SpaceX on display outside the Nasdaq as the company launches its IPO on June 12, 2026.
Adam Jeffrey | CNBC
space xEven though the stock has fallen by more than a quarter in just one week, the sharp pullback from its all-time high after the IPO has done little to encourage short sellers reluctant to bet on CEO Elon Musk.
The company is down about 12% this week and about 28% from its June 16 high, wiping out hundreds of billions of dollars in market capitalization in a ferocious rally following its June 12 initial public offering.
However, bearish views remain subdued. S3 Partners estimates that only about 40 million SpaceX shares are currently sold short, or about 5% to 7% of the company’s roughly 625 million publicly traded shares.
Short selling refers to a trading strategy that allows investors to bet that the price of a stock or security will fall.
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About 60 companies in the S&P 500 index currently have short interest of more than 7% of their free float, according to FactSet, suggesting that SpaceX’s bearish stance is relatively modest despite the recent decline in its stock price.
More than 30 million SpaceX shares are currently available for borrowing, indicating ample liquidity in the stock lending market. Borrowing costs are also low, with fees of less than 1% per annum, according to S3.
“SPCX is attracting active short interest, but the data suggests this is far from a supply-constrained short interest,” Matthew Unterman, head of research at S3, told CNBC. “The current setup looks more like regular price discovery than a classic short squeeze candidate.”
For now, many traders appear reluctant to push short positions in the company, which has a loyal retail investor base and remains one of the hottest growth stories in the market.
Some of Wall Street’s most famous skeptics remain on the sidelines. Michael Burry, an investor famous for betting on the U.S. housing market before the 2008 financial crisis, said he considered several ways to bet on SpaceX, but ultimately passed.
