Elon Musk Engineered SpaceX IPO "Perfectly": But What Comes Next When 95% of Stock Unlocks? Artwork

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Elon Musk Engineered SpaceX IPO "Perfectly": But What Comes Next When 95% of Stock Unlocks?

June 19, 2026 • Kristen and Jen

0:00 | 29:14

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After the largest IPO in history (SpaceX, ticker SPCX, priced at $135), only about 5% of the company — roughly $83 billion — is actually free to trade. Insiders are locked up, the banks that underwrote the deal can't lend shares to short sellers, and index funds are being forced to buy as SpaceX joins the Nasdaq-100 and the Russel. In this episode of The Wall Street Skinny, Jen and Kristen, both former Morgan Stanley investment bankers, break down how the IPO was engineered — and the question every SpaceX investor should be asking: what happens when all that locked-up stock can finally sell?

First, we cover what is normal in an IPO so you can see what isn't. We cover price talk vs. the $135 take-it-or-leave-it pricing, the green shoe, perpetual futures, and the fast-track Nasdaq-100 inclusion pulling in billions of passive buying.

We lay out the risks, meaning the the wall of supply coming. Unlike the standard 180-day lockup, SpaceX is staggering its release: the first ~$240-500+ billion of stock unlocks after the first earnings report around September, with more tranches every few weeks after that — over $1 trillion freely tradeable by December, on the way to a ~$2 trillion overhang once Elon Musk's one-year lockup rolls off.

But we also lay out why the passive buying actually helps dampen that supply PLUS why many institutional investors are NOT bearish on the stock despite the insane valuation.

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