SpaceX shares slipped more than 2% on Friday, trimming this week's advance to roughly 1%. Investors weighed the postponement of the company's first orbital Starship test flight against a bullish outlook issued by one of its major backers this week, with the stock retreating as the launch timeline shifted.
The Starship vehicle's liftoff has been pushed back six days from the originally scheduled September 22, now targeting September 28, prompting the decline. This mission, set to depart from the Starbase facility in southern Texas, marks the Starship program's inaugural orbital attempt: the upper stage is expected to reach an altitude of about 275 kilometers, complete roughly six orbital loops over a nearly 10-hour mission, and deploy 26 Starlink V3 satellites, each delivering one terabit per second of bandwidth to the network. The Super Heavy booster will aim for an offshore recovery landing, while the Starship itself is slated for a controlled splashdown in the Pacific Ocean west of Chile.
SpaceX confirmed it will no longer attempt an in-air capture using the "Mechazilla" arms, reversing earlier market expectations. A successful test is pivotal to the bullish case for SpaceX, as it underpins Starlink deployment economics, commercial launch profitability, and the company's broader ambitions for lunar landings and crewed Mars missions. Friday's volatility also serves as a reminder of how quickly sentiment can shift for a newly listed company.
J.P. Morgan noted that retail investors have collectively sold approximately $570 million worth of SpaceX stock over the past three weeks. Last week alone saw a net retail outflow of $250 million, marking the largest single-week retail sell-off in the bank's tracking history.
In contrast, billionaire investor Ron Baron remains upbeat on the stock, with his Baron Capital holding SpaceX shares valued at around $25 billion. In a full interview, Baron offered an optimistic projection for the satellite business, estimating its current annual revenue at nearly $18 billion. "I think Starlink alone could reach $1 trillion in revenue within 10 years," Baron said. "On the profit side, EBITDA could hit $700–800 billion. Apply a valuation multiple to that, and it supports a $14–15 trillion company valuation."
On the recurring market speculation about a potential future merger between SpaceX and Tesla, Baron revealed he told Musk: "Whatever decision you ultimately make, I'll support it." Musk himself continues to fuel the conjecture. Speaking online at the All-In Summit, the CEO said that given how closely the two companies collaborate, debating whether they should remain independent is a legitimate question. "They work together across so many levels, and when cross-industry cooperation reaches this degree, no one can predict what happens next."
Yahoo Finance reached out to SpaceX regarding Musk's merger comments but received no response. This isn't the first time the rumor has surfaced, with reports indicating that Musk publicly floated the possibility of combining the two companies as early as June, prior to SpaceX's IPO.