Track market-moving stories before they get noisy

There's no denying Tesla (TSLA +3.49%) is one of the market's most exciting growth companies right now. But, currently priced at 140 times next year's expected earnings of $2.23 per share, there's also no denying Tesla stock is outrageously expensive. For perspective on that figure, the S&P 500's forward-looking price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio right now is only 21.

Today's Change

(

3.49

%) $

10.87

Current Price

$

322.08

Sure, plenty of stocks have been rightfully valued at sky-high levels like this in the past. Think Amazon, or Cisco back in the 1990s. These outfits were positioned to capitalize on the internet's then-budding explosion. Investors were willing to pay a steep price because future growth was likely to be strong enough to justify the premium.

This doesn't hold true every time, though. Sometimes, the assumptions of future growth driving wildly high P/E ratios end up being just plain wrong. Businesses such as Groupon, GoPro, and meal-kit company Blue Apron come to mind. Only in retrospect did the flaws in these companies' business models become evident.

So what must Tesla get right in the foreseeable future to justify its stock's rich valuation right now? Here are the top five things the company must do to justify its stock's present price, but one in particular is a huge must-do.

1. It must lead an EV market that eventually displaces combustion-engine cars Tesla technically isn't the leader of the world's electric-vehicle business anymore. That honor belongs to China's BYD (BYDDY +1.09%), which delivered 557,090 battery-electric vehicles last quarter, versus Tesla's 480,126. But there's arguably room for two (or more) titans in the EV business. Tesla just needs to make sure it's one of them.

Perhaps the more important factor here, rather, is electric vehicles' continued penetration of the global automobile market itself. This is still happening, too; the International Energy Administration reports that worldwide EV sales topped 20 million last year -- about one out of every four cars purchased in 2025, up 20% from 2024's count. But headwinds appear to be blowing. BloombergNEF predicts that global EV demand will only grow 11% year over year to 23 million passenger vehicles in 2026, with most of the demand coming from China, where Tesla is increasingly uncompetitive. Meanwhile, although the U.S. remains Tesla's biggest market, this market isn't growing. Tesla's second-quarter U.S. sales fell 20% year over year to only 114,629 vehicles, according to numbers from Cox Automotive.

Something's got to change with either or both of these trajectories.

2. Lots of Tesla owners must subscribe to full self-driving features Tesla's vehicles come with a range of safety-minded driver assistance features. What many non-Tesla owners might not fully appreciate, however, is that the full self-driving features you hear so much about aren't free. They're now only offered on a subscription basis, at a cost of $99 per month. That's not a fortune, but it's certainly enough of an added cost that many owners might balk at the price.

And most of them have balked. Only about 1.5 million (roughly 15%) of all Tesla owners are currently paying this monthly fee, although to its credit, the company added a record-breaking 200,000 full-self-driving subscribers last quarter alone. That doesn't translate into a ton of revenue yet. It could someday, though, and this is very high-margin revenue.

For reference, a key component of Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk's trillion-dollar compensation package calls for a minimum of 10 million full-self-driving subscribers.

3. Robotaxis must work and gain wide adoption Speaking of self-driving cars, although its growth has been uneven and the underlying technology remains far from perfect, Tesla continues cultivating its robotaxi business, adding Orlando and Tampa, Florida, to its served markets just last month, and bringing its total markets up to seven. That's not nearly as much presence as Musk intimated would be the case when he first unveiled Tesla's new venture back in 2024.

Image source: Tesla.

That could change. Goldman Sachs predicts the worldwide robotaxi market could be worth more than $400 billion by 2035. Even winning a fraction of this business would be a boon for Tesla.

But it's miles away from capturing even a respectable fraction of the current and future robotaxi market.

4. Tesla's clean-energy arm must become a significant profit center Ironically, perhaps one of Tesla's biggest and best opportunities is also currently one of its smallest and least-discussed businesses. That's its solar panels (and solar roofs) and corresponding battery storage. Last quarter's energy revenue of $3.1 billion only accounted for about a tenth of Tesla's total Q2 top line.

The money is there to be made, though. Market research outfit Technavio says the U.S. residential solar market is poised to grow at an average annualized pace of more than 13% through 2030, when it will be worth more than $30 billion, although this outlook still arguably only scratches the surface of what's possible in the long run. Wood Mackenzie believes more than 70 million homes in the U.S. could conceivably install solar panels within the next 25 years.

5. Its AI robot, Optimus, must live up to Elon Musk's hype Last but hardly least, Tesla's artificial intelligence (AI)-controlled humanoid robot, Optimus, must be a smashing success to justify Tesla shares' forward P/E of 140.

This is the biggie. Indeed, it wouldn't be unreasonable to suggest that Tesla is now an AI robot company that also happens to manufacture electric vehicles and solar panels. Musk's certainly painted that picture anyway, suggesting more than once that Optimus will be "the biggest product ever, of any kind." That sort of rhetoric dramatically builds lofty expectations.

And to be fair, it might be possible. Although it's a long-term outlook, Morgan Stanley predicts the number of humanoid robots on the planet could reach 1 billion by 2050, translating into a $5 trillion market opportunity. However. as Morgan Stanley's head of global autos and shared mobility research, Adam Jonas, adds, "Adoption should be relatively slow until the mid-2030s, accelerating in the late 2030s and 2040s."

There's the rub for current and prospective Tesla shareholders. The market might support a premium valuation based on Musk's originally suggested commercial launch of Optimus sometime in 2027. If it takes much longer than that for Optimus to become a meaningful, profitable business, though -- giving competitors time to catch up -- investors may dial back their bullishness.

The headline number in BYD's July sales, announced over the weekend, is not the one that should worry Tesla.

BYD, the Chinese carmaker that overtook Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) as the world's largest seller of battery-electric vehicles last year, lifted global sales 21.8% to 419,211 vehicles, a third straight month of growth.

The figure that matters to Elon Musk's company sits underneath it. Overseas shipments of passenger vehicles and pickups jumped 124.3% to 179,841 units, meaning exports, not the Chinese home market, are now driving BYD's expansion.

