SpaceX closes below its $135 IPO price while Musk promises 10,000 Starship launches a year from one site
Shares closed 6.37% lower on Friday, under the $135 IPO price, as tech earnings punctured the AI trade. The same week, SpaceX cast the FAA's airspace rules as the bottleneck while its own flight plan runs at about 1% of the launch rate Musk now claims for one site.
Vincent Jiang · 3 min read
The offer price breaks
Amazon−1.54% — Amazon, down 1.54 percent today, Alphabet−0.99% — Alphabet, down 0.99 percent today and Meta−1.76% — Meta, down 1.76 percent today each fell more than 1% on Friday after earnings that undershot the AI trade's bar, and SpaceX−5.22% — SpaceX, down 5.22 percent today (SPCX) went with them: down 6.37% to $134.72, closing under the $135 offer price of its June 12 IPO 12. That listing raised a record $75 billion 3. More than $400 billion of market value has come off since the October 6 high above $2.3 trillion, and about 1.3 billion lockup shares became sellable on October 22 4.
One site sized like the whole country
Three days before the rout, SpaceX told the FAA its air-traffic processes cannot support many more launches than happen today, and proposed dedicated launch corridors, faster approvals and its Cleared coordination tool, which it says major airlines already use 56.
Musk went further: "10k Starship launches/year is just from Starbase Louisiana," a planned $100 billion site near Pecan Island, designed for about 30 operations a day, with construction from 2027 and a first launch targeted for 2029 56.
The whole country flew 204 times last year
The FAA counted a record 204 commercial launch and reentry operations in all of fiscal 2025, and its forecast for the entire country in 2035 is 10,000 5. The Inference priced the ask at 76 Starship launches a year and 133 times forward earnings on October 6; the ask is now 10,000, at about 53 5.
The rocket, not the sky, sets the pace
Starship's own schedule runs at a sliver of the claim: weekly flights in the first half of 2027, twice-weekly by that December, about 100 a year 5. Flight 14 on September 28 deployed 26 Starlink satellites, lost an engine, flew about three of ten planned hours and lost both stages 5. FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford has said reliability must improve substantially before any big jump in frequency 56, and the agency's review of Texas operations starts at 100 launches a year against a current cap of 25 7.
Musk's one-site claim matches the FAA's forecast for the entire country
- Estimate
Data
| Value | |
|---|---|
| Starbase Louisiana (Musk) (estimate) | 10,000 |
| FAA US forecast, 2035 (estimate) | 10,000 |
| Texas Starbase, proposed (estimate) | 456 |
| US total, FY2025 actual | 204 |
| Starship guide, end-2027 (estimate) | 100 |
Shareholders pay for the slots either way
The build is funded either way: capital spending ran $55.1 billion over the last twelve months, and $40 billion of the $48.1 billion spent through September went to AI data centers 58. The bull case is real too. Third-quarter revenue rose 161% to $14.6 billion with $4.4 billion of net income, the Super Intelligence segment grew ninefold to $7.56 billion, and 29 of 35 analysts rate the stock a buy 29.
Capital spending outran revenue in all three quarters of 2026
- Revenue
- Capital spending
Data
| Revenue | Capital spending | |
|---|---|---|
| Q1 '26 | $4.69B | $10.11B |
| Q2 '26 | $7.81B | $18.37B |
| Q3 '26 | $14.58B | $19.59B |
Musk calls $1 trillion of 2028 revenue "no longer impossible"; Morningstar's Nicolas Owens sees $70 of fair value, doubting compute demand outruns supply forever 9. Consensus, from $48.8 billion of revenue this year to $330 billion in 2028, is what 53 times earnings already pays for 5.
Flight 15 decides November
The near test is Starship Flight 15, expected in November, which will try to catch both booster and ship; Musk says two catches put weekly flights within reach 45. Traders have the fork priced: success reclaims $140, a stumble brings the summer lows near $107 into play 4. The gap between today's cadence and the 180 flights a year the orbital AI plan needs was tallied on October 17 4. The scarce asset in orbital launch is no longer the rocket; it is the permission to fly it.
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