SpaceX's biggest rocket has notched one of its most successful test flights yet, but investors are still hitting the sell button. The company flew Starship for the 13th time on Friday, completing every major goal on what was only the second flight of its third-generation vehicle: deploying 20 Starlink V3 satellites, restarting a Raptor engine in space, gathering extensive heat-shield data, and gently splashing the upper stage down in the Indian Ocean, MarketWatch reports. One analyst called the flight "near perfection."
- None of that halted a stock slide: shares fell another 1.4% Monday to a record closing low of $113.50 ahead of the company's first earnings report as a public firm, due Aug. 4, and a looming insider lockup expiration that could unleash up to 37% of insider-held shares next month. At one point on Monday, the stock fell as low as $108, down more than 50% from the high it reached days after its June IPO. The company's valuation has fallen by more than $1 trillion.
Despite Friday's success, analysts say questions remain about the viability of Starship, which underpins SpaceX's plans for cheaper launches, improved Starlink service, and even orbital data centers. "The future of the company is riding on the ability to make Starship work," Clayton Swope, deputy director of the Aerospace Security Project, tells the Washington Post. "They essentially have a very successful pickup truck that can move things across town," Swope says. "What they're trying to do is switch to a freight train and get the economies of scale [of] something of that magnitude."
- Tesla, another one of Elon Musk's companies, has also fallen sharply over the last week. The Post reports that Musk joked about his falling net worth in a post on X Friday, writing: "(Former) Trillionaire."
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