That distinction is the whole story, because exports are precisely where BYD and Tesla collide.

A fight on Tesla's turf

BYD sells almost nothing in the United States, where Chinese cars are effectively barred, so its export drive is aimed at Europe and other international markets.

Those are the same markets where Tesla has been bleeding share, with its sales in Europe and China eroded by the rise of Chinese rivals over the past two years.

Tesla's global appeal has long rested on its geographic spread, the argument that it is less exposed than BYD to any single country's policies.

BYD is now systematically dismantling that advantage by building factories in Hungary, Turkey and Thailand and raising its overseas sales target for the year.

Every European buyer BYD wins is a buyer Tesla is increasingly unlikely to reach, and the July numbers show the pipeline filling fast.

Why BYD is pushing so hard abroad

The export blitz is not simply ambition; it is compensation. BYD's domestic sales have softened after China scrapped the tax exemption that once made new electric cars cheaper, cooling the market it dominates.

Rather than accept flat volumes, BYD has redirected capacity outward, using technology showcases such as its high-power flash charging demonstrations to build credibility in new markets before scaling up.

The result is a company that has turned a home-market wobble into an international offensive, and the offensive is landing.

For Tesla, a rival forced abroad by domestic pressure is more dangerous than a complacent one, because it arrives hungry and heavily supplied.

Tesla's shrinking core

The timing is awkward for a company whose car business is already under strain.

Tesla's annual deliveries fell around 9% in 2025, a second consecutive yearly decline, and it lost the global electric-vehicle crown to BYD in the process.

The two now trade the quarterly lead, with Tesla reclaiming it early in 2026 only because BYD stumbled at home, before BYD surged back ahead in the second quarter by more than 70,000 vehicles.

BYD's export recovery threatens to make that lead permanent rather than seasonal.

The deeper problem is that Tesla's response to a maturing car market has been to look away from it.

Musk has pivoted the company's story towards artificial intelligence, robotaxis and humanoid robots, pitching Tesla as a technology firm rather than a carmaker.

That narrative has propped up the share price, but it does nothing to defend the European and international volumes that BYD is now hunting.

The squeeze

What BYD's July figures really expose is a divergence in direction. BYD is doubling down on the business of building and selling cars faster and cheaper across more countries, while Tesla is quietly retreating from that contest towards an autonomous future it has yet to deliver.

If robotaxis arrive on schedule and at scale, Tesla's inattention to raw volume may look visionary.

If they do not, the company will have surrendered the export markets that fund everything else to a competitor that never stopped fighting for them.

For now, the message from BYD's numbers is blunt: the global car war is being fought hardest in exactly the places Tesla has chosen to defend least.

Tesla (TSLA +0.76%) is not having a good year. The company's shares took a major dip after it reported its second-quarter earnings on July 22, and they are down 28% to date. Tesla's results weren't terrible, but the company's capex is growing rapidly and squeezing profits and margins. Many investors fear that this spending won't yield the return Tesla expects. However, several aspects of the business are progressing steadily, including its supervised Full Self-Driving (FSD) subscriptions. Is that a good enough reason to buy the stock?

Image source: The Motley Fool.

It could be a game changer, but there are risks Tesla ended the second quarter with 1.48 million active FSD subscriptions, up 56% from the year-ago period. At $99 per month, that works out to about $1.8 billion per year. That still represents a fairly small percentage of the company's annual revenue, which was about $94.8 billion last year. However, Tesla's FSD subscriptions generate significantly higher margins than its core electric vehicle (EV) business. So, this segment should represent a larger share of operating profits than it does revenue. Further, there are at least two reasons to be excited about the future of this business.

First, as Tesla points out, FSD subscriptions are increasingly popular. As the company's CEO, Elon Musk, said: "We're seeing in locations that have FSD approved, we're seeing a very high take rate of FSD." He went on to say that consumers want the FSD software with whatever car it's paired with, a dynamic that could drive sustained demand for the company's EVs as it earns approvals for its FSD software in more places. Second, Tesla's FSD global fleet has racked up more than 12 billion cumulative miles on the road.

Today's Change

(

0.76

%) $

2.36

Current Price

$

311.21

There is a network effect going on here. The more drivers in its ecosystem, the more data from real-world conditions it has to train and improve its FSD software, which in turn attracts even more drivers. Tesla's robotaxi service can also benefit from a growing number of FSD subscriptions for the same reason, and that's where the company's long-term opportunity lies. If it can scale its fleet of robotaxis within the next year and, perhaps, close the gap with one of its biggest competitors, Waymo, Tesla's stock could rebound.

Does any of this make the stock a buy? There is considerable uncertainty regarding Tesla's ability to scale its robotaxi service, secure additional FSD approvals in other regions, and train its software. In the meantime, the company's financial results may remain unimpressive, particularly on the bottom line, as it doubles down on spending to capitalize on potential opportunities. The stock is risky and will be volatile, whichever way it moves. Investors should consider that before even thinking about initiating a position in Tesla.

Dan Ives z Yorkville Ives & Co. na CNBC řekl, že investorům s Teslou dochází trpělivost. Tesla přitom podle něj není automobilkou, klíčové jsou její projekty a plány mimo tuto oblast. Do nich ale musí hodně investovat, v tom smyslu se tedy podobá firmám jako Alphabet, které také intenzivně investují do nových technologií. K tématu vysokých výdajů na nové technologie a reakcí akciového trhu pak své řekl i Steve Eisman, který se už nějakou dobu přiklání ke skeptičtějšímu investičnímu pohledu.

V případě hyperscalerů je důležité, aby se dostavila odpovídající návratnost investic do umělé inteligence, v případě Tesly zase návratnost do „fyzické AI“. Tedy například do robotů, které společnost vyvíjí a chce vyrábět. Ives k tomu dodal, že Musk na tom pracuje a zopakoval, že „AI revoluce je stále ve své počáteční fázi“. A zmínil i to, že podle něj je pravděpodobné, že se SpaceX spojí s Teslou.

