SpaceX stock crash: market reconsiders bet on AI

On Wednesday, July 15, SpaceX shares fell below the offering price of $135 per share for the first time since their initial public offering, falling in price by almost half from their peak of $225.6 per share recorded on June 16.

The company’s market value is down $800 billion from its peak. Analysts attribute the sell-off to profit-taking by early shareholders and a reassessment of the high expectations that surrounded the company after its debut.

At the same time, the collapse of shares of American and Korean giants in the semiconductor industry continues. SK Hynix, Samsung Electronics, Seoul Semiconductor, LG Innotek, Micron, Intel lost from 4% to 11% of value per day.

Both episodes are part of a broader reassessment among investors about how hot investments in artificial intelligence infrastructure have become, according to analysts surveyed. Additional negative signals came from Governor Kathy Hochle’s temporary moratorium on new data center construction in New York State and reports that cloud company CoreWeave is considering hedging against future memory price declines.

At the same time, analysts call what is happening more likely to be profit-taking after a sharp rally than a sign of deterioration in the fundamental indicators of the industry: structural demand for memory chips for AI infrastructure, according to them, still outstrips supply.