NEW YORK (AP) — Investors in Elon Musk's space company get a chance to question him Tuesday after SpaceX issues its first quarterly earnings since going public.
SpaceX shares are down by half from their June peak as investors worry Musk may have oversold them on its future prospects. They're also bracing for volatile trading as some company insiders get the opportunity to sell shares after the expiration of what's known as a lockup provision later in the week.
Part visionary engineer, part stock salesman, Musk is likely to be asked about when he expects to finish testing SpaceX's giant Starship rockets that NASA hopes to use to put men on the moon again, his plans for its satellite network and the prospects of putting football-field sized datacenters in orbit.
Given rumors of SpaceX possibly merging with Musk's Tesla car company, he may also face questions about that tie-up but that is likely to yield few details. Neither company has confirmed plans for a combination and Musk has parried questions before by noting securities regulations bar him from discussing the issue.
SpaceX is losing money fast, with net losses for its first half this year expected to exceed more than the $5 billion in losses for all of last year. Some analysts have penciled in a strong rebound for the rest of the year that will return it to profitability.
For the second quarter ended June, SpaceX is expected to report a net loss of $1.9 billion, or 23 cents a share, according to a FactSet survey of analysts.
SpaceX insiders were barred from selling in the public offering in June but that prohibition begins to ease on Thursday when more than 900,000 shares are released for trading, more than doubling the amount currently available for trading. The prospect has weighed on the shares, which closed Monday at $114.46, down from both the peak of $225 in June and also the IPO price of $135.
The lockup release is the first of several tranches of stock that will be freed to trade over the next several months.
After an abandoned launch, the Starship rocket successfully deployed satellites in orbit during a test late last month. Future tests could include trying to use giant arms at its Starbase launching site in Texas to grab the rocket and its booster upon its hovering return to earth.
SpaceX's satellite communication business, Starlink, is a big cash generator for the company with contracts around the world. The company also runs a money-losing AI business, known for its Grok tool, as well as the social media platform X, the rennamed Twitter.
FILE - Elon Musk attends the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Jan. 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber, File)
SpaceX's mega rocket Starship lifts off for a test flight from Starbase, Texas, Friday, July 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde will resign nine months before the end of her term, a move that opens the way for European leaders to choose a successor ahead of France's presidential election next year.
Lagarde, 70, will leave Feb. 7, the ECB said Thursday. Her eight-year term was to end Oct. 31, 2027.
The resignation opens the way for complex political horse trading over her successor and replacements for two other top officials who are leaving next year. The ECB president leads the bank's governing council, which sets interest rates for the 21 countries that use the euro currency, affecting borrowing costs for everything from house purchases to new factories and serving as the European Union's chief crisis fighter in times of economic and financial turbulence.
“It has been a great pride and a huge privilege to serve this institution,” Lagarde said in a video message posted on X. “I think that I leave this institution with a sense of good work done and an ECB that is fit for the future.”
Asked about her reasons at a news conference following the bank's decision to leave rates unchanged, she said that she wanted to be freed from the obligation of political neutrality that comes with being ECB head.
“I want to, have the freedom of speech, the freedom of expression, and the freedom to engage on matters that are not monetary policy matters,” she said. “I don’t think that I can be comfortable in that neutrality at the present time." She didn't elaborate.
The announcement was expected following speculation that Lagarde would leave early to enable EU leaders to choose a successor while pro-EU French President Emmanuel Macron is still in office. That would guard against the possibility that right-wing presidential candidate Marine Le Pen might win the election and influence the choice.
“That she leaves early is no surprise and does not change the outlook for ECB policies,” said Holger Schmieding, chief economist at Berenberg bank.
European Council President Antonio Costa said that the selection process “will be initiated today and will proceed without delay.”
The term of another top ECB official — chief economist Philip Lane — is to end May 31, while another member of the ECB's executive board, Isabel Schnabel, is resigning Jan. 3 to move to the International Monetary Fund. European leaders are expected to work out a package deal to apportion the three vacancies among member countries in a complex round of political bargaining.
EU leaders would likely seek to reach agreement on all three posts before a summit meeting on Dec. 17-18, Schmieding said.
He said that leading candidates for Lagarde's job appeared to be former Netherlands central bank head Klaas Knot and Spain’s Pablo Hernandez de Cos, the general manager of the Bank for International Settlements. The BIS is an international organization of central banks.
“The European Union is trying to guard itself at least somewhat against the risk that right-wing Marine Le Pen may win the French presidential election in April-May 2027,” Schmieding wrote in an email. “Lagarde’s successor will still be appointed while the staunchly pro-European centrist Emmanuel Macron still resides in the Elysee Palace.”
Lagarde, the former head of the International Monetary Fund, was appointed in 2019 to succeed Mario Draghi. A key decision during her tenure came in 2020, when the bank deployed 1.35 trillion euros ($1.5 trillion) in emergency stimulus in the form of bond purchases to keep the COVID-19 pandemic from drying up credit for the economy.
The bank's ability to act swiftly — in contrast to the often drawn-out negotiations among the 27 European Union national governments — has given it a leading role in combating Europe-wide crises such as the pandemic and the peak period of the eurozone's debt crisis in 2010-2012. Most notably, Draghi's promise in 2012 to “do whatever it takes to preserve the euro” calmed bond market turmoil that raised fears the eurozone would break up.
Lagarde’s announcement overshadowed the bank’s decision Thursday to leave its interest rate benchmark unchanged at 2.5% despite annual inflation of 3.8% fed by high oil prices caused by the US-Iran war. High rates restrain inflation, which is above the bank’s target of 2%. However, rising bond market rates are already tightening credit independent of the ECB, in effect doing the central bank’s job for it, analysts say.
This story has been corrected to show Christine Lagarde succeeded Mario Draghi in 2019, not 2011.
Fog drifts by the European Central Bank, right, on the occasion of the announcement of the resignation of European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde, in Frankfurt, Germany, Thursday, Oct. 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)
Fog drifts by the European Central Bank on the occasion of the announcement of the resignation of European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde, in Frankfurt, Germany, Thursday, Oct. 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)
Fog drifts by the European Central Bank, right, on the occasion of the announcement of the resignation of European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde, in Frankfurt, Germany, Thursday, Oct. 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)
FILE - President of European Central Bank Christine Lagarde addresses the media during a press conference after an ECB's governing council meeting in Frankfurt, Germany, Thursday, June 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Michael Probst, File)