Na CNBC se také diskutovalo o tom, že investoři se nyní zaměřují spíše na firmy, jejichž byznys model je nenáročný na investiční výdaje. Posun v sentimentu se mimo jiné projevuje na růstu sazeb u některých půjček financujících novou AI infrastrukturu. CNBC k tomu přidala následující graf vývoje ceny pětiletého CDS společnosti Oracle. CDS je pojištěním proti neschopnosti společnosti splácet své závazky a podle CNBC jej nyní investoři využívají i jako nástroj pojištění proti větším tenzím na aktivech spojených s umělou inteligencí. Graf také ukazuje, jak cena tohoto derivátu roste s tím, jak se v očích investorů zvyšuje riziko neschopnosti splácet dluhy.

Tématu vysokých investic do nových technologií se na svém Youtube kanálu věnoval i Steve Eisman. Poslední týden podle něj ukázal, že „debata se tu posunula“. Před rokem „se všichni radovali, když společnosti zvyšovaly své investiční výdaje do umělé inteligence.“ Nyní se klade důraz na to, jestli se tyto investice vyplatí. Podnikatelské modely se posunuly k velké kapitálové intenzitě a je otázkou, kdo a zda někdo bude mít vůbec nějakou udržitelnou konkurenční výhodu. K tomu se objevují modely z Číny, které stojí mnohem méně a roste pravděpodobnost cenových válek.

Podle Eismana se na akciovém trhu zvyšuje nervozita, a to se jasně projevilo, když své výsledky za poslední čtvrtletí zveřejnil Google. Jeho plány na další investice do AI a vývoj volného toku hotovosti, do kterého se tyto výdaje přímo promítají, totiž přinesly silnou negativní reakci trhu. Podobné to podle Eismana bylo s akciemi Tesly. Eisman sám považuje zveřejněná čísla Googlu „za maximálně smíšená“. Pozitivní je hlavně vývoj tržeb a cloudových služeb. Negativně vyznívá zmíněný volný tok hotovosti, který je v červených číslech. Navíc firma plánuje další růst investic do AI. Tesla také vykázala „velmi smíšené výsledky… Tržby byly dobré, problémem jsou marže,“ do kterých se promítá i značné omezení vládní podpory pro elektromobily. Volný tok hotovosti se pak i u této společnosti po dvou letech přesunul do záporu, ačkoliv tržby rostly.

Tesla has built its 10 millionth electric vehicle, according to a social media post by the company early on Thursday. The milestone comes six years after the company built its one millionth vehicle.

Crossing the 10 million mark means Tesla is halfway to reaching one of the four core “product goals” that unlocks the full value of CEO Elon Musk’s $1 trillion pay package, which shareholders approved last year. By 2035, Musk has to ensure the company builds 20 million vehicles, reaches 10 million active subscriptions for its “Full Self-Driving” software, delivers one million “bots,” and puts one million robotaxis on the road.

Despite a few years of intense growth on the backs of the Model 3 and Model Y, Tesla has not been able to sell 2 million vehicles in a single year. If it keeps up that pace, or slows further, it will take the company until at least the early 2030s to hit the 20 million mark.

Tesla has less competition in the United States now, though, as major automakers have pulled back from the electric vehicle market, and startups like Rivian and Lucid Motors have struggled to reach scale. Nevertheless, Tesla is still struggling in its home market. Its U.S. sales fell 13% year-over-year in the second quarter, and the company had to look to newer markets like Japan, Australia and Lithuania to court buyers.

Musk used to promise that Tesla would make 20 million cars per year by 2030, but he abandoned that idea a few years ago as the company’s sales slowed down. Still, of the four product goals, this is the one Tesla is closest to achieving.

The company recently reported just shy of 1.5 million FSD subscribers, though it’s not clear if it is counting free trials — those would not count towards the official product goal laid out by Tesla’s board of directors last year. The carmaker is only in the earliest stages of building robots and robotaxis.

Musk also has to increase the company’s profit (adjusted EBITDA) to $400 billion by 2035 in order to access the full share package. That looks challenging at the moment, too, as the company’s adjusted EBITDA currently hovers around $3.27 billion, and has been shrinking lately thanks to heavy discounts, the loss of saleable regulatory credits, as well as a dramatic increase in spending on new efforts like AI and robotics.

As for the competition, the only other company at the same level is China’s BYD, which recently crossed 17 million “new energy vehicles” built and sold, roughly half of which were hybrids.

When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.

Sean O’Kane is a reporter who has spent a decade covering the rapidly-evolving business and technology of the transportation industry, including Tesla and the many startups chasing Elon Musk. Most recently, he was a reporter at Bloomberg News where he helped break stories about some of the most notorious EV SPAC flops. He previously worked at The Verge, where he also covered consumer technology, hosted many short- and long-form videos, performed product and editorial photography, and once nearly passed out in a Red Bull Air Race plane.

You can contact or verify outreach from Sean by emailing [email protected] or via encrypted message at okane.01 on Signal.

Think you're having a rough summer? At least you haven't lost $300 billion like Tesla (TSLA -0.89%) CEO Elon Musk.

Musk made history this year when his other mammoth company, Space Exploration Technologies, went public, pushing Musk's personal wealth to more than $1 trillion. He became the first -- and only -- trillionaire in recorded history.

But it didn't last. SpaceX stock has fallen below its initial public offering price, and Tesla is hemorrhaging value following the company's second-quarter earnings report. Even though Tesla reported strong revenue -- and posted more than $100 billion in trailing-12-month sales for the first time -- the stock fell by 18% in a single week after July 22 earnings, its worst one-week performance since 2022.

How extensive is Musk's loss? According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, his net worth is now $709 billion. Musk lost more money in the last six weeks than anyone else on the list even possesses. (No. 2 on the list is Larry Page, the co-founder of Alphabet, with a net worth of $281 billion.) Musk acknowledged this loss in a social media post on X, simply writing, "(Former) Trillionaire."

Let's see why the market has turned on Tesla stock despite its strong revenue growth.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Image source: The White House.

