Gina Rinehart is among thousands of Australians who have lost money on Elon Musk\u2019s SpaceX, as the tech company\u2019s share price crashes back to earth.<\/p>\n
SpaceX shares closed below their debut price<\/a> of US$135 a share during trading on Thursday, at $131.11.<\/p>\n The tech company, which also owns xAI and social media platform X, had soared to a market value over $2.6tn in the first three days after its share market listing in mid-June, but has steadily fallen back to a record low market value of US$1.72tn.<\/p>\n Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email<\/a><\/p>\n Rinehart\u2019s company, Hancock Prospecting, took a stake in SpaceX<\/a> at its initial public offering (IPO), the biggest debut in stock market history, which \u200bbriefly made Musk the world\u2019s first trillionaire<\/a>. Musk\u2019s fortune has fallen to US$838bn as of Thursday, according to Forbes.<\/p>\n Some Australian institutional investors have said<\/a> they sold out of SpaceX early to bank their profits but Rinehart has not suggested she has abandoned her position.<\/p>\n Hancock Prospecting declined to comment when asked about the value of its initial stock purchase, and whether it had bought or sold more shares in SpaceX<\/a> since the listing.<\/p>\n But the company has republished a number of articles on its website reporting it bought over US$1bn worth, suggesting Rinehart may have lost a US$500m (A$714m) paper gain from the stock\u2019s peak. Thursday\u2019s close, nearly 3% below the debut price, implies Rinehart lost a further US$30m (A$43m) on paper.<\/p>\n Tony Sycamore, market analyst at IG Australia, said Rinehart would not be worried by her lost profits.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re looking to invest in SpaceX for the long term, you\u2019re backing the man,\u201d Sycamore said. \u201cShe knows Elon personally.\u201d<\/p>\n The billionaire has met Musk and said he \u201cexcels in every regard\u201d in her June statement announcing the investment by her company, Hancock Prospecting.<\/p>\n \u201cHancock favours investing in industries led by sensible, hard working, patriotic and exceptional people,\u201d Rinehart said in June.<\/p>\n Days later, Rinehart used a speech to suggest Australia offer Musk<\/a> free use of north Queensland islands to build and launch satellites, and paid homage to his chainsaw-wielding stunt<\/a> by giving Pauline Hanson an orange toy bulldozer.<\/p>\n Australian\u2019s lead retail share broker, CommSec, said 28,000 people applied to buy SpaceX shares, though it declined to disclose how many made successful purchases.<\/p>\n The tech business reportedly received applications globally from three times more investors than it could sell to, suggesting only some of those 28,000 Australia retail investor applicants bought in. CommSec said that was a record total applications, with the largest Australian IPO receiving just a quarter as many.<\/p>\n Sycamore said some local investors likely bought in to sell at the early highs but many would still expect returns in the long term.<\/p>\n \u201cThese types of investors, the mums and dads who supported it so willingly and so enthusiastically \u2026 obviously they would prefer to see it still trading at a profit,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201c[But] it is the new frontier of tech stocks. It is something that is not going to pay off in a month or a year. You\u2019re looking to be involved in this stock for a decade.\u201d<\/p>\n SpaceX\u2019s share price has fallen in seven of the last eight trading sessions, which Sycamore attributed to easing euphoria.<\/p>\n The company recorded its biggest one-day fall on 22 June, when it announced it would take on billions more in debt by issuing bonds. Bloomberg has reported short sellers betting against SpaceX have recorded profits of US$3.88bn (A$5.55bn).<\/p>\n This article was amended on 17 July 2026. An earlier version incorrectly stated Hancock Prospecting had a paper loss of about US$30,000 after SpaceX\u2019s share price fell 3% below its IPO level. It would have a paper loss of about US$30m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gina Rinehart is among thousands of Australians who have lost money on Elon Musk\u2019s SpaceX, as the tech…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":493573,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[114,85,46],"class_list":["post-545620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545620","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=545620"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545620\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/493573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=545620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=545620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=545620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}