Coverage spread: 2 sources — 2 center
Lean ratings via AllSides / Media Bias-Fact-Check. How this works.
Where they agree
- SpaceX reported its first quarterly earnings as a public company, with revenue up sharply and a narrower net loss than a year earlier.
- The stock has fallen substantially since its June 12 Nasdaq debut and peak price, despite the earnings beat.
- A large block of pre-IPO shares is becoming eligible for sale around the earnings release, and an even larger unlock is set to follow later in the year.
- Both note SpaceX went public with a very small initial public float, which had limited available shares up to this point.
Where they differ
- Fortune leads with the hard numbers — $7.8 billion revenue, $541 million net loss, tripled EBITDA, Starlink subscriber growth — treating the unlock as a secondary risk.
- Forbes leads with the share unlock itself, framing Thursday’s event as more revealing of true valuation than the earnings report.
- Forbes draws a comparison to Uber’s IPO and links SpaceX’s scarcity-driven valuation to inflated pricing at rivals like Blue Origin; Fortune does not mention either.
- Forbes reports a buildup in short interest and floats a possible short squeeze; Fortune does not discuss short positioning.
What SpaceX reported
SpaceX posted its first quarterly earnings report as a public company on August 4, covering the second quarter. Revenue jumped 92% year over year to $7.8 billion, beating Wall Street’s consensus estimate of roughly $6.9 billion by nearly $1 billion. The company’s net loss narrowed sharply to $541 million, or 9 cents a share, compared with a $1 billion loss a year earlier, and came in better than the full range of analyst estimates, which had spanned from a loss of $1.26 a share to a gain of 33 cents. Adjusted EBITDA nearly tripled to $3.5 billion.
Behind the numbers, Starlink’s subscriber base doubled year over year, and SpaceX’s AI-related cloud-computing business swung from a loss into positive adjusted EBITDA for the first time, helped by a wave of new contracts. SpaceX’s earnings call was scheduled for 4:30 p.m. ET the day results came out.
Why the stock has struggled anyway
Despite the beat, SpaceX shares have fallen sharply since its Nasdaq debut on June 12 at $135 a share. The stock hit a peak of $211 shortly after listing but had dropped roughly 43% to 50% from that high by the time earnings came out, according to the two accounts. Fortune ties the slide to broader investor unease over heavy capital spending and slow returns across tech and AI-related stocks, a worry that had weighed on the sector before a market rally on the Tuesday before earnings. Forbes frames the decline differently, comparing it to Uber’s IPO, where a transformative company with strong fundamentals still left early public investors disappointed relative to expectations set by the offering price.
The bigger event: the share unlock
Both outlets point to a share unlock as arguably more consequential than the earnings themselves. Forbes reports that up to 911.5 million shares held by SpaceX employees and early investors become eligible for sale on Thursday, August 6. Fortune notes the earnings release itself triggers the opening of this lockup window, allowing pre-IPO shareholders to begin selling, and warns of an even bigger unlock after third-quarter results later this year, when roughly 900 million additional shares — a block larger than the entire IPO issuance — become tradable.
Forbes emphasizes that this is not dilution since the shares already exist; rather, it changes who is allowed to sell. SpaceX went public with an unusually small float, under 5% of the company, meaning early trading reflected competition for a small slice of shares rather than a full, liquid market. The unlock begins to remove that scarcity, potentially altering the supply-demand dynamic that helped inflate the stock’s early price.
Signals investors are watching
Forbes reports a large short interest has built up around SpaceX stock, reflecting bets that the unlock will trigger heavy selling. But it also notes this setup could produce a short squeeze if insider selling turns out to be lighter than the market expects. Investors, according to Forbes, are watching trading volume around the unlock and comparing the stock’s price to its $135 IPO level as a gauge of the company’s real market valuation once more shares are in play.
How the two accounts differ in emphasis
Fortune focuses on the earnings figures themselves — the revenue beat, the narrower loss, the EBITDA jump, Starlink subscriber growth, and the AI segment’s swing to profitability — framing the results as reinforcing a broader AI-driven market narrative. It treats the lockup as a secondary risk factor that could add selling pressure on top of already volatile trading. Forbes, by contrast, treats the unlock itself as the central story, arguing that Thursday’s event may reveal more about SpaceX’s real market value than the earnings report does, and situates it within a broader argument the author has made about scarcity inflating valuations across the space sector, including at Blue Origin.
Why it matters
SpaceX’s IPO was one of the most closely watched public offerings in years given the company’s dominance in launch and satellite broadband. The combination of a strong earnings beat and a looming flood of newly sellable shares creates a test of whether the stock’s valuation reflects the underlying business or simply the scarcity of shares available since June. How the stock trades around the unlock, and after the larger release tied to third-quarter results, will offer an early read on that question.
Sources
Featured photo: Bill Ingalls via Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)