SpaceX shares tumbled 16% Monday – their third straight day of declines — on news that Elon Musk’s rocket company could launch a massive borrowing binge.
After a blockbuster initial public offering earlier this month, SpaceX on Monday revealed in a regulatory filing that it plans to sell investment-grade bonds. The bond offering would aim to raise about $20 billion, according to reports, and could help bankroll costly AI development and longer term goals like building data centers in space.
In addition to the offering of senior unsecured notes, the filing disclosed about $100.8 billion in cash.
The shares on Monday closed at $154.60, giving the company a $2.03 trillion market capitalization. That’s after SpaceX fell more than 8% Wednesday and Thursday before the US market closed on Friday.
SpaceX would be the latest tech giant to turn to debt to finance pricey AI to-do lists. This month Alphabet, Amazon and chip titan Nvidia have indicated they would tap debt markets.
“Investors remain skittish about all these debt offerings on the Street but it’s par for the course in this AI arms race,” said Dan Ives, a managing director at Wedbush Securities. “We are seeing massive debt and equity raises from Big Tech players to fund major capital expenditure buildouts over the coming years.”
SpaceX’s record-setting IPO on June 12 minted Musk as the world’s first trillionaire and raised nearly $86 billion. The stock opened at $150 a share, making it the largest-ever IPO and immediately vaulted the company’s valuation above $2 trillion. It closed up 19.6% at $192.45.
Retail investors helped power the offering in its first days of trading. Everyday traders bought $405 million worth of shares 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.
SpaceX revolutionized the space industry with its reusable rockets that have lowered the cost of putting satellites into space. The Texas-based company also owns satellite internet service provider Starlink, which has become a major government contractor over the past few years and was the sole profitable division in 2025. Musk says SpaceX will one day allow humans to colonize Mars.
In February, Musk merged SpaceX with his artificial-intelligence startup, xAI.
At the same time, SpaceX is burning through cash at a rapid clip. Last year, SpaceX lost nearly $5 billion as its annual capital expenditures hit $20.7 billion.
In this year’s first quarter alone, SpaceX spending reached $10.1 billion – with AI accounting for $7.7 billion. That eclipsed its total spending in the same period last year of $4.1 billion.
Scott Martin, a partner at Kingsview Wealth Management, told The Post earlier this month after the IPO that investor enthusiasm for SpaceX stock was more about belief in Musk than the company’s financials.
“Investors aren’t buying today’s fundamentals – they’re buying Elon Musk, Starlink, AI, space infrastructure and the belief that SpaceX will dominate industries that don’t fully exist yet. That’s exciting, but it also means expectations are getting very high.”