The red flags surrounding Tesla now Tesla's primary business is electric vehicles -- the company delivered 480,126 of them in the second quarter, up 25% from a year ago, and that resulted in most of Tesla's $28.23 billion revenue. Tesla said EV sales brought in $20.51 billion, up 23%.

The big problem, however, was Tesla's dwindling margins. Operating margins fell from 4.1% a year ago to just 1.4% in the second quarter of this year. Operating expenses jumped 47%, to $4.35 billion. Tesla reported negative free cash flow of $1.1 billion in the quarter, and its cash and investments dropped by $1.2 billion.

Capital expenditures more than doubled sequentially, according to CFO Vaibhav Taneja, and the company expects them to continue increasing in the second half of the year. Tesla issued guidance for $25 billion in capex spending for the year and announced plans to borrow up to $30 billion.

Today's Change

(

-0.89

%) $

-2.72

Current Price

$

304.72

The market reacts Undoubtedly, Tesla has huge plans that require enormous investment. Artificial intelligence is essential for Tesla's biggest bets, including self-driving technology and the Optimus robot line. The company is running early versions of its v15 autonomous driving software in robotaxis, but it's unclear when the technology will be ready for nationwide rollout -- or if regulators will sign off on it.

Meanwhile, Tesla is making room for Optimus robot production by discontinuing manufacturing lines at its Fremont, California, factory for Model S and X vehicles. Robots built on that line will be used for further training and development of the hardware and AI software, the company has said, but the technology appears to be a long way from commercial sales.

Tesla has always been priced for perfection, with a high forward price-to-earnings ratio that, even after a drop, still registers at an eye-watering 170. Investors have long been willing to buy and hold Tesla stock based on Musk's vision. But with dwindling margins, negative cash flow, doggedly high spending, and plans to borrow $30 billion, the shine appears to be coming off Tesla stock this summer.

Posted by Defense World Staff on Jul 29th, 2026

Amundi lifted its holdings in shares of Tesla, Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA – Free Report) by 14.0% in the 1st quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 22,174,884 shares of the electric vehicle producer’s stock after acquiring an additional 2,727,141 shares during the quarter. Tesla makes up about 2.2% of Amundi’s portfolio, making the stock its 7th biggest holding. Amundi owned 0.59% of Tesla worth $8,243,513,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other large investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in TSLA. Crestwood Advisors Group LLC boosted its position in shares of Tesla by 34.7% during the 4th quarter. Crestwood Advisors Group LLC now owns 19,567 shares of the electric vehicle producer’s stock worth $8,799,000 after acquiring an additional 5,039 shares in the last quarter. Calamos Wealth Management LLC raised its position in Tesla by 5.9% during the fourth quarter. Calamos Wealth Management LLC now owns 41,907 shares of the electric vehicle producer’s stock valued at $18,846,000 after purchasing an additional 2,341 shares in the last quarter. Private Capital Advisors Inc. raised its position in Tesla by 139.3% during the fourth quarter. Private Capital Advisors Inc. now owns 21,331 shares of the electric vehicle producer’s stock valued at $9,593,000 after purchasing an additional 12,417 shares in the last quarter. Wealthquest Corp acquired a new stake in shares of Tesla in the 4th quarter valued at $1,035,000. Finally, Knights of Columbus Asset Advisors LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Tesla by 34.8% in the 4th quarter. Knights of Columbus Asset Advisors LLC now owns 64,481 shares of the electric vehicle producer’s stock valued at $28,998,000 after purchasing an additional 16,652 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 66.20% of the company’s stock.

Tesla Stock Performance Shares of Tesla stock opened at $307.44 on Wednesday. The stock has a market cap of $1.21 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 284.67, a P/E/G ratio of 15.80 and a beta of 1.80. Tesla, Inc. has a twelve month low of $297.82 and a twelve month high of $498.83. The company’s fifty day moving average is $396.79 and its 200 day moving average is $400.44. The company has a quick ratio of 1.55, a current ratio of 1.94 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.09.

Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA – Get Free Report) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, July 22nd. The electric vehicle producer reported $0.33 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.50 by ($0.17). Tesla had a return on equity of 3.82% and a net margin of 3.67%.The company had revenue of $28.24 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $26.42 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $0.33 earnings per share. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 25.5% compared to the same quarter last year. Sell-side analysts forecast that Tesla, Inc. will post 0.9 EPS for the current year.

Key Stories Impacting Tesla Here are the key news stories impacting Tesla this week:

