A piece of a rocket from the space launch company SpaceX crashed on the Moon. This is not a direct mission to the satellite, but the consequences of a problem in a launch dating back to 2025. A not ideal image for Elon Musk’s company, which is developing the Starship spacecraft specifically for a moon landing.
In general, the last month has not been particularly good for the richest man in the world. While maintaining this title, Musk’s assets have almost halved. SpaceX’s first quarterly results exceeded expectations, but investors still reacted badly.
How SpaceX is doing and Musk’s fortune
Elon Musk’s first problem is the collapse of his assets. More than 640 billion dollars less in a month, which derives mainly from the decrease in value of SpaceX shares. The company that made the South African entrepreneur become the first man in the world to own more than $1 trillion in assets no longer causes investors the enthusiasm of its IPO.
The value of its shares has almost halved, going from a high of just over 200 dollars each to a pre-market price on August 5 of 125 dollars, 10 less than the IPO value.
SpaceX’s stock price just dropped 10% following the company’s first public quarterly results. The documents highlight several positive aspects, including:
- revenues up 92% to $7.8 billion, higher than expected;
- adjusted earnings of $3.5 billion.
If you count the expenses for extraordinary investments, however, SpaceX is losing more than half a billion dollars. A good part of these investments are in the artificial intelligence sector, in which the company began to venture after the merger with another of Musk’s companies, xAI, which entered into great difficulty.
Spending on AI is starting to fall out of favor with investors, who are regularly punishing companies that show huge investments without a clear plan. This is despite Google, in its latest quarterly reports, showing how it is possible to make these expenses profitable.
Elon Musk and the rocket to the moon
In this uncertain context, the crash of the second stage of the Falcon 9 rocket on the Moon does not help the image of the company which should bring man back to the Earth’s natural satellite soon. The rocket will pulverize upon contact with the ground, at more than 8,700 kilometers per hour. This will at least allow astronomers and astrophysicists to analyze the dust cloud that will rise from the lunar surface, to study the materials that compose it.
Elon Musk’s other most important company, Tesla, isn’t doing great either. In the last month the value of its shares has fallen by 22%, contributing to the collapse of Musk’s fortune. After a very difficult 2025, caused by the entrepreneur’s political exposure in the Trump administration, Tesla has decided to carry out a very ambitious pivot.
Tesla, losses and investments
In fact, the company will no longer only produce means of transport. On the contrary, it wants to progressively distance itself from this market, to focus on robotics. The symbolic product of this transition should be robotaxis, self-driving cars, already present in several US cities. Later, however, Tesla should move on to producing humanoid robots.
Tesla’s latest quarterly results, however, have not convinced. Large capital expenditures caused negative cash flow for the first time since 2022. It means the company spent more funds than it earned. These are investments that are necessary for the ambitious pivot towards robotics, but which do not seem to convince investors.
