SpaceX, the company that made reusable rockets look routine, just delivered a less graceful landing on Wall Street. Shares of Elon Musk’s space venture plummeted 16.4% on June 22, erasing roughly $400 billion in market capitalization in a single trading session.
That makes it the second-largest one-day market cap loss ever recorded for any company in history. For context, $400 billion is more than the entire market value of most S&P 500 companies.
From liftoff to freefall in ten days
SpaceX priced its IPO at $135 per share on June 12, marking its historic debut on the Nasdaq exchange. The stock did what hype-fueled IPOs tend to do on day one: it surged 19%, closing at $160.95.
That first-day pop pushed SpaceX’s market capitalization past $2.1 trillion, instantly making it the sixth-largest public company in the US. The implied valuation at its post-debut highs was approaching $3 trillion.
