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SpaceX was forced to scrub the 13th test flight of its hulking Starship spacecraft Thursday evening. A computer system automatically aborted the launch as the mega rocket fired up its engines and as the countdown struck zero, with SpaceX CEO Elon Musk noting afterwards that “some of the engines didn’t start.”
“Next launch attempt hopefully in a few days,” he added.
The aborted flight is a sobering parallel to the rocket company’s performance on Wall Street. It’s notably the first Starship launch attempt since SpaceX went public last month.
And, perhaps as predicted, investors were not impressed. Shares nosedived to a new record low of $124 before recovering to around $126, well below its IPO price of $135. Shares are down almost 14 percent over the last five days and a whopping 45 percent compared to the all-time high of $225 just over a month ago.
As Bloomberg points out, SpaceX is set to wipe out more than $1 trillion in market value compared to its June 16 record high.
It’s certainly not just the failed Starship launch that’s haunting the company. The Nasdaq composite slid almost two percent in early trading this morning, with spooked investors selling shares of AI chip makers as concerns over a bubble continue to mount.
Now that Musk has merged SpaceX with his AI startup, xAI — which has since been renamed SpaceXAI — the rocket company will have to do extra work to convince investors that its lofty valuation is justified. SpaceX lost almost $5 billion last year, while xAI burned through $6.4 billion over the same period.
Despite the poor stock performance, Wall Street remains extremely bullish on SpaceX. For instance, Morgan Stanley believes the company will reach a price tag of $300 — far more than double its current stock price.
Musk himself is convinced that “SpaceX will be worth more than the rest of Earth if we accomplish our goals.”
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