July 17, 2026
Space case on Wall Street
SpaceX stock drops to a new low and loses $1T in value in a month
Wall Street wanted a moon mission, but the comments say this ride is a clown show
TLDR: SpaceX shares fell below their IPO price after a failed launch attempt, leaving the company down roughly $1 trillion from its recent peak. Online, the reaction is brutal: some call the valuation absurd, others joke the whole thing looks like a clown show with rockets.
SpaceX’s giant stock-market debut was supposed to be a victory lap for Elon Musk. Instead, the mood online has turned into a full-on popcorn moment. After the company slid below its opening share price and wiped out about $1 trillion from its peak value in a month, commenters weren’t exactly in a forgiving mood. One person flatly called it the “biggest scam in history,” while another said they doubt SpaceX will ever claw its way back to a trillion-dollar value again. That’s not analysis — that’s a digital food fight.
The immediate trigger was a scrubbed Starship launch, after engine trouble forced an automatic abort. In plain English: the rocket was meant to take off, then didn’t. That was enough to send traders and commenters into detective mode. One of the funniest mini-dramas came from people noticing that Tesla stock also dipped around the same time and asking, basically, why on Earth should a failed rocket launch hurt an electric car company? It’s the kind of market logic that makes normal people feel like they’ve wandered into a casino with spreadsheets.
Then came the valuation chaos. A commenter mocked the wild gap between big banks’ price targets — from around $200 to $800 — calling the whole thing a “clown show.” Others pointed to earlier threads about short sellers making billions, arguing the hype train was already wobbling. The article is about a stock drop, but the real show is the comment section: half doomposting, half stand-up routine, and all of it screaming that the IPO honeymoon is officially over.
Key Points
- •SpaceX shares closed at $131.11 on Thursday, their first finish below the company’s $135 IPO price.
- •The article says SpaceX has lost roughly $320 billion in market value since IPO day and about $1 trillion since its June 16 peak.
- •The stock decline followed a scrubbed Starship launch at SpaceX’s Starbase facility in South Texas.
- •Elon Musk said some engines did not start, triggering an automatic abort, and that two Raptor engines would be replaced before another attempt early next week.
- •The article describes Starship as central to SpaceX’s future plans, including launching next-generation Starlink satellites and supporting a NASA moon-landing contract.