SPCX: the lockup that released, and the much bigger one that did not

SpaceX went public on 12 June 2026 at $135.00 a share. Two months later a lockup released, everybody waited for the selling, and it did not come.

Here is what actually happened, from the filings, and what is scheduled next.

The round trip

The stock closed its first day at $160.95, ran to $201.80, then gave all of it back and more, closing at $108.27 on 5 August. That is 20% below the offering price.

It has since recovered to $140.00, roughly 4% above where it listed.

Who owns it, in one table

That is 64.3% of the company in four hands, all disclosed between 11 and 14 August. None of it is for sale right now.

Musk's 48.4% carries roughly 82.4% of the voting power through the dual-class structure, so control is not in question either.

⚠ These are not new purchases. They are long-standing holders disclosing because the company became public and the rules now require it. Alphabet has been a SpaceX shareholder for years; this is simply the first time the size appears on a form.

The lockup that everyone was watching

This is the part worth understanding properly, because the schedule is unusually specific and most of it has not happened yet.

Roughly 7.8 billion shares, about 60% of the company, are locked. They are locked in two different ways.

Elon Musk's shares are locked for 366 days, until around 12 June 2027, and the prospectus says plainly that they are "not subject to any early release provisions." That is 100% of his stake, and his stake is 48.4% of the company.

A second group runs even longer, to the second trading day after the results for the quarter ending 30 June 2027, with automatic partial releases along the way.

Everything else sat under a 180-day lockup with early releases, and the first of those is what fired this month:

on or after the second full trading day on Nasdaq immediately following the public release of our quarterly financial results for the quarter ended June 30, 2026, up to 20% of the shares may be Transferred

SpaceX reported those results on 4 August. The second full trading day after is 6 August. That is the release everybody was positioned for.

The bigger tranche never released, and that is the real story

Sitting right behind the 20% was a much larger conditional block: up to 455.8 million additional shares, released on the same date, but only if the closing price was at least 30% above the $135.00 IPO price for at least five of the ten trading days ending on the earnings date.

Thirty percent above $135.00 is $175.50. Here is that window:

Zero of ten. The condition failed by a wide margin, so 455.8 million shares stayed locked.

That is worth sitting with. The market spent late July pricing in a supply event, drove the stock to $108.27, and the largest part of that supply was mechanically prevented from arriving by the very weakness that was being priced in. The stock then rose 29% from that low in seven sessions.

Did anyone actually sell?

On the filings, no.

There has been exactly one Form 4 since the IPO, filed 17 June by Elon Musk, and its transactions are dated 2 February and 23 March 2026, months before the listing. That is catch-up reporting of pre-IPO movements, not open-market selling.

Ten Form 3s were filed at listing, which is simply every insider declaring what they already held.

One honest limit on that. Form 4 covers officers, directors and 10% holders. Employees below those thresholds can sell released shares without filing one, so "no insider selling on the record" is not the same as "nobody sold." What can be said is that the people required to disclose have disclosed nothing.

Who owns it, disclosed in the last week

Four Schedule 13G filings landed between 11 and 14 August, all reporting positions as of 30 June.

These are not new purchases. They are pre-existing holders disclosing because the company became public and the rules now require it. Alphabet has been a SpaceX shareholder for years; the 13G is the first time the size of it appears on a form.

Musk's economic stake is 48.4%, but the dual-class structure gives him approximately 82.4% of the voting power.

And that 48.4% is the single most important number for how this stock behaves day to day.

Add it up. Musk holds 48.4% and cannot sell any of it until June 2027. Alphabet, Gracias and Founders Fund hold another 15.9% between them and have just filed passive-intent forms. Roughly 7.8 billion shares, about 60% of the company, are contractually locked.

That leaves a genuinely small pool actually changing hands, in a company worth $1.85 trillion. A tightly held stock moves more per dollar of demand than a widely held one, because there is simply less of it available to meet a buyer.

That is the mechanical reason a company this size can run 29% in seven sessions, and it also explains why the lockup calendar matters so much here. Every release date is a scheduled loosening of exactly that constraint. The float is not fixed. It is a staircase, and the next step is 20 August.

The acquisition that closed on the same day

On 14 August, SpaceX closed its acquisition of Cursor, the AI coding company, formally Anysphere Inc.

Cursor shareholders received 389,289,254 shares of SpaceX Class A, struck at an implied equity value for Cursor of $60.0 billion, priced off the volume-weighted average close over the seven trading days before closing.

So on the day this stock was being called dead in our replies, it had just issued $60 billion of stock to buy a software company.

What is scheduled next

The releases are dated in the prospectus. These are not forecasts.

1. 20 August 2026, the 70th day: up to 319.0 million shares, 7% of the 180-day tranche.
2. 9 September 2026, the 90th day: up to another 319.0 million shares.
3. 10 September 2026, the 91st day: up to 59.1 million shares held by affiliates.
4. Q4 2026 results, then March, then the June and Q2 2027 dates, for the extended group.
5. 12 June 2027: Musk's 366 days end. No early release before then.

The next one is four days away.

The calendar that decides the next three months

Every date below is written into the prospectus. None of it is a forecast.

Three releases land inside four weeks, starting four days from now.

Our take

Bullish on the evidence, with a stated shelf life.

The evidence is behaviour, not price. A tranche opened on 6 August after three weeks of the market pricing the supply, and the supply did not arrive. Not one Form 4 has been filed since the IPO. The stock went $108.27 to $140.00, up 29%, on that absence.

Three things support reading it positively, each checkable:

1. Musk took 366 days with no early release and the prospectus says so in terms. He negotiated no ladder for himself while others did.
2. Alphabet, Gracias and Founders Fund filed 13Gs, not sales. A 13G is the passive-intent form. It is not what someone heading for the exit files.
3. The company issued $60 billion of stock to buy Cursor the same week, and the seller took shares rather than cash.

Now the half that limits it.

The 455.8 million tranche was deferred, not cancelled. The price test failed, so those shares moved down the schedule rather than disappearing.

And the test that just passed was the easy one. It arrived with the stock below its IPO price, when selling meant booking a loss. The August and September releases arrive with it above. That is a different decision for the same holder.

For all of it, $SPCX is $140.00 against a $135.00 offering price. Up 3.7% in two months, having been 49% higher and 20% lower in between.

The summary: the first supply test was passed convincingly, and three more land inside four weeks. Encouraging, not yet a trend.

What to watch, in order

1. 20 August. Does 319 million shares of new supply produce selling, or another non-event? This is the cleanest read available, and it is four days away.
2. Form 4 filings. Officers, directors and 10% holders must file within 2 business days. This is the fastest signal that anyone with real size has moved.
3. Any 13G amendment from Alphabet, Gracias or Founders Fund. An amendment is how a passive holder discloses a material change in position.
4. The Q3 report, which is what unlocks the extended group's first step.
5. Cursor's contribution. SpaceX just paid $60 billion in stock for it, and the next quarterly is the first time anyone sees what that bought.

This is not advice and it is not a view on the price. It is the lockup schedule, the ownership, and what the filings say happened.