SPCX ends September with the narrative shifting firmly toward the bulls: the short campaign that dominated the past two weeks is moderating, a cluster of new analyst initiations signals fresh institutional attention, and the Starship orbital refueling test has given the market a concrete operational milestone to price in.
The short position has moved in both directions this week, but the net message is one of modest retreat. Estimated shares short finished Tuesday at 189.4 million, down from the September 24 peak of 195.4 million and essentially flat on the week, with the one-week change just under 1%. The more telling number is the journey: short interest is still 46% above where it stood on September 18, when 130 million shares were short. That September 18-to-22 build was the dominant story of the prior note. What's different now is that the build has stalled. The ORTEX short score, which reached 65 last week, has eased to 63.1, consistent with a position that is large but no longer accelerating. Borrow conditions offer no threat to the bears who remain: availability has actually loosened sharply this week, rising from around 137% to 185%, meaning there are nearly two shares available in the lending pool for every one already borrowed. Cost to borrow has fallen 21% over the week to 0.45%, a level that makes holding a short position essentially free. The lending market is not pressuring anyone out.
Options positioning has also pulled back from last week's alarm level. The put/call ratio hit 1.1384 on Monday, the 52-week high, then retreated to 1.0429 by Tuesday's close. That is only modestly above the 20-day average of 1.03, with a z-score of 0.37, well within normal range. The brief spike in hedging demand appears to have been tied to the uncertainty around the Starship test rather than a durable shift in directional sentiment.
The Street is clearly on the buy side, and this week added weight to that view. TD Cowen initiated coverage with a Buy and a $200 target on Monday. CLSA followed with an Outperform at $250. Both initiations came within 48 hours of each other, joining Macquarie's maintained Outperform at $250 and Deutsche Bank's reiterated Buy at $235. The consensus mean target is $226 against Tuesday's close of $149.24, implying roughly 51% upside. The lone outlier is MoffettNathanson, which raised its target to $142 from $131 while keeping a Neutral rating, effectively sitting just below the current price. Bulls are arguing a vertically integrated launch-plus-AI-infrastructure franchise with an estimated $19.4 billion in AI revenue this year, rising to $79.5 billion in 2027. Bears point to the execution risk embedded in those numbers: a model that requires simultaneously scaling gigawatt-level terrestrial compute, thousands of new Starlink satellites, and near-daily launch cadence, with any single bottleneck capable of compressing margin projections dramatically. The valuation reflects the tension. At roughly 110 times trailing earnings and 74 times EV/EBITDA, the stock prices near-flawless delivery of a multi-year growth story.
The ownership register anchors that growth story in a handful of concentrated hands. Elon Musk holds 44.7% of shares as last disclosed, with Alphabet at 4.1% and Peter Thiel's Founders Fund at 3.1%. All three filed Schedule 13G disclosures in August, indicating passive rather than activist intent. Antonio Gracias, a director, filed a 13G disclosing 6.5% in August, though the insider data shows a large transfer of shares on September 11 under a pre-arranged 10b5-1 plan. On the executive side, COO Gwynne Shotwell exercised options and sold approximately $52 million in open-market shares on September 22, also under a 10b5-1 plan. Pre-planned sales are compensation mechanics rather than directional signals, but the transaction is worth noting for its scale.
The pattern in the two prior earnings events is consistent enough to flag. Both the Q1 and Q2 prints saw the stock fall 5% to 8% on the day, then recover 16% to 17% over the following five days. The next earnings date is November 5. Whether that same sequence plays out will depend largely on how much the Starship and AI capacity milestones have already been priced in between now and then.
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