Shares of wireless chipmaker Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM) fell as much as 4.5% in afternoon trading after SpaceX CEO Elon Musk publicly denied reports that his company was developing an AI device using Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chip.
The initial reports of a partnership between SpaceX and Qualcomm had fueled significant optimism among investors about new growth avenues for the chipmaker’s technology.
Musk’s public denial reversed that sentiment sharply, wiping out gains that had been built on speculation about the potential collaboration.
Qualcomm’s removal from several Russell indexes compounded the selling pressure, as passive funds tracking those benchmarks were effectively forced to offload their positions automatically.
The decline also came amid a broader sell-off across the technology sector, with investors taking profits in chipmaker and AI-related stocks on concerns that valuations had stretched too far.
After the initial drop, shares recovered some ground and settled at $175.60, representing a decline of 3.4% from the previous close.
Qualcomm’s stock has been notably volatile over the past year, recording 22 separate moves greater than 5%, suggesting the market views this development as meaningful but not fundamentally damaging to the business.
Just seven days prior, shares had gained 4.3% after the company used its 2026 Investor Day to announce an aggressive push into the AI data center market, complete with ambitious long-term revenue targets.
At that event, Qualcomm unveiled its new Dragonfly C1000 data center CPU and revealed a multi-generation supply agreement with Meta Platforms, positioning Meta as the first major customer for the new chip.
The company set a target of more than $15 billion in revenue from data center AI by fiscal 2029, with total non-handset revenue expected to reach $40 billion by the same year, nearly double its prior projection.
That strategy reflected Qualcomm’s broader push to diversify beyond its traditional smartphone business and establish itself as a serious competitor in the rapidly expanding AI infrastructure space.
Despite the recent volatility, Qualcomm is up 1.5% since the start of the year, though at $175.60 per share it remains 30% below its 52-week high of $251.02 reached in May 2026.
Investors who purchased $1,000 worth of Qualcomm shares five years ago would currently be sitting on an investment valued at $1,231, reflecting modest but positive long-term returns.
The contrast between last week’s investor day enthusiasm and today’s pullback highlights how sensitive Qualcomm’s stock remains to both speculative partnership news and broader market sentiment around AI valuations.