Positive Sentiment: Tesla won permission to revive a U.K. lawsuit involving InterDigital and a patent-licensing platform. The case could help Tesla secure licensing terms for connected vehicles using 5G technology, although it is not a final legal victory. Tesla wins bid to revive UK lawsuit for 5G patents licence Positive Sentiment: Long-term power-purchase agreements in Arizona and Texas should provide Tesla with additional renewable electricity and battery capacity, supporting its energy-storage and AI infrastructure ambitions. Tesla to buy power from Arizona solar project Positive Sentiment: Some analysts remain highly bullish: Wedbush reiterated a $600 target based on potential growth from full self-driving, Optimus and other AI businesses, while ARK Invest continued buying Tesla shares during the selloff. These views provide support but depend on substantial future execution. Wedbush issues $600 Tesla price target Neutral Sentiment: Technical commentary says TSLA is deeply oversold after its extended decline, creating the possibility of a short-term rebound. However, oversold conditions do not resolve the company’s fundamental profitability and execution concerns. Tesla turns most oversold in over a year Negative Sentiment: Tesla’s quarterly revenue exceeded expectations, but adjusted EPS was $0.33 versus a $0.50 consensus estimate. Operating income fell 57% to roughly $400 million, while capital expenditures surged 142% year over year and free cash flow turned negative. The combination of weaker margins and heavier spending is the primary reason for the post-earnings selloff. Negative Sentiment: Reports say Tesla delayed a major growth timeline, intensifying concerns that robotaxis, humanoid robots and AI-related businesses may take longer to commercialize. Elon Musk has acknowledged “substantial” challenges, weakening confidence in the near-term growth narrative. Tesla delays biggest growth story Negative Sentiment: Investors also face intense EV competition, including BYD’s improving performance and planned humanoid-robot launch. With Tesla still trading at a very high earnings multiple despite deteriorating automotive profitability, analysts warn that the stock leaves little room for execution mistakes. Insider Activity at Tesla In other news, Director Kathleen Wilson-Thompson sold 26,409 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, April 30th. The shares were sold at an average price of $378.11, for a total value of $9,985,506.99. Following the transaction, the director owned 48,399 shares in the company, valued at approximately $18,300,145.89. The trade was a 35.30% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CFO Vaibhav Taneja sold 2,606 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, June 8th. The shares were sold at an average price of $402.20, for a total transaction of $1,048,133.20. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer directly owned 22,039 shares in the company, valued at approximately $8,864,085.80. This represents a 10.57% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. The sale was made to cover tax withholding obligations related to the vesting of equity awards. Insiders sold 32,015 shares of company stock worth $12,383,640 over the last quarter. 19.90% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Analyst Ratings Changes TSLA has been the subject of a number of research analyst reports. Evercore raised Tesla from a “hold” rating to an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, June 5th. Royal Bank Of Canada reiterated an “outperform” rating and issued a $500.00 target price on shares of Tesla in a research report on Tuesday. Roth Capital reissued a “buy” rating and issued a $505.00 target price on shares of Tesla in a report on Thursday, July 23rd. TD Cowen reaffirmed a “buy” rating and set a $460.00 price target (down from $490.00) on shares of Tesla in a report on Thursday, July 23rd. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. dropped their price objective on shares of Tesla from $475.00 to $445.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, July 23rd. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-one have assigned a Buy rating, nineteen have assigned a Hold rating and four have given a Sell rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $402.24.

Read Our Latest Stock Report on TSLA

Tesla Company Profile (Free Report)

Tesla, Inc (NASDAQ: TSLA) is an American company that designs, manufactures and sells electric vehicles, energy generation and energy storage products. Founded in 2003 by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning, Tesla grew into a vertically integrated mobility and clean‑energy company with Elon Musk serving as its chief executive officer. The company’s stated mission is to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy, reflected in its combined focus on electric drivetrains, battery technology, renewable energy products and software.

Tesla’s automotive business includes a lineup of battery‑electric vehicles and related services.

Featured Stories Five stocks we like better than Tesla These 3 Stocks Have Soared in 2026—Can They Keep Climbing? Hasbro’s Earnings Beat Shows Why This Is No Longer Just a Toy Story Rambus: Another AI Phoenix Ready to Rise From the Ashes of Correction Chips & Clips: Memory Tariffs Rewire Tech Supply Chains Want to see what other hedge funds are holding TSLA? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Tesla, Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA – Free Report).

Receive News & Ratings for Tesla Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Tesla and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter.

« PREVIOUS HEADLINEFirst Trust Advisors LP Acquires 34,871 Shares of Stanley Black & Decker, Inc. $SWK

NEXT HEADLINE »ADAR1 Capital Management LLC Sells 872,579 Shares of CytomX Therapeutics, Inc. $CTMX

Cathie Wood's Ark Invest bought more than 160,000 shares in Tesla (TSLA -0.58%) after the recent results release and the following share price slump. The acquired shares are worth about $50.1 million at the time of writing. Is it a move worth following?

Why Ark Invest bought more stock The move made logical sense for Ark. The company has long championed the bullish case for Tesla, and Tesla's expected 2029 price is $2,600 per share. If Tesla continues to hold that opinion, and an underlying belief in the robotaxi rollout that drives its model (Ark assumes 88% of Tesla's enterprise value in 2029 will come from robotaxi), then the dip is an opportunity to buy more.

Clearly, Ark isn't put off by Tesla's failure to meet the expectations CEO Elon Musk previously set for the robotaxi rollout.

Today's Change

(

-0.58

%) $

-1.78

Current Price

$

307.44

Why Tesla's robotaxi rollout isn't meeting expectations In April 2025, Musk predicted there would be "millions of Teslas operating autonomously" in the second half of 2026. In July 2025, he told investors Tesla would "probably" have autonomous ride-hailing covering half the U.S. population by the end of 2025. In October 2025, he promised robotaxis in "about 8 to 10 metro areas by the end of the year." In January, Musk said the robotaxi fleet "will probably double every month, type of thing."

These aims weren't met.

Expectations matter This matters for three reasons. First, investors do buy stocks and pencil in valuation scenarios based on management's pronouncements.

Ark Invest CEO Cathie Wood. Image source: Getty Images.

Second, Tesla's internal plans, including capital spending ramps, are presumably based on these assumptions. Third, every time expectations for robotaxi expansion and, ultimately, cash flow from ride-share revenue are pushed back, investors and analysts should lower valuation expectations, as cash flow later has lower value than cash flow upfront.

What Tesla said about the robotaxi rollout Management began articulating a more cautious take on the rollout in April, with Musk outlining that Tesla would make architectural improvements to safety before implementing robotaxi on a "large scale." This implies the validation and release of the next major version of full self-driving (FSD) software, v15. Given that Musk doesn't expect that to happen before the end of the year or early 2027, it should have been clear that a massive robotaxi scaling won't occur until 2027 at the earliest.

Unfortunately, that reality didn't appear to hit home with many investors at the time. On the recent earnings call, management's comments made it clear that achieving safety and reliability came first. CFO Vaibhav Taneja said: "There are things not just on the software front, on the operation front, which we're also trying to tackle," so it's not just about v15 FSD. Musk noted that achieving an ultra-high level of reliability is "the only thing really constraining our growth in robotaxi."

Is Tesla stock a buy? Ark probably took heart from Tesla's head of AI, Ashok Elluswamy, who said that Tesla's robotaxis are already running on early versions of v15, and that 40% of the seven major improvement tracks planned for v15 are currently working together. Moreover, the number of unsupervised miles driven is growing at a double-digit rate, even if the fleet and location expansion aren't.

