstanding only. Does not include unlisted, private, or dual-class non-traded shares. Implied market cap may vary.

Day’s Range

$106.66 – $117.50

52wk Range

$104.83 – $225.64

Volume

205.6M

Avg Vol

114.9M

SpaceX’s unlock schedule

Less than 5% of SpaceX was available for public trading at the IPO, an unusually small float — the term for the shares that you and I can actually buy or sell. It’s part of why there was so much buying pressure right off the bat; there just weren’t that many shares available to begin with.

But starting tomorrow and continuing over the next few years at staggered intervals, more and more shares will be unlocked, and the float will grow. You can check out the release schedule in the table below:

Table Source: Reuters

By Dec. 8, as much as 40% of the company could be tradable. The remaining 60%, including Elon Musk’s stake, will stay restricted until the middle of 2027.

Of course, to reiterate, these share unlocks don’t mean all the shares will immediately hit the market, just that they are allowed to.

Segment Growth, AI Risks, and Cash Burn

The first unlock lands two days after SpaceX’s first earnings report as a public company, released Tuesday. Second-quarter revenue came in at $7.8 billion, up a whopping 92% from a year earlier.

Starlink, the satellite internet provider and the company’s major financial engine, generated $4.29 billion in the quarter and grew its already healthy operating margin to 38.6%.

Still, shares tanked more than 10% today. While the headline sales growth and continued success of Starlink are impressive, they come with a few big asterisks. One, the company’s net loss was still a hefty $541 million. Two, its AI capex has exploded to $23.6 billion. Three, a significant portion of the total sales growth can be attributed to a single contract in its AI division, which is cancelable within 90 days.

The bottom line

While no one has to sell their unlocked shares tomorrow, I think a lot will. Early investors and employees, many of whom are now newly minted on-paper millionaires, have watched the stock get hammered over the past six weeks. They’ll want to make their gains real.

An important caveat here: markets are forward-looking, so a well-publicized unlock is often “priced in,” meaning much of the expected pressure shows up before the date itself. Still, I wouldn’t bank on it, and I would stay away from SpaceX stock until the dust settles.