NEW YORK - SpaceX shares slipped for a third straight day, shedding hundreds of billions of US dollars in market value, after the Elon Musk-led company said that it is selling investment-grade bonds for the first time, part of what’s expected to be a massive borrowing spree to fund its artificial-intelligence ambitions.The stock fell 16 per cent on June 22 to close at US$154.60, the lowest level since the company’s first day of trading, pushing its three-day loss to 23 per cent and erasing over US$600 billion (S$776 billion) in value over that period. The company’s market capitalisation now sits just above US$2 trillion.“Sellers are back in control. Anyone in the world who wanted to buy this has bought it already,” said Michael O’Rourke, chief market strategist at JonesTrading.SpaceX’s first days of trading following its record US$75 billion initial public offering were met with the type of volatility generally associated with new IPOs that have a low float, 4.2 per cent of total shares outstanding were available to trade on day one, and high interest from retail investors.Still, even with the losses on June 22, SpaceX is the sixth-largest company in the world with shares about 15 per cent higher than their US$135 IPO price.The rocket, satellite and AI conglomerate is seeking to raise at least US$20 billion from the first bond offering, Bloomberg reported last week. SpaceX also inked a multibillion-dollar agreement to provide computing resources to Reflection AI, an AI startup, the company said on Monday.SpaceX’s embrace of AI with the acquisition of Musk’s xAI in February meant investors closely watched the listing ahead of IPO prospects of competitors Anthropic and OpenAI, both of which plan to go public as soon as this year with valuations expected to be around US$1 trillion.Retail trading in SpaceX, officially named Space Exploration Technologies, was the strongest of any IPO in recent history, with the cohort buying net US$405 million in the first five sessions according to Vanda Research. Retail investors bought more SpaceX last week than buying across all Magnificent Seven stocks combined, the data showed.On June 22, retail traders were still net buyers of SpaceX, but inflows were below last week’s levels, Vanda data showed. The stock was initiated with a recommendation of sector weight at KeyBanc Capital Markets, the first hold-equivalent rating according to data tracked by Bloomberg. Analysts led by Michael Leshock wrote that SpaceX is set to remain the leader in space-launch and adjacent verticals, but much of the long-term value is already captured in the stock price.SpaceX “possesses significant disruptive growth avenues, though we believe this is reflected in current valuation and risk/reward appears balanced, in our view”, he wrote. BLOOMBERG