Anthropic can walk from most of its SpaceX rent on 90 days' notice as the December 8 unlock starts below $135
The last lockup opens while SPCX sits under its June IPO price, Apollo's chip lease is signed, and SpaceX's biggest AI tenant can still walk on 90 days' notice.
Richard Tang · 3 min read
SpaceX−5.26% — SpaceX, down 5.26 percent today closed Friday at $134.72, under the $135 it listed at in June, and on December 8 the final batch of locked-up early-investor shares becomes sellable 1. The unlock does not change what SpaceX builds. It changes who has to price it: for the first time, holders who bought before the IPO must decide whether the AI revenue that now leads this company is locked-in annuity income or cancelable tenant rent.
The machine is real, and so is the exit door
The build-out is genuine. SpaceX's AI segment, which runs the Grok chatbot and a cloud compute business, brought in $7.6 billion of the $14.6 billion in Q3 revenue, more than Starlink and rocket launches combined 2. Apollo Global Management−2.29% — Apollo Global Management, down 2.29 percent today has signed a binding commitment to buy Nvidia's−3.89% — Nvidia, down 3.89 percent today Vera Rubin chips and lease them back to SpaceX for about five years 2.
The revenue side is rent. Anthropic$350B — Anthropic, private, latest valuation $350B, the Claude maker, could pay up to $84.5 billion through 2029, and most of that capacity can be canceled on 90 days' notice 3. Five-year lease obligations against 90-day cancelable income is the whole bet in one line 3.
The credit market has already voted on that gap. SpaceX's 2056 bonds trade near 85 cents on the dollar, at a spread over Treasuries closer to junk than to the investment-grade label its IPO won 4. Musk says government revenue will run under 5% of Q4, so the cash engine outside AI is commercial Starlink and launch revenue 5. That cash flow backs the lease payments. It does not back the tenant.
The close sits below every analyst target, including the lowest
Data
| Value | |
|---|---|
| Oct 31 close | $134.72 |
| Lowest target | $140 |
| Oct 6 peak | $176.42 |
| Average target | $250.34 |
The Street sees $250; the calendar says December 8
Analysts sit on the other side: 29 of 35 rate SpaceX a Buy with an average target of $250.34, about 86% above Friday's close, and even the lowest target sits above the price 1. Binance, which holds more than $1 billion of SPCX from a $500 million bet on Musk's Twitter takeover, has its founder denying any sale and calling SpaceX one of the best stocks to hold for years 1.
The trade has a date and a price. December 18 options cost a 14% move either way, a range of $117 to $155, ten days after the unlock 1. Every unlock so far has been absorbed: when 911 million insider shares opened on August 6, the stock rose 1.
This one starts below the IPO price, after an October in which nearly 2 billion shares unlocked and roughly $307 billion of potential supply hit a market that then fell 24% from its peak, with a larger unlock waiting in June 2027 6. The precedent is weaker this time.
The bet is real, but the two sides price it differently
The demand is real, and the sub-one-year payback SpaceX's CFO claims on AI infrastructure deserves scrutiny rather than dismissal 2. But a dollar of rent that can leave on 90 days' notice is not the same dollar as a dollar of lease payments, and on December 8 the equity finally has to price the difference the bond market priced weeks ago 2.
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