SpaceX shares fell sharply Thursday as the post IPO rally that briefly made the rocket company one of the world’s five largest public companies began to cool.

The stock dropped nearly 9% by midday Thursday, falling to an intraday low near $171. The move left SpaceX down roughly 13% across two sessions and more than 20% below its weekly high reached Tuesday, wiping out about $490 billion in market value from that peak. Shares still remained about 20% above the $135 IPO price.

SpaceX went public on June 12 after pricing its shares at $135, raising $75 billion in the largest IPO on record. The deal valued Elon Musk’s rocket and satellite company at about $1.75 trillion before its first public trade.

The debut was explosive. Shares jumped about 19% on their first day and quickly pushed SpaceX’s market value above $2 trillion.

The stock kept climbing early in the week, briefly surpassing Amazon by market value and becoming the world’s fifth largest public company with a valuation near $2.8 trillion.

After the latest declines, SpaceX is trading closer to a $2.3 trillion market cap, making it the seventh largest company by market value.

The retreat reflects how quickly the trade had stretched. SpaceX moved from a record IPO to mega cap status in a matter of days, drawing heavy retail demand and forcing investors to compare its valuation with the largest public technology companies.

Valuation has become the central concern. SpaceX generated $18.7 billion in revenue in 2025, meaning a market value above $2 trillion placed the stock at more than 100 times trailing sales.

Supply is another pressure point. SpaceX used a staged lockup structure instead of a standard 180 day lockup, creating a series of future windows when early investors and employees may become eligible to sell shares.

That structure was designed to avoid one large wave of insider supply hitting the market at once. Still, the prospect of more shares becoming available has added pressure after the stock’s rapid first week rally.

The company is also preparing for more capital market activity. SpaceX bankers are preparing a potential bond sale of at least $20 billion, following the company’s public debut and a broader push into satellites, launch services, and AI infrastructure.

The stock later recovered part of the move, trading near $179 at press time after hitting a weekly low of $171 earlier in the session.

The first stumble does not erase the IPO’s scale. It shows that scarcity, retail demand, and index speculation can only carry a newly public company so far before valuation and supply start to matter again.