The buyers are done: SpaceX retail frenzy fades as real selling pressure looms in August

SpaceX went public on June 12 with an opening price of $150, above the $135 IPO price. Within two days, aggressive traders piled into $380 call options expiring in two days, attempting to trigger a gamma squeeze that would force market makers to buy shares and push the price higher. Canaccord described the market as entering a new level of frenzy. Retail participation surged, and in the first week SpaceX added market cap equivalent to half of Meta, surpassing its sister company Tesla despite having only 20% of Tesla's revenue. Starlink contributed $11.39 billion in revenue, launch services $4.1 billion, and AI computing $3.2 billion in 2025. According to Vanda Track, retail investors net bought $405 million of SPCX in the first five trading days, the strongest retail participation in any recent IPO. This amount exceeded the combined retail buying of all other Mag 7 stocks over the same period ($278 million) and also surpassed the retail inflows into SPY and QQQ ETFs ($352 million). Retail also rushed into leveraged products, buying $65.8 million of the 2x Long SPCX Daily ETF in the first few days, while a themed storage ETF (DRAM) attracted only $5.6 million over its first four days. The peak came on June 16 when SPCX hit $225, briefly surpassing Microsoft in market cap. But retail flows collapsed afterward, and the stock fell for three consecutive days. On Monday, SpaceX launched its first investment-grade bond offering of over $20 billion to replace a high-interest bridge loan, and SPCX plunged 16.4%, wiping out a record $600 billion in market value. Combined with declines of 5% and 3.5% earlier in the week, the stock returned to near its $150 opening price. After hours, it briefly touched $150. If it breaks below, all secondary market buyers will be underwater. Crucially, this rally was fueled by only 5% of the float being tradable; 95% remains locked up. Jeff Jacobson at 22V Research noted that after SpaceX reports earnings in early to mid-August, 20% of insider shares will be unlocked. An additional 10% unlock if the stock trades 30% above the IPO price, and 7% each around August 21 and September 10. By early September, insiders could sell up to 44% of SpaceX shares, expanding the current float by about 900%. Michael O'Rourke, Chief Market Strategist at JonesTrading, said "the sellers are back in control — the people in the world who wanted to buy have already bought." The crash dragged down broader markets; Bloomberg noted that SpaceX's decline "pulled most of the market underwater." If retail sentiment sours, the sell-off could spread from SpaceX to storage stocks and semiconductor names that have benefited from the AI trade.