SpaceX Reclaims $140 — Why Didn't the Lockup Selloff Everyone Feared Materialize?

SpaceX shares have traced a path that runs directly counter to what most of the market expected. The stock closed at $140.00 on August 14th, ticking up to $140.56 after hours, putting it back above its $135 IPO price. Just weeks earlier in early August, it had dipped as low as $104.83 — meaning the rebound off that bottom now sits at roughly 33%. The lockup expiration is the part most worth revisiting. Around 910 million previously restricted shares became eligible for sale, and the market had broadly braced for heavy supply pressure to weigh on the stock. Actual selling came in well below those fears, and shares recovered quickly instead. The shareholder base may explain part of that — Alphabet, Fidelity, Saudi Arabia's PIF, and BlackRock all sit among the major institutional holders, and long-horizon capital of that type effectively acts as a buffer against unlock-driven selling. The fundamental backdrop has been strengthening alongside it: Starlink has surpassed 6 million subscribers, Starship testing continues to advance, and the commercial launch order book remains full. More significantly, two threads are now driving the story in parallel — rising AI compute investment and surging satellite internet demand, layered on top of growth in defense and space operations, which has widened how the market frames the long-term growth runway. The risks haven't gone anywhere, though. Additional lockup windows still need to be absorbed, the valuation remains elevated, and execution alongside cost discipline presents real pressure. The key things to watch from here are fairly clear — whether the expanded float continues finding buyers, the pace of Starship progress and cost reduction, and the quality of Starlink's monetization and subscriber growth. How sustainable do you think this rebound really is? Flexibly allocate across core U.S. tech equities and diversified RWA portfolios on Bitget — achieve efficient cross-asset allocation and precision risk hedging: https://www.bitget.com/promotion/futures-rwa