SpaceX shares tumbled 16% on Monday to close at $154.60, falling below the $160.90 level recorded on their 12 June debut and extending a three-day decline that erased more than $600 billion in market value from the mid-June peak of nearly $3 trillion. The selloff sliced an estimated $350 billion from Elon Musk’s net worth, according to Forbes, though his roughly 38% stake still leaves him the world’s only trillionaire at about $1.1 trillion. The rout intensified after the company disclosed plans to issue at least $20 billion in bonds—its first such offering—to refinance a bridge loan tied to the xAI acquisition, and after index provider MSCI assigned SpaceX a CCC sustainability rating, its lowest tier, flagging significant environmental, social and governance risks.

Analysts in New York note that the IPO’s unusually low float, with just 4.2% of shares available on day one, magnified both the initial rally and the current reversal. Retail investors, allocated an outsized 30% of the offering, bought a net $405 million in the first five sessions, but inflows have since moderated. The bond issuance, aimed at funding AI ambitions without further diluting equity holders, unsettled a market already questioning the company’s governance structure and heavy cash consumption. Broader sentiment soured as Alphabet and other megacap tech names fell, dragging the Nasdaq Composite down 1.3%, while oil prices retreated on progress in US-Iran peace talks and hawkish Federal Reserve commentary lifted Treasury yields.

Viewed from Buenos Aires, the scale of Musk’s fortune was captured in a local calculation: an average Argentine worker would need more than 80 million years of uninterrupted saving to match it, a span exceeding the time since the dinosaurs’ extinction. In London, some strategists likened the stock’s trajectory to meme-like behaviour driven by expectations of further buying rather than fundamentals. Morningstar, maintaining a bearish stance, cut its fair value estimate to $62 per share after the all-stock acquisition of AI coding startup Cursor diluted existing holders. KeyBanc Capital Markets initiated coverage with a sector-weight rating, arguing that long-term value is already reflected in the price.

The immediate focus turns to the pricing of the bond offering and the approaching lock-up expirations. From August, restrictions on insider sales begin to lift, potentially releasing up to 44% of currently restricted shares and adding further supply pressure. Broader market attention will centre on Micron Technology’s quarterly results on Wednesday and Thursday’s US Personal Consumption Expenditures data, the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation gauge, which could reinforce expectations of a September rate increase.