Ark Invest purchased $21.3 million worth of SpaceX stock on Monday as the freshly public token SPCX continued its steep decline, falling 45% from its post-IPO record high. CEO Cathie Wood had highlighted SpaceX and Tesla as her firm’s top AI picks during a Fox Business appearance on July 22, 2026. The stock now trades near $114.60, well below its $135 IPO price from June 2026, when Ark deployed roughly $530 million on the debut day alone. Since then the firm has added over $80 million in additional shares.
Wood’s AI thesis for SpaceX rests on orbital data centers and the Starlink satellite network as critical infrastructure for AI computation. SpaceX claims a $28.5 trillion total addressable market, with more than 90% tied to AI. Morgan Stanley estimates revenue could surge from $18.7 billion in 2025 to $319 billion by 2030 and has a $300 price target. Yet the company remains unprofitable, with an average Wall Street target of $243.81.
HSBC initiated coverage of SPCX on July 25 with a Hold rating and a $115 price target—below the then-current price. The bank values each SpaceX division separately and applied a 2x “innovation premium,” yet still landed below market. HSBC projects revenue doubling to $38.2 billion in 2026 but expects GAAP losses through 2027 and negative free cash flow until approximately 2030, requiring around $106 billion in cumulative cash burn. Q1 2026 revenue of $4.69 billion was dominated by Starlink’s $3.26 billion, while the AI segment bled $2.47 billion in operating loss on $818 million revenue.
Two critical events loom: Q1 earnings on August 4 and a major lock-up expiry on August 6 that could more than double the tradable float to roughly 12%. Short interest sits near 31% of the float, with paper gains of about $15.5 billion since the IPO. The 13th Starship test flight on Friday was hailed as “near perfection” by KeyBanc, but the stock still slipped 0.5% on Monday.