These are very positive developments that are being ignored by a market that's finally realized there will be no massive robotaxi rollout in 2026. The latter won't disappoint Ark too much, as there's a huge margin of safety for a delayed rollout between the current price of $313 and its expected value of $2,600 in 2029.

Ultimately, if you share Ark's enthusiasm, the stock is a buy. However, anyone buying it needs to be aware that until Tesla releases v15 and starts exponential scaling in fleet and miles, question marks will hang over it.

HomeEarnings AnalysisConsumer 

SummaryTesla, Inc. reported record Q2 deliveries and revenue, but margins collapsed and free cash flow turned negative for the first time in two years.TSLA plans over $25 billion in CapEx this year and is pursuing up to $30 billion in debt capacity, signaling a major shift in funding strategy.Competitive pressures are intensifying in Europe, China, and the U.S., while recent demand was likely boosted by temporary geopolitical factors.My updated DCF model yields a fair value of $91.95 per TSLA share—about 70% below current levels—supporting a bearish stance despite some positive demand signals. jetcityimage/iStock Editorial via Getty Images

A month ago, I argued that Tesla, Inc. (TSLA) had become one of the biggest disconnects between price and fundamentals that the market has ever produced. Since that time, the shares have declined by ~27%. After

10.44K Followers

Analyst’s Disclosure: I/we have no stock, option or similar derivative position in any of the companies mentioned, and no plans to initiate any such positions within the next 72 hours. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

Bohdan Kucheriavyi is not a financial/investment advisor, broker, or dealer. He's solely sharing personal experience and opinion; therefore, all strategies, tips, suggestions, and recommendations shared are solely for informational purposes. There are risks associated with investing in securities. Investing in stocks, bonds, options, exchange-traded funds, mutual funds, and money market funds involves the risk of loss. Loss of principal is possible. Some high-risk investments may use leverage, which will accentuate gains & losses. Foreign investing involves special risks, including greater volatility and political, economic, and currency risks and differences in accounting methods. A security’s or a firm’s past investment performance is not a guarantee or predictor of future investment performance.

Seeking Alpha's Disclosure: Past performance is no guarantee of future results. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. Any views or opinions expressed above may not reflect those of Seeking Alpha as a whole. Seeking Alpha is not a licensed securities dealer, broker or US investment adviser or investment bank. Our analysts are third party authors that include both professional investors and individual investors who may not be licensed or certified by any institute or regulatory body.

Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) investors betting on a future SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX) acquisition as a catalyst for the electric vehicle maker are relying on the “Greater Fool Theory,” according to investment manager Gary Black.

The Future Fund managing partner, in an X post on July 27, pushed back against speculation that SpaceX could eventually acquire Tesla, arguing that such a deal would make little financial sense for SpaceX shareholders given the significant dilution it would entail.

Black said investors should own Tesla based on its core business prospects, including autonomous driving, vehicle demand, and earnings growth, rather than expectations of a SpaceX rescue.

His comments come as both Tesla and SpaceX face mounting pressure in 2026, with their stocks significantly underperforming broader market benchmarks.

Black’s criticism centers on the belief among some Tesla shareholders that SpaceX could acquire the company at a premium valuation. 

I am amazed how many investors are holding $TSLA because they believe $SPCX will buy it. IMO, that won’t happen anytime soon since the potential dilution to SPCX shareholders is too significant if SPCX paid a 20% premium for TSLA only to have the combined entity trade at TSLA’s… https://t.co/C8mAkAvlJv pic.twitter.com/dW8xVKs1yt

— Gary Black (@garyblack00) July 27, 2026 He argued that such a deal would likely require SpaceX to pay a substantial premium, creating significant dilution for its shareholders. 

The combined company would also likely trade closer to Tesla’s lower valuation multiple, reducing the benefits of SpaceX’s premium valuation.

SpaceX-Tesla lack of fundamentals  As a result, Black views the Tesla-SpaceX rescue thesis as a speculative investment case rather than one supported by fundamentals. 

Instead, he believes investors should focus on the rollout of unsupervised Full Self-Driving technology, the pace of autonomy adoption, and their potential impact on future earnings.

Supporters of a potential deal cite growing ties between the companies, including AI infrastructure projects, Starlink integration in Tesla vehicles, and shared engineering resources. 

At the same time, Musk recently acknowledged the increasing overlap but stopped short of endorsing a merger, noting that any transaction would require proper governance and shareholder approval.

While analysts and prediction markets have assigned varying odds to a deal, Black argues that dilution concerns and fiduciary obligations make it difficult to justify at current valuations.

Tesla and SpaceX stock price struggles  Notably, Tesla shares have struggled throughout 2026 despite reporting record second-quarter revenue. As of press time, TSLA stock was trading at $309, down more than 30% year-to-date and nearing 52-week lows.

TSLA one-week stock price chart. Source: Finbold Tesla posted record Q2 revenue of $28.2 billion, up 26% year-over-year, while vehicle deliveries rose 25% to 480,126 units. 

However, investors focused on weaker profitability, with adjusted earnings missing expectations, operating margins shrinking to about 1.4%, and free cash flow turning negative amid heavy spending on AI, autonomy, robotics, and manufacturing expansion. 

Concerns have also grown over the pace of Robotaxi and Optimus commercialization.

SpaceX has also come under pressure despite strong operational progress. Since its record June IPO, the stock has fallen roughly 50% from highs near $226 to about $113.50, reducing its market capitalization from peak levels, though it still stands near $1.5 trillion. 

SPCX one-week stock price chart. Source: Finbold While Starlink growth, frequent launches, and Starship milestones remain positives, heavy investment in space infrastructure and AI initiatives has weighed on profitability.

© Robert Daemmrich Photography Inc / Getty Images

Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA | TSLA Price Prediction) investors got a brutal reminder last week that ambitious targets can curdle into cautionary tales. A Bloomberg report published July 22, 2026 argued the Cybertruck has eclipsed the Ford Edsel as the auto industry’s benchmark commercial flop on a target-versus-actual basis. Hours later, Tesla posted a Q2 earnings miss, and the stock logged its worst week since 2022.

