SpaceX Jumps 6% Amid Institutional Inflows as Goldman Forecasts $1.8 Trillion Space Economy

SpaceX (ticker: SPCX) stock recovered on August 18 with a 5.9% gain to reach $148.21, rebounding from its bottom of $104.83 recorded during lock-up expiration concerns, amid notable institutional demand and strong Q2 financial results.

This surge coincided with Goldman Sachs' report "The Second Space Age," which predicts the global space economy will reach $1.8 trillion by 2035, identifying launch infrastructure as the most critical chokepoint. Major shareholders include NVIDIA with 122.7 million shares, Alphabet with a position near $94 billion, and the Harvard Management Company with $2.2 billion.

SpaceX reported Q2 revenue of $7.81 billion, and Starlink subscribers doubled to reach 12 million, while AI revenue jumped 247% to reach $2.56 billion. The company also acquired AI coding platform Cursor for $60 billion on August 14. On another note, Starlink Mission 75 was aborted at the last second on August 20, an event observers described as routine.

Accelerating institutional interest in SpaceX stock reflects a growing conviction that the space sector is transitioning from an era of adventure to a real economy. The real challenge for SpaceX is not reaching one and a half trillion, but proving that dominating the chokepoint of an entire industry serves everyone, not just shareholders.

What Do These Terms Mean?

Lock-up Period: A duration during which early shareholders are prohibited from selling their shares post-offering — its expiration generates temporary selling pressure before the stock stabilizes at its true levels.

Chokepoint: A critical point in an industry that cannot be easily bypassed — in space, launch capacity is this bottleneck that SpaceX currently dominates.

Starlink: SpaceX's satellite internet constellation, consisting of thousands of low-Earth-orbit satellites to provide high-speed internet anywhere on Earth.