SpaceX completed its initial public offering at $210 per share on a $180B valuation, then closed its first trading week at $168, erasing $36B in notional market capitalization. The 20% drawdown marks the steepest post-IPO decline for any U.S. company valued above $100B at debut since Rivian's 43% collapse in November 2021. Retail allocation remained constrained through the book-building process, with 73% of shares directed to institutional accounts and $4.2B in individual orders left unfilled at pricing.
The offering moved 214M shares at $210, raising $44.9B in primary capital and generating $8.1B in secondary liquidity for early employees and venture holders. Lead underwriters Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley exercised the full greenshoe by Wednesday, stabilizing the stock briefly at $198 before momentum reversed. By Friday's close, daily volume had swelled to 89M shares, more than triple the 28M-share average the underwriting syndicate had modeled for the first month. Institutional sellers dominated the tape, with block trades accounting for 61% of turnover.
The repricing reflects three converging pressures. First, SpaceX priced at 47x forward revenue on $3.8B in projected 2025 sales, a multiple 2.1x higher than Boeing's current trading range and 1.7x above Lockheed Martin, despite those firms carrying federal cost-plus contracts with guaranteed margins. Second, the Starlink subscriber-growth curve published in the final prospectus showed 2.3M terminals active as of December 2024, below the 2.7M figure circulated in private placement memos six months earlier. Third, NASA's Artemis program faces a $4.3B budget reduction in the continuing resolution passed January 14, removing $890M in SpaceX lunar-lander milestone payments previously expected in fiscal 2025.
Operators should monitor three follow-on events. SpaceX's first post-IPO earnings call is scheduled for March 18, where management will either reaffirm or revise the $12B revenue target for 2026 that underpinned the offering valuation. The lock-up on 1.1B insider shares expires June 9, potentially adding 18% to the tradable float. And the Federal Communications Commission's mid-band spectrum auction concludes April 22, with SpaceX bidding against Amazon's Project Kuiper for orbital coordination rights that could add $1.2B in annual licensing costs if pricing exceeds reserve levels.
The technical setup now resembles Snowflake's September 2020 debut, which priced at $120, opened at $245, then traded down to $184 within nine sessions before stabilizing. Snowflake required 11 months to reclaim its first-day high.