SpaceX stock SPCX is heading toward another potentially volatile milestone next week, with hundreds of millions of additional shares set to become eligible for sale just as the company’s shares are regaining momentum and its artificial intelligence ambitions continue to attract bullish attention.

The September 9 lockup expiry will mark the 90th trading day since SpaceX’s initial public offering and allow roughly 319 million additional shares held by select insiders to become eligible for sale.

The event will be closely watched because SpaceX has already demonstrated that a large increase in the potential supply of shares does not necessarily translate into a sharp selloff.

The company cleared its first and largest lockup expiry on August 6 without the anticipated collapse in its stock.

More than 900 million shares held by early investors became liquid at the time, but instead of plunging, SpaceX shares rebounded above their $135 IPO price within days.

The stock subsequently rallied about 35% in the five trading sessions following the expiry, adding roughly $500 billion to SpaceX’s market value.

Shares are now trading around $149, roughly where they opened on their first day of trading at $150, and are about 20% higher than immediately after the first lockup event.

September 9 could bring another supply shock

The September 9 event will be the third lockup expiry for SpaceX, following another release on August 20.

A final lockup expiry is scheduled for December 8.

The staggered schedule is designed to prevent a sudden flood of shares from overwhelming the market.

However, each release creates a fresh question for investors: will insiders and early shareholders take advantage of the liquidity, or continue holding their stakes and betting on Elon Musk’s long-term ambitions?

That question could be particularly important for early employees and investors sitting on enormous unrealized gains.

An employee who received SpaceX shares when the company was valued at $10 or $20 a share could potentially realize life-changing wealth by selling even a portion of their holdings at around $150.

At the same time, the fact that the stock absorbed more than 900 million newly liquid shares in August without collapsing could encourage investors to believe that demand remains strong enough to absorb additional supply.

SpaceX shares rose 6.4% on Thursday, briefly moving above $150 for the first time since July 10.

The stock closed at $149.74, giving the company a market capitalization of just over $2 trillion, according to Dow Jones Market Data.

Analysts remain bullish on SpaceX

The recent rebound has also been supported by a largely positive analyst view.

SpaceX has an average price target of $225.87 a share, according to FactSet data, implying roughly 50% upside from current levels.

According to The Wall Street Journal, 28 analysts rate the stock Buy, while three have an Overweight rating, seven have a Hold rating, one has an Underweight rating and only two have a Sell rating.

Price targets remain unusually wide, however, ranging from $75 to as high as $800.

Oppenheimer analyst Timothy Horan is among those who remain optimistic.

Oppenheimer raised its price target for SpaceX to $280 from $250 on Tuesday while maintaining an Outperform rating, an almost 90% upside from current levels.

Horan believes SpaceX could be a major beneficiary of the shortage of artificial intelligence infrastructure and argues that the company’s AI revenue is growing faster than expected as it develops increasingly capable models.

SpaceX “has the ability to bring on infrastructure faster than anyone else, and is using this infrastructure and its data to improve its own models faster than anyone else,” Horan wrote in a note to clients on Wednesday, while maintaining a Buy rating.

Investor Ross Gerber is even more bullish on SpaceX’s long-term prospects.

The president and CEO of Gerber Kawasaki said he sees greater potential in SpaceX than Tesla and believes the two Musk-led companies could eventually merge.

Gerber said SpaceX, Starlink and xAI are among the company’s biggest attractions and argued that xAI is also critical to Tesla’s future.

“In essence, Tesla doesn’t own its own operating system. It’s owned by SpaceX,” Gerber told CNBC.

Asked whether investors would be better off owning SpaceX than Tesla, Gerber replied, “SpaceX is better to me.”

The AI opportunity comes with a huge spending bill

The bullish argument, however, faces one significant obstacle: the enormous amount SpaceX is spending to build its AI infrastructure.

SpaceX’s capital expenditure reached $28.5 billion during the first six months of 2026, a 308% increase from the same period a year earlier.

It spent $18.4 billion on capital projects in the second quarter, 86% of which went towards AI.

Morgan Stanley expects the company to spend as much as $64 billion on AI infrastructure this year, substantially more than earlier estimates.

SpaceX is building data center capacity both for its own AI needs and potentially for external customers.

The company owns the Grok AI model through its acquisition of X and is attempting to build an infrastructure business around the rapidly growing demand for computing power.

The opportunity could eventually become another major source of revenue. But the economics remain uncertain.

SpaceX generated $7.8 billion in sales in the second quarter, meaning its capital expenditure was more than twice its quarterly revenue.

The company has argued that investors should not be overly concerned because it expects the investments to pay for themselves relatively quickly and remains on track to reach $100 billion in annualized revenue by the end of 2026.

Can SpaceX turn AI spending into profits?

The key question is whether the enormous investment in computing capacity will translate into sustainable revenue.

