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Shares of Elon Musk’s SpaceX took another beating when trading resumed on Monday, sliding to an all-time low of just under $139, well below its IPO opening price of $150.
It’s now over 38 percent down from its all-time high of $225 three weeks ago, illustrating how rapidly the hype has inverted into widespread skepticism over Musk’s vision.
Following a blockbuster Wall Street debut, the space company has struggled to maintain any degree of momentum as investors continue to ask some very hard questions, including over its major pivot to orbital data centers and its near-term profitability. Despite being valued at almost two trillion dollars, the company lost nearly $5 billion last year.
Shares have hovered below the company’s opening price for weeks now, despite plenty of bullishness among analysts.
The news comes just days after Chinese state-run media showed a Long March 10B rocket booster being caught by an offshore recovery platform, indicating the country was making major strides in catching up with SpaceX’s reusable rocket tech. Over the weekend, an experimental Japanese reusable rocket safely took off and landed, suggesting the nation may be right behind China as well.
Beyond some steepening international space launch competition, experts believe SpaceX’s transformation into an “AI play” may be closely related to its Wall Street woes, as the BBC reports.
“Everyone saw SpaceX as an AI story,” CFRA investment research analyst Keith Snyder told the broadcaster.
“With Elon Musk, any company he touches gets people excited,” he added. “But this was also the first time people felt like they were able to invest in something that was being marketed as an AI play.”
How SpaceX will cover its enormous losses and start actually making some money — not to mention, prove that orbital data centers don’t just make sense but are even feasible to begin with — remains a major point of contention.
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