SpaceX shares rise nearly 9% after earnings call

SpaceX just delivered its first earnings report as a publicly traded company, and investors initially loved what they saw. Shares climbed 9.4% on August 4, closing at $125.33, after the aerospace giant posted Q2 2026 revenue of $7.8 billion, a 92% year-over-year increase that blew past the roughly $6.8 billion Wall Street had penciled in.

Then the after-hours session happened, and the stock gave back most of that gain with an 8% decline.

The numbers behind the debut

The net loss narrowed to $541 million for the quarter, which came in better than predictions.

But the capital expenditure line stopped the celebration cold. SpaceX spent $18.4 billion in Q2, well above the approximately $13 billion analysts had estimated. The bulk of that spending went toward AI infrastructure.

Capital expenditures of $18.4 billion against revenue of $7.8 billion means SpaceX is investing $2.36 for every dollar it earns.

Musk’s trillion-dollar timeline

Elon Musk used the earnings call to announce that SpaceX has pulled forward its internal target for reaching $1 trillion in annual revenue, moving the goalpost from 2031 to 2030. At a current run rate of roughly $31 billion annually (extrapolating from Q2), the company would need to grow revenue by more than 30x in under four years to hit that mark.

IPO context and the lockup looming

SpaceX went public on June 12, 2026, in what became the largest IPO in history, priced at $135 per share. The stock opened at $150 on its first day of trading, briefly pushing the company’s market capitalization above $2 trillion.

A Starship program setback in July and broader market volatility pushed the stock below its IPO price. At the post-earnings close of $125.33, shares still sit about 7% below where they were priced for institutional buyers on day one, and roughly 16% below the opening trade.

A major post-IPO lockup expiration on August 6-7 is set to release more than 900 million shares into the market.

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