According to regulatory filings, SpaceX’s ability to fund some of the spending depends heavily on compute agreements with companies such as Anthropic and Google.

Those arrangements can reportedly be terminated with only a few months’ notice.

There is also uncertainty over whether SpaceX’s AI models can win enterprise customers away from established players such as Anthropic and OpenAI.

Its ambitions to eventually build AI data centers in space add another potentially transformative opportunity, but that project appears to be several years away.

Stifel analyst Jonathan Siegmann has dismissed some of the concerns surrounding SpaceX’s spending.

“Skeptics will push back that planned capex is higher … but we believe this all reflects the red-hot AI data capacity demand signal – you’ve got to spend money to make money, and SpaceX is accelerating its capacity investments accordingly,” he said in a client note this month.

For investors, however, the valuation makes the spending debate more consequential.

SpaceX currently trades at a price-to-sales ratio of around 65, according to The Motley Fool, compared with roughly seven for the broader technology sector.

That premium assumes that the company will successfully convert its investments in Starlink, AI infrastructure and other businesses into dramatically higher revenue and profits.

Uncertainty remains before the next lockup

The September 9 lockup expiry therefore presents a complicated setup.

For existing shareholders, the combination of strong analyst support, rising shares and the stock’s ability to withstand the August supply shock may offer little immediate reason to sell.

For prospective investors, the equation is less straightforward.

A large number of shares becoming eligible for sale could create volatility, while the company’s extraordinary capital spending and premium valuation leave little room for execution mistakes.

The bullish case rests on SpaceX becoming much more than a rocket company — combining Starlink, AI models, computing infrastructure and potentially other Musk-led businesses into a sprawling technology platform.

The bearish case is that investors are already paying for that future before the economics of some of these businesses have been proven.

Jim Cramer summed up the long-term bullish argument last month.

“SpaceX could be a 100-year piece of paper,” the CNBC Mad Money host said, comparing it with century-long railroad bonds that rewarded patient investors over generations.

“Maybe you put some away for the next generation or even the one after that.”

For insiders, meanwhile, the decision may be less philosophical.

Even the strongest believers in SpaceX’s future could rationally choose to diversify after accumulating gains that can transform their personal finances.

That makes the September 9 expiry less a simple test of whether investors believe in SpaceX and more a test of how much of that belief insiders are willing to express by continuing to hold their shares.

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GoPro stock GPRO has surged in recent sessions after the struggling action-camera maker announced a $285 million cash merger with Starman Optical, a privately held photonics company.

Earlier, YouTube creator Mark Fischbach, better known as Markiplier, revealed an 8.5% stake in the company, making him the single largest stakeholder in the company.

GoPro shares have rallied sharply as investors reacted to both developments.

The stock has gained nearly 200% in the week so far and has gained 26% on Friday.

The 200% surge includes a 40% surge on September 1 when the Starman deal was announced.

The stock was trading around $1.75, above Starman’s $1.14-per-share offer.

The developments mark a significant turnaround in investor interest for a company whose stock has lost about 96% of its value since reaching a valuation of $4 billion on its first trading day in 2014.

Markiplier becomes GoPro’s largest shareholder

Markiplier acquired an 8.5% stake in GoPro, making him the largest single shareholder in the camera company.

He revealed the stake in the company through a Schedule 13G filing dated August 20.

In an interview with Bloomberg, Fischbach said he had been interested in GoPro because he believed its shares were undervalued. He also said he wanted the company to succeed.

Fischbach has described the investment as part of a broader effort to make filmmaking more accessible. He has also invested in Strada, a company that provides tools for filmmakers to transfer large files.

The investment quickly attracted attention from retail traders.

GoPro has been a heavily shorted stock in the past, and its sharp rally following Markiplier’s disclosure has renewed interest among meme-stock traders.

$285 million Starman Optical merger

GoPro’s rally accelerated after the company announced a definitive merger agreement with Starman Optical.

Under the transaction, Starman will pay GoPro shareholders $285 million in cash, or $1.14 per share. Starman would receive a 90% stake in the combined company, while existing GoPro shareholders would retain the remaining 10%.

The transaction is expected to repay GoPro’s roughly $92 million of outstanding debt when it closes. GoPro is also expected to remain publicly listed on the Nasdaq, with the deal targeted for completion by the end of the year.

Starman makes optical transceivers in the US for use in AI data centers.

The merger is intended to give GoPro exposure to commercial, defense and AI markets while allowing it to make greater use of its more than 2,500 US patents, including those related to optics and imaging.

Starman will also add optical transceivers to GoPro’s product portfolio.

The companies said they would seek to bring production of some important optical equipment back to the US, although they did not provide a timeline.

GoPro CEO Nicholas Woodman said the merger is expected to allow the company to expand across consumer, commercial and defense markets while becoming an American imaging and optical solutions company.

