Elon Musk Faces Tough Investor Scrutiny as SpaceX Shares Plunge 50% Ahead of First Public Earnings Call

NEW YORK — Elon Musk faces investors Tuesday for the first time since taking SpaceX public, a closely watched call coming after the rocket company's shares have lost roughly half their value since peaking in June, raising questions about whether Musk oversold the company's near-term prospects.

SpaceX is scheduled to release its second-quarter 2026 financial results after markets close Tuesday, followed by a live audio-only webcast at 4:30 p.m. Eastern time, marking the company's first earnings report and shareholder call since going public. The event comes just two days ahead of a major insider lock-up expiration that could add further pressure to the stock.

A dramatic reversal since the IPO

SpaceX priced its initial public offering at $135 per share on June 11, raising $85.7 billion in what became the largest IPO in history. Shares began trading on the Nasdaq the following day and climbed as high as $225.64 by June 16, before beginning a steady decline that has continued for much of the summer. The stock has since fallen more than 45% from that peak, with some measures putting the drop closer to 50%, leaving shares trading in the range of $113 to $123 in recent sessions.

The decline has erased hundreds of billions of dollars in market value and fueled concerns among analysts that investors, caught up in the excitement surrounding one of the most anticipated public offerings in Wall Street history, may have pushed the stock's valuation well beyond what SpaceX's underlying financial performance could support.

Mounting losses

Much of the scrutiny facing Musk on Tuesday centers on SpaceX's financials, which have shown a pattern of widening losses even as the company's revenue continues to grow. SpaceX posted a net loss of roughly $4.9 billion for all of 2025. That figure was nearly matched in just the first quarter of 2026 alone, when the company reported a net loss of $4.28 billion on revenue of $4.69 billion. Combined first-half losses for 2026 are expected to exceed the company's entire loss total from the prior year.

Wall Street analysts surveyed by FactSet are projecting a second-quarter net loss of approximately $1.9 billion, or 23 cents per share. While some analysts believe SpaceX's financial results could improve later in the year, the company currently trades at roughly 49 times its expected revenue, a valuation multiple that leaves little room for disappointment and places enormous weight on Tuesday's numbers.

What investors want to hear

Analysts expect management to address three core business segments during the call: Space, which includes SpaceX's launch operations and the long-delayed Starship rocket program; Connectivity, centered on the company's Starlink satellite internet service; and a newer artificial intelligence infrastructure push that includes a proposed orbital data center project.

Starlink remains one of the few bright spots in SpaceX's business. As of March 31, the service had grown to 10.3 million subscribers across 164 countries, more than double the 5.0 million subscribers it had a year earlier. The service generated $11.4 billion in revenue in 2025, and investors will be watching for updated subscriber figures as one of the clearest indicators of the company's underlying growth trajectory.

Investors are also expected to press Musk on the progress of Starship, the massive rocket system central to NASA's plans to return astronauts to the moon, following a series of recent setbacks, including an aborted test and an imperfect booster recovery during the vehicle's most recent flight. Questions about a possible future business tie-up between SpaceX and Tesla, as well as SpaceX's expanding role in artificial intelligence infrastructure through partnerships with hyperscale computing providers, are also likely to come up, though Musk has historically avoided detailed comments on such topics during earnings calls, citing securities regulations.

A lock-up expiration adds urgency

Compounding the pressure on SpaceX shares is an insider lock-up expiration set for Thursday, Aug. 6, just two days after the earnings call. The expiration will allow a significant portion of insider-held shares, an unconditional tranche representing roughly 20% of total shares, or more than 900 million shares, to become eligible for trading for the first time since the IPO.

A separate, larger tranche tied to the stock trading above $175.50 for five of 10 consecutive sessions has not been triggered, since shares have remained well below that threshold since mid-June. Musk's own controlling stake, along with shares held by key executives, remains restricted under a separate one-year lock-up that runs until June 2027.

Analysts widely view Tuesday's earnings report as the company's best opportunity to stabilize investor sentiment before the lock-up expiration potentially floods the market with new sellers. A strong report could help offset some of the anticipated selling pressure; a disappointing one could accelerate it.

A test of the Musk premium

Unlike other trillion-dollar technology companies, SpaceX's roughly $1.4 trillion market capitalization is not currently supported by traditional financial metrics such as profitability or free cash flow. Much of the investment case for the company rests instead on confidence in Musk's track record and his stated ambitions, including plans to build data centers in space and eventually establish a human presence on Mars.

That dynamic has drawn comparisons to Tesla, where Musk faced a similarly rocky earnings call two weeks earlier that sent shares of the electric automaker falling further amid concerns over rising costs and negative free cash flow. With both of Musk's flagship companies under pressure simultaneously, Tuesday's SpaceX report is being closely watched as a broader referendum on investor confidence in Musk's ability to deliver on ambitious, capital-intensive projects across multiple companies at once.

Whether SpaceX's first earnings report as a public company can reverse the stock's slide, or simply confirm investors' concerns about an overheated valuation, is likely to become clear within hours of Tuesday's release. With the lock-up expiration looming just two days later, analysts say the company has a narrow window to reassure shareholders before a new wave of insider selling tests the stock's ability to find a floor.