The Edsel Yardstick Ford launched the Edsel in 1957 with projections of 200,000 units in its first year. It sold less than one-third of that target, and its vertical grille (mocked as resembling a toilet seat) became shorthand for corporate failure that has endured nearly seven decades.

Elon Musk set a higher bar. He projected the Cybertruck could reach 250,000 units annually and called it Tesla’s “best product ever.” In its first full year, the truck sold roughly one-sixth of that target. Per Bloomberg’s chart, Year 2 sales fell to well under 25,000, a steeper proportional miss than the Edsel’s.

An Accelerating Decline Cox Automotive figures show the trajectory. Cybertruck sold 38,965 units in 2024, then 20,237 units in 2025, a 48.1% year-over-year decline. Q4 2025 volume was 4,140 units, down 68.1% from 12,991 a year earlier. Q1 2026 hit a record low of 3,519 deliveries, and only 7,133 Cybertrucks were registered in the U.S. through May 2026, per S&P Global Mobility data cited by Bloomberg.

The truck posted the steepest sales decline of any EV nameplate in the U.S. in 2025. Tesla’s earnings materials list the Cybertruck alongside Model 3, Model Y, Model S, Model X, Cybercab, Semi and Roadster, but it has not appeared as a growth driver in the last four quarterly reports.

Act now: the analyst who called NVIDIA in 2010 just named his top 10 AI stocks — and Tesla didn't make the cut. Grab the names FREE today.

The Stock Rout The Cybertruck story is one strand in a broader unraveling. Tesla shares fell 17.81% in the week ending July 24, 2026, closing at $313.03. The single-session drop after earnings ran to 14%, sending the stock to an 11-month low.

The Q2 report explains the reaction. Revenue reached $28.24 billion, up 25.52% year-over-year, on record deliveries of 480,126 vehicles. Adjusted EPS of $0.33, missing the $0.5367 consensus. Operating income slid 56.88% to $398 million, free cash flow swung to negative $1.09 billion, and operating expenses surged 47% to $4.35 billion on AI infrastructure, R&D and stock-based compensation. Full-year capex is guided to over $25 billion for Optimus, Cybercab and AI data centers.

Short sellers booked $4.3 billion in mark-to-market gains from the single day’s selloff. The stretch cost Musk roughly $130 billion in personal net worth.

What to Watch Shares are down 30.39% year-to-date, and prediction markets imply consolidation in the $300 to $330 range through month-end, against an analyst consensus target of $402.76. Whether the Cybertruck earns a legacy similar to the Edsel remains an open question.

Act now: the analyst who called NVIDIA in 2010 just named his top 10 AI stocks — and Tesla didn't make the cut. Grab the names FREE today.

Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.

It was a rough week for Elon Musk.

Tesla shares plunged 18% during the week to close at $313.03 on Friday, their worst weekly slump since 2022. And SpaceX continued its downward slide, dropping 7.2% over five days to close at $115.07 Friday, its lowest since the company's record IPO last month.

The declines in both stocks wiped away about $130 billion of Musk's wealth, weeks after he'd become the world's first trillionaire. In a post on X on Friday, Musk wrote, "(Former) trillionaire."

Tesla's slump was spurred by weaker-than-expected earnings when the electric vehicle maker reported second-quarter results late Wednesday. The company turned cash flow negative due to a surge in spending on futuristic projects like robotaxis, humanoid robots and a giant chip fab.

"We expect this to pressure free cash flow and delay earnings growth, without providing any near-term shareholder return," wrote analysts at Argus Research, which has a hold rating on the stock, in a report on Friday. "We believe it will be nearly impossible for Tesla to generate any consistency in profit growth in the near-term."

Tesla's stock is now down 30% for the year, by far the worst performer among tech's megacaps.

Read more CNBC tech newsMoonshot AI accessed Nvidia's chips despite Chinese export ban, White House official saysAlphabet and Tesla test Wall Street's patience as AI spending overshadows growthAlphabet earnings takeaways: Q2 revenue beats, GOOGL stock sinks on 2026 capex hikeTesla misses on earnings, as free cash flow turns negative and margins slideMeanwhile, SpaceX's stock has been on a steady downward trajectory over the past month following an initial pop when the company went public. The shares have dropped for four of the past five weeks and are about 43% off their peak close on June 16.

On Friday evening, SpaceX will again attempt the 13th test flight of Starship, the largest rocket ever built or flown. The company plans to fly the new version of the rocket, Starship V3, from its company town and launch facility in Starbase, Texas. The rocket is designed to be fully reusable and is considered crucial for SpaceX's near-term aims to vastly grow its Starlink satellite network.

In a post on X, which is owned by SpaceX, the company said it delayed the test flight planned for Thursday "due to weather." SpaceX previously scrubbed a test flight last week, after the rocket's booster triggered a hold, which "shut down the engines right as they were starting to ignite," a SpaceX employee said during a livestream of the event.

A successful launch of Starship V3, an upgraded version of its roughly 400-foot-tall rocket, would be the first since the company's IPO.

SpaceX plans to use Starship to bring U.S. astronauts back to the Moon's surface, and Musk wants the rocket to eventually run manned missions to Mars.

Musk made a public appearance this week, sitting down for what turned out to be a contentious interview with The Economist.

Zanny Minton Beddoes, editor-in-chief of the publication, asked Musk about his support for "not just the populist right, but the far right, in fact very fringe parties in some countries."

In addition to his financial and vocal support for President Donald Trump, including his work for the second administration, Musk has endorsed Germany's AfD, an extreme anti-immigrant party, as well as the UK's Restore Britain, founded by Rupert Lowe, who also calls to "reverse mass migration."

"It's just normal people!" Musk said in response. He berated Beddoes and "the traditional media" for an "absurd characterization of the far right."

watch now

Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA | TSLA Price Prediction) delivered a split-decision quarter: a big revenue beat wrapped around an ugly EPS miss. Wall Street trimmed price targets without walking away from the story. Our model comes out constructive.