GoPro faces major challenges despite stock rally

The sharp rise in GoPro shares comes after years of deterioration in the company’s market value and financial position.

GoPro debuted in 2014 at $38 a share and reached a valuation of about $4 billion on its first trading day.

Since then, the stock has lost around 96% of its value as the company faced growing competition from Chinese rivals including DJI and Insta360.

The company’s revenue has also fallen substantially from its peak. Revenue in the June quarter was down more than 80% from the $633.91 million recorded in the final quarter of 2014.

More recently, higher memory chip prices linked to the expansion of AI infrastructure have added pressure on GoPro.

The company warned in June that there was substantial doubt about its ability to continue as a going concern over the next 12 months.

GoPro said it will continue supporting its existing consumer products, subscriptions and cloud platform while investing in a broader product roadmap.

The company therefore does not plan to abandon its action-camera business as it expands into new markets through the Starman transaction.

The merger announcement also comes after GoPro said in May that its board was exploring strategic alternatives.

The stock’s recent rally has pushed the company back into the spotlight, with Markiplier’s investment providing a catalyst for retail interest and the Starman transaction offering a potential path into AI infrastructure and defense markets.

However, the company continues to face financial and competitive challenges, while the proposed merger remains subject to its closing conditions.

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Earlier this year, a fear psychosis had gripped investors that advances in AI would replace software firms, and the sector was all but written off.

Anthropic’s launch of new plugins for its Claude Cowork system in February sparked a global selloff in software firms, with the US markets alone losing $300 billion in market value in a day.

The pressure did not leave the sector for a while, and a new phrase called ‘SaaSpocalypse’ started being circulated, signaling the imminent doom of the software sector.

However, the latest earnings season has shown that software companies are not going anywhere.

Ironically, AI, which had seemed to sound the sector’s death knell, is helping the industry rewrite its next growth story.

Late last month, the iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector ETF (IGV) broke into positive territory on a year-to-date basis, powered by a particularly strong earnings beat from software bellwether Salesforce.

The ETF is up about 10% in the last one month.

The State Street Software and Services ETF, which tracks about 130 software and IT stocks, hit a new all-time high in August.

It is up 11% in the last one month and 10% year to date, after remaining under pressure until the end of July.

The recovery represents more than a simple reversal in investor sentiment.

It suggests that markets are beginning to distinguish between software companies that could be disrupted by AI and those that may actually benefit from it.

Snowflake offers a fresh signal for software investors

Snowflake shares surged nearly 25% on Thursday after the company raised its annual product revenue forecast, strengthening investor confidence that AI-related spending could become a powerful driver of growth for software firms.

The cloud data platform provider lifted its fiscal 2027 product revenue forecast to $6.07 billion from $5.84 billion and posted a 37% jump in second-quarter product revenue.

Its AI offerings accounted for “approximately half of the acceleration” in growth, according to CEO Sridhar Ramaswamy.

Snowflake’s coding assistant, Cortex Code, topped 9,100 accounts after adding more than 2,000 customers during the quarter, while enterprise chatbot CoWork expanded to 5,800 accounts.

The significance of the results goes beyond Snowflake itself.

They suggest that companies are beginning to spend more on software specifically because AI workloads require more data, automation, and computing infrastructure.

A third straight quarter of accelerating growth amid high expectations “underscore just how well AI is monetizing and driving greater consumption in the core platform,” Morgan Stanley analysts wrote.

Salesforce challenges the ‘SaaSpocalypse’ narrative

Salesforce has provided perhaps the clearest rebuttal to the idea that AI will simply eliminate enterprise software.

Salesforce shares jumped about 12% last month after the company raised its annual revenue and profit forecasts and expanded its partnership with Anthropic through a new artificial intelligence integration.

The company also reported higher second-quarter profit and revenue on rising demand for its artificial intelligence and data offerings.

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff used the results to push back against the “SaaSpocalypse” narrative.

“This SaaSpocalypse narrative has been such nonsense,” Benioff told Cramer on CNBC’s “Mad Money.”

“Frontier models depend on CRM. They don’t replace it.”

According to Benioff, nine of the 10 leading artificial intelligence companies use Salesforce and Slack, with spending on the platforms increasing 435% from a year earlier.

The argument highlights one of the most important distinctions emerging in the software sector.

Companies with proprietary data, deeply embedded workflows and large installed customer bases may be harder to replace than smaller software providers whose products can be replicated by AI models.

Nicholas Frasse, product manager for thematic ETFs at VanEck, said that distinction is increasingly becoming important for investors.

“I don’t think all SaaS companies are created equal,” Frasse told MarketWatch.

“There are entrenched businesses like Salesforce that own a very proprietary set of data that make them much more formidable in this new era, and also probably a much bigger benefactor of the technology.”

