SpaceX shares rebounded 6.1% as investors absorbed 911.5 million shares from a lockup expiration, recovering from a drop caused by $18.4 billion in quarterly expenditures. The company is expanding aggressively by partnering with Tesla on a $16.8 billion Texas chip manufacturing facility. Additionally, SpaceX plans to challenge major telecom carriers by deploying a terrestrial mobile network utilizing EchoStar spectrum and Starlink small cells.
SpaceX stock falls on AI spending concerns and share unlock
SpaceX shares surged 6.1% on Thursday to close near $109, overcoming the release of 911.5 million unlocked insider shares that more than doubled its freely tradable public float. The reversed a 13.6% plunge on Wednesday after the company reported second-quarter expenditures shot up sixfold to $18.4 billion, driven by $15.8 billion spent on infrastructure. Wall Street feared that opening the floodgates to early investors and employees would drive the stock down further after three weeks below its $135 initial public offering price. Insiders refrained from panic selling because SpaceX ran semiannual internal for years before its June debut, giving staff opportunities to cash out long before the public lockup expired. flow turned bullish on Thursday as institutional investors sold $316 million in puts, betting the stock found a bottom near $110. The company faces eight more lockup expiration tranches through December 8, which will expand its public float to 40% of outstanding shares.
Why this matters
Capital-intensive hardware pivots into artificial intelligence can erode public market valuations when massive infrastructure costs outpace the margin profile of cloud service reselling.
SpaceX to build $16.8 billion Terafab facility in Texas
SpaceX and Tesla are investing an initial $16.8 billion to build Terafab, a 100-million-square-foot advanced complex in Grimes County, Texas. The joint project aims to produce proprietary logic and memory chips for Tesla’s Optimus robots and Cybercabs, as well as space-based operated by SpaceX and its xAI subsidiary. Total investment across multi-phase construction could eventually reach $119 billion. Rather than drawing from the local grid or relying on solar, SpaceX will construct dedicated power plants alongside large battery arrays, backed by $2.8 billion in planned gas turbine purchases over the next three years. Grimes County awarded the project a 100% tax abatement in exchange for $5 billion in spending by 2030 and 1,800 full-time jobs by 2035, while the state of Texas added $30 million in incentives. The massive outlay follows a 300% year-over-year surge in SpaceX’s first-half 2026 spending to $28.5 billion. Though the company’s stock jumped 11% on the news, it remains 20% below its June price.
Why this matters
Tech giants are expanding into captive power generation and bespoke chip manufacturing, redefining vertical integration to solve critical energy and hardware bottlenecks.
SpaceX Asserts Starlink Mobile Superiority Over Major Telecom Carriers
SpaceX is attempting a direct assault on the combined annual of AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile by building its own terrestrial cellular network. Rather than constructing traditional, expensive macro cell towers, SpaceX plans to attach small cellular base stations directly to customer rooftop Starlink dishes, combining them with low-Earth orbit satellites to form a mobile network. To supply the necessary ground frequencies, the company is acquiring 65 MHz of nationwide spectrum from EchoStar. Analysts note that 65 MHz pales in comparison to the 1.1 GHz held by incumbents, making direct carrier competition extraordinarily difficult without additional spectrum or network agreements. Coverage outside concentrated rural subscriber areas remains a fundamental physical bottleneck because small cells broadcast only about half a kilometer to two kilometers. To clear the competitive field, SpaceX petitioned the FCC to sunset its $4.5 billion annual High-Cost subsidy program for rural terrestrial fiber, arguing satellite renders legacy funding obsolete. Ground providers fired back, pointing out that LEO satellites currently lack voice services and reliable capacity for high-density usage. Financial pressure on SpaceX is accelerating: the company burned $28.5 billion in expenditures during the first half of 2026—83% of it directed toward —while generating $12.5 billion in and posting a $4.8 billion loss. The spectrum transaction with EchoStar is set to fully close at a future date.
Why this matters
Incumbent telecom valuations face long-term risks as capital-intensive satellite operators use direct-to-device technology to bypass traditional fiber infrastructure and capture rural market share.
What it adds up to
Pairing a $16.8 billion semiconductor plant with a direct entry into the $600 billion terrestrial mobile market demonstrates an aggressive move toward deep vertical integration and telecom expansion. Combining these ambitious hardware and network rollouts requires immense sustained capital investment, leaving the ultimate timeline for network deployment and chip production profitability unresolved.
