{"id":461693,"date":"2026-05-27T00:05:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T00:05:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/461693\/"},"modified":"2026-05-27T00:05:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T00:05:11","slug":"spacexs-tiered-ipo-lockup-aims-to-build-a-ladder-not-a-cliff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/461693\/","title":{"rendered":"SpaceX’s tiered IPO lockup aims to build a ladder, not a cliff"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"US-SPACE-AEROSPACE-SPACEX-STARSHIP\" US-SPACE-AEROSPACE-SPACEX-STARSHIP <\/p>\n

SpaceX\u2019s Starship 39 rocket launches on May 22 during a test flight in Texas.<\/p>\n

Ronaldo Schemidt\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

The largest planned IPO on record<\/a> will not have the typical 180-day lockup for existing investors. SpaceX<\/a> has built a tiered, rolling release schedule designed to meter\u2014not block\u2014sales by its longest-tenured shareholders.<\/p>\n

While the approach is mainly aimed at tempering stock price volatility, staggered lockups have not always kept a hot, newly listed stock\u2019s price high. Facebook<\/a>\u2018s 2012 IPO\u2019s lockup, for example, ran 91 to 181 days, by the end of which shares had fallen more than 40% off their offering price (they went on to recover).<\/p>\n

Moreover, SpaceX will be the first mega-IPO to qualify for the Nasdaq 100\u2019s new fast-entry rule<\/a>, letting it join the index after only 15 days of trading. This will force passive index funds tracking the benchmark to buy shares, and experts anticipate it will put even more pressure on SpaceX\u2019s stock price.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s going to attract larger institutional investors, as well as index funds, sooner than it would of any IPO of this nature,\u201d said Jawad Hussain, senior managing partner of advisory firm Highspring. \u201cWell, I can\u2019t say \u2018this nature\u2019 because no such things exist in the market \u2026 because of the size and sheer scale of this, they really need all of these accelerants for the stock to perform.\u201d<\/p>\n

As outlined in the company\u2019s IPO prospectus, SpaceX investors will be able to sell up to 20% of their stock starting on the second full day of trading after the company releases its first earnings report after the end of Q2.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also a performance-based trigger: Investors can sell an additional 10% if the stock trades 30% above its IPO price for at least five of the 10 trading days after the earnings are released.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know if any of the largest [investors] would want to sell. The fact that they\u2019re allowing up to 20% gives them some liquidity,\u201d said Mike Alves, founder of VIDA Vision Fund and an investor in SpaceX and xAI. \u201cThat said, they have been long-term investors, and there\u2019s a huge gain to that position, so I\u2019m sure they want to take some off the table.\u201d<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s a layered lockup structure in place, too, irrespective of where the stock is trading. Investors can sell in increments of 7% after 70, 90, 105, 120 and 135 days following the public listing. An additional 28% unlocks after SpaceX reports Q3 earnings. The remainder unlocks at 180 days post-IPO.<\/p>\n

As for Elon Musk\u2014who controls 85.1% of voting power in his company\u2014he\u2019s sitting out the sale for quite a bit. He and unnamed \u201ccertain significant investors\u201d have agreed to a 366-day lockup period, per the IPO filing.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on PitchBook News<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"US-SPACE-AEROSPACE-SPACEX-STARSHIP SpaceX\u2019s Starship 39 rocket launches on May 22 during a test flight in Texas. Ronaldo Schemidt\/Getty Images…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":461694,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[114,85,34351,46,214976,4688,39402],"class_list":["post-461693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-il","tag-institutional-investors","tag-israel","tag-lockup","tag-spacex","tag-stock-trades"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=461693"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461693\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/461694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=461693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=461693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=461693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}