That could mean the software sector is unlikely to move as one group going forward.

“Investors and the market have started to find the signal through the noise,” Frasse said.

“You’re starting to see much more nuanced activity around individual names depending on the individual business model, rather than systemic buying or selling of an entire category.”

ServiceNow and Workday show another side of the AI trade

ServiceNow has also emerged as a beneficiary of the shift in sentiment.

The company raised its forecast for annual subscription revenue for the second time in July after beating second-quarter revenue and profit estimates, driven by growing demand for its AI-powered software.

CEO Bill McDermott said he had not seen any change to sales cycles from increased hardware and AI spending.

ServiceNow said its AI platform has seen widespread adoption across the public sector, with nearly all 50 US states now using it to improve citizen services and modernize operations.

The company also crossed $1 billion in annual contract value for its AI offerings.

Workday is seeing a similar trend.

Shares of the finance and human resources software provider soared after the company reported higher profit and rising revenue in its fiscal second quarter, driven by growing adoption of its artificial intelligence agents.

Workday has been embedding AI across its platform to automate tasks ranging from payroll processing to financial forecasting, with the aim of increasing efficiency for customers.

“We had a strong Q2, with AI driving more than 25% of our new ACV and more than 5,500 customers now using at least one of our organic agents,” co-founder and Chief Executive Aneel Bhusri said.

Chief Financial Officer Zane Rowe added that AI is driving Workday’s customer expansion.

Cybersecurity is emerging as another AI winner

Another category of software companies is benefiting from the heightened cybersecurity risks that AI has ushered in.

CrowdStrike shares jumped more than 9% after the cybersecurity company beat second-quarter earnings expectations and raised its full-year revenue forecast, as businesses stepped up spending to protect against increasingly sophisticated threats linked to artificial intelligence.

Chief Executive George Kurtz described the quarter as a milestone for the company, pointing to the growing realization among enterprises that adopting AI also creates new cybersecurity risks.

The second quarter “was the best quarter in CrowdStrike’s history,” Kurtz said in a statement.

“The Mythos moment translated into mass-market acceptance that AI adoption needs security.”

“Every enterprise will run on AI, and securing it is the largest market opportunity in our history.”

CrowdStrike’s shares have already gained more than 66% this year, supported by expectations that rapid adoption of generative and agentic AI will expand the market for cybersecurity products.

Palo Alto Networks has also pointed to the same dynamic.

Chief Executive Officer Nikesh Arora said enterprises are increasingly recognizing that they need to modernize cyber defenses as AI models become more powerful, particularly following Anthropic’s release of Mythos.

“In that context, people are gravitating towards the largest players in the industry and looking at us to provide the antidotes to this development in AI,” Arora said in an interview.

The cybersecurity trade therefore offers a different way to play the AI boom.

Chip stocks see some decline as software rebounds but both reinforcing each other’s growth

The resurgence in software stocks is perhaps also coming at the cost of interest in the most red-hot trade — chip stocks.

The iShares Semiconductor ETF (SOXX) is down more than 7% in the last one month, even as software ETFs have rallied during the same time, as mentioned earlier.

Although SOXX remains up about 60% this year, the recent divergence represents a notable change in investor behavior.

Veteran technology investor Dan Niles, founder of Niles Investment Management, highlighted the shift in a recent post on X.

He noted that many AI investors had been bullish on semiconductors and bearish on software on the belief that AI would displace many point-solution software companies.

But the unwinding of that trade has produced a sharp reversal.

“But since the unwinding of the Momentum trade which started on 6/22 (I wrote about these concerns on 6/20), IGV has rallied 25% while the SOX Index has declined 22% through 8/28,” Niles said.

He also pointed to a potential new bullish argument for software: AI agents could access software tools far more frequently than human users.

“But a bullish twist on AI for the software sector introduced recently is that AI agents will access software tools ~10-100x more often than humans,” he said.

That could potentially create an entirely new source of software consumption, even as AI reduces the need for certain individual applications.

Can the software rally continue?

The biggest question now is whether the software rally is based on improving fundamentals or simply a reversal in positioning.

Mizuho desk-based analyst Jordan Klein argued that the latest rally has much more to do with “positioning” among institutional investors than anything particularly new in the core fundamentals.

A number of hedge funds and long-only growth managers had owned less software than the sector’s representation in the broader market, partly because of AI concerns and partly because software had become a “funding short” used to finance larger bullish positions in semiconductors and AI hardware.

That underweight positioning could leave room for further gains.

Based on this positioning, Klein believes software names could continue to climb higher well into September and October.

He expects Salesforce shares to move higher into its Dreamforce conference next month, although he cautioned that he would not “chase” the stock at current prices, instead preferring names such as ServiceNow and Microsoft.

The software sector’s comeback therefore appears more nuanced than a simple return to its pre-AI trajectory.

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