SpaceX stock falls further after Starship rocket test aborted at last second

The stock was trading around $126.58 in premarket Friday — a roughly $9 gap below the $135 IPO price — after shedding about 3.5% on the day, compounding Thursday's 3%-plus decline.

Thursday's launch window opened at 5:45 p.m. Texas time and was set to run 90 minutes, according to CNBC, but the attempt was cut short when an engine ignition failure caused an automatic abort before liftoff. "Some of the engines didn't start, triggering an automatic launch abort," founder Elon Musk said in a post on X $TWTR. "Now offloading propellant. Next launch attempt hopefully in a few days."

In a follow-up post, Musk said the team would swap out a pair of Raptor engines and that SpaceX is targeting early next week for another attempt, according to CNBC.

This was SpaceX's first Starship test flight since the company crossed below its IPO price for the first time on Wednesday, marking a fourth straight down session at that point. SpaceX raised $85.7 billion in its June initial public offering — the largest in history — pricing shares at $135. The stock climbed more than 40% in its first two trading sessions before a sharp reversal sent it down 16% in a single day.

The Thursday launch attempt was SpaceX's first Starship test since its IPO. During a May test, the Starship upper stage completed its trajectory toward the Indian Ocean, but the mission ended in failure when the Super Heavy booster came down uncontrolled in the Gulf of Mexico — five of its 33 Raptor engines had cut out before the landing burn. The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration ordered an investigation into that incident and cleared the company to resume test flights on Monday.

SpaceX posted a net loss of $4.9 billion in 2025 and lost an additional $4.28 billion in the first quarter of 2026. The company raised $25 billion in the bond market last month to fund technology infrastructure.