SpaceX Has $100 Billion. It's Borrowing Anyway.

How a company sitting on $100 BILLION in cash loses $600 BILLION in three days.

Coffee at the ready…

(This one's a head-scratcher).

The SpaceX stock crash has a strange trigger:

A company holding $100 billion in cash decided to borrow more. Shares fell 16% Monday and roughly 24% across three days, wiping out about $600 billion. Investors quit buying the launch business and woke up to Musk's AI bet. They flinched.

The bond's pricing lands this week; the first insider lockups open in August.

A rocket firm once bigger than Microsoft, now sweating its credit-card bill.

Start with the puzzle.

SpaceX disclosed $100.8 billion in cash on 19 June, then launched its first-ever bond sale days later. The notes target at least $20 billion. The cash isn't going into new rockets…

It repays a bridge loan from Musk's xAI takeover, due in 2027.

Here's the bit the bulls skip.

SpaceX swallowed xAI, an AI venture losing $6.4 billion a year. The combined firm lost about $5 billion in 2025, then another $4.28 billion in the first quarter of 2026 alone. The bond tidies up the debt.

It does not fund growth.

Now the casino part.

Only about 4% of SpaceX shares actually trade. The rest sit locked up. A thin float pushed the stock up 67% after listing. Now it drags the price down just as hard. Even after the fall, SpaceX trades near 90 times sales.

The S&P 500 average is under four.

And SpaceX isn't alone.

NVIDIA, Oracle and Amazon have all borrowed tens of billions to feed the AI build-out. Wall Street once kept this spending off the debt markets. Not anymore.

The twist:

All three rating agencies still grade SpaceX investment-grade, citing Starlink and its launch monopoly.

The stock priced a dream…

The bondholders priced a utility.

Pro: SpaceX has investment-grade ratings, $100 billion in cash, and flies 80% of the world's payload to orbit — refinancing is just housekeeping.

Con: It loses $5 billion a year, trades at 90 times sales on a 4% float, and is borrowing to bury debt from a money-losing AI deal.

Our read: The agencies see a launch monopoly with real cash. The share price saw magic. The crash is the gap closing.

[Report] SpaceX Investor Relations — "Space Exploration Technologies Corp. Announces Inaugural Bond Issuance"

A firm holding $100.8 billion in cash is borrowing at least $20 billion to repay its bridge loan.

Why it matters: It confirms the bond pays off AI-acquisition debt, not rockets — the launch story and the balance sheet have split.

SpaceX erased $600 billion in three trading days.

(Bloomberg)

[Analysis] The Motley Fool — Nvidia, Oracle and Now SpaceX Are Borrowing Billions — Is the AI debt wave a warning sign? Mostly fine for the profitable names — and SpaceX is the glaring exception.

[Report] CNBC — AI build-out gives tech investors a reason to watch the bond market — Why borrowing costs now decide whether Big Tech's AI bet pays off.

[Analysis] Fortune — Big Tech's $1 trillion borrowing spree — The fibre-optic bust buried WorldCom. A bond manager asks who's next.

SpaceX has $100bn in cash and borrowed anyway.

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