NFL Star Hits the SELL Button as SpaceX Insiders Finally Reach the $100B Cash-Out Window

Number of SpaceX insiders currently staring at the “SELL” button like it’s the last parachute on a Boeing 747: (approximately all of them).

The big day is finally here. SpaceX employees and early investors finally got their first real chance to cash out as the company’s first post-IPO lockup expired, freeing up to 911.5 million shares worth about $100 billion.

Which is terrific news for the SpaceX cafeteria worker who spent the last five minutes explaining to their spouse that, technically, they were millionaires… they just couldn’t buy groceries with any of it.

All in all, the unlock increased SpaceX’s potential tradable float from roughly 639 million shares to as many as 1.55 billion. That means more shares became eligible for sale today than SpaceX sold during the largest IPO in history. 

Houston, we have liquidity.

Unfortunately, insiders finally reached the cash-out window just as SpaceX’s stock began breaking apart on reentry.

The stock entered today at $108.27, down more than 50% from its June peak of $225.64 and well below its $135 IPO price. Making matters worse, shares had just been destroyed (-13.6%) Wednesday after SpaceX’s first public earnings report revealed that capital expenditures were more than twice as high as revenue. 

The falling share price also kept another 455.8 million insider shares trapped inside Elon’s financial airlock. That tranche could have unlocked early if SpaceX had remained above a price threshold tied to its $135 offering price.

Spoiler: it did not.

So while 911.5 million shares became eligible for sale today, another potential $49 billion pile remained frozen until SpaceX climbs back above its IPO price or reaches a later release date.

SpaceX is releasing the shares across nine stages instead of ending the traditional 180-day lockup all at once, presumably because flooding Wall Street with billions of shares would have Noah checking the weather forecast. 

Today’s batch represented up to 20% of eligible insider holdings. More shares are scheduled to come free in additional tranches over the coming months, while the complete 180-day lockup runs into early December.

Elon Musk’s personal stash of more than 6 billion shares remains locked until June 2027, meaning Space Daddy wasn’t smashing the sell button alongside the peasants today.

Still, we’re all watching closely to see how many employees and early investors decided that $108 in actual money beat $225 in increasingly distant memories.

One man had already made his intentions perfectly clear.

Atlanta Falcons safety Jessie Bates III said he planned to sell 100% of his SpaceX stake, which he purchased for $150,000 in 2022. At SpaceX’s current valuation, that investment could now be worth more than $1.5 million.

Of course, shares becoming eligible for sale didn’t mean all 911.5 million immediately hit the market. Plenty of employees may continue holding, while some early investors could transfer or distribute their shares instead of unloading them directly.

But with 35% of the available float reportedly sold short, another 319 million shares approaching the launchpad later this month, and billions more waiting behind them, SpaceX has entered financial territory even Elon and his biggest investors admit they’ve never seen before.

At the time of publishing this article, Stocks.News doesn’t hold positions in companies mentioned in the article.