Tesla trades at $374.01 after a roughly 4% after-hours slide that erased $71 billion in market cap. Our 24/7 Wall St. price target is $413.49, implying 10.56% upside over twelve months. The recommendation is buy with 90% confidence level confidence.

Metric Value Current Price $374.01 24/7 Wall St. Price Target $413.49 Upside 10.56% Recommendation BUY Confidence 90% A Record Quarter That Cost $71 Billion Tesla posted $28.24 billion in Q2 revenue, up 25.52% year over year and beating consensus by 7.10%, on record deliveries of 480,126 vehicles.

Non-GAAP EPS of $0.33 missed the $0.5367 estimate by 38.51%, operating margin compressed to 1.4%, and free cash flow flipped to negative $1.09 billion as capex surged to $5.79 billion. Shares are down 5.18% this week and 16.83% year to date, though up 12.62% over the past year.

Why Bulls See a Breakout Ahead The bull case rests on Tesla’s transition to an AI and robotics platform. FSD attach rates on North American deliveries exceeded 55%, with 1.48 million active subscriptions (up 56% YoY).

Cybercab production has begun at Gigafactory Texas, robotaxi service covers seven US metros, and Optimus lines are installed at Fremont. Energy storage deployments jumped to 13.5 GWh. Our bull scenario points to $479.66 within twelve months, a 28.25% return.

The Risks Worth Watching The bear case flips the spending story. Operating income fell 56.88% YoY, opex jumped 47%, and regulatory credits collapsed to $146 million. Reddit sentiment tracked bearish (24 to 36) after the earnings report. Multiple analysts slashed the price target after earnings. 

Act now: the analyst who called NVIDIA in 2010 just named his top 10 AI stocks — and Tesla didn't make the cut. Grab the names FREE today.

Bulls counter that margin damage is self-inflicted, with heavy AI infrastructure and stock-based comp from the 2025 CEO Performance Award weighing on GAAP profits, while operating cash flow rose 84.9% to $4.70 billion and cash swelled to $43.52 billion. Our bear scenario lands at $365.83, a 2.19% decline.

How Tesla Compares to GM and Rivian General Motors (NYSE:GM) is the anti-Tesla trade. GM posted its 16th consecutive earnings beat, with adjusted earnings up 41.3% and raised full-year 2026 guidance, plus roughly 75 million shares retired in the past year. That execution at a fraction of Tesla’s 370 P/E is why our $413.49 target must earn its premium through AI optionality, not vehicle economics.

Rivian (NASDAQ:RIVN) is the pure-play EV comp fighting for scale. Rivian lacks Tesla’s 480,126-unit quarterly cadence and $43.52 billion cash pile, making Tesla’s balance sheet look conservative and supporting our target as reasonable rather than aggressive.

Tesla Price Prediction 2026 to 2030 Our 24/7 Wall St. price target for Tesla is $413.49, a buy with 90% confidence. Q2 shows demand strength (record deliveries, revenue beat) with misses concentrated in discretionary AI and Optimus spending Tesla chose to accelerate.

I’d buy here if capex converts into robotaxi and Optimus revenue on the 2027 timeline management outlined. I’d stay on the sidelines if operating margin fails to recover above 5% by year-end.

Year 24/7 Wall St. Price Target 2026 $413.49 2027 $445.00 2028 $475.00 2029 $505.00 2030 $538.14 These projections assume Tesla executes on robotaxi monetization and Optimus reaches commercial scale. Significant upside or downside could result from FSD adoption curves and margin recovery pace.

Act now: the analyst who called NVIDIA in 2010 just named his top 10 AI stocks — and Tesla didn't make the cut. Grab the names FREE today.

Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.

A prototype of Tesla's Optimus robot. CFOTO/Future Publishing via Getty Images Elon Musk built Tesla into the world's most valuable carmaker. Now he's betting the company's future on a robot that walks on two legs.

Musk predicts its robot, Optimus, could become "the biggest product ever," with legions of the humanoid robots working in factories, doing household chores, and eventually building more robots. He even has a name for them in the plural: "Optimi."

But Tesla has yet to prove the robot can navigate the physical world or perform useful work autonomously, much less that it can be manufactured by the millions.

On Tesla's earnings call this week, Musk offered few details about Optimus and tempered expectations for how quickly production would increase. He said Tesla would begin producing its third-generation robot "soon" in Fremont in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Tesla is competing in an increasingly crowded humanoid market. Agility Robotics, which plans to go public, has deployed its Digit robot across nine customer facilities, while Figure AI has announced deployments in logistics and distribution centers this year. Sunday Robotics, 1X, and Weave Robotics are preparing to ship robots into homes this fall.

Guy Hoffman, an associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Cornell University who leads its human-robot collaboration lab, called humanoids a "fantasy product."

Autonomous cars took about 20 years to reach the market after the technology was first shown to work, he told Business Insider. Building humanoids is even harder, and a fully autonomous machine has yet to be developed.

"Humanoid robots are a very risky bet," Hoffman said. "I don't see the product having a viable future in the near term."

Tesla's first-generation Optimus production line in Fremont, California.  Tesla Musk has never shied away from moonshot projects. But even he has acknowledged that Optimus is harder to develop than Tesla's Model X, Cybertruck, or gigafactories. If Tesla pulls it off, Musk believes Optimus could usher in "sustainable abundance," a future in which AI and robotics make human labor largely optional.

Tesla did not repond to a request for comment from Business Insider

Here's everything we know about Optimus so far:

From human to humanoidMusk introduced the "Tesla Bot" in 2021 with a person dancing in a robot costume.

Three years later, Optimus robots danced, served drinks, and spoke with guests at Tesla's "We, Robot" event. The robots walked on their own, but more complex movements, such as pouring drinks, handing out desserts, and interacting with attendees, were assisted by remote human operators.

Tesla hasn't yet revealed what the next version of Optimus will look like. All we know is that it stands nearly six feet tall and has a humanlike design, a form that one Silicon Valley investor dismissed to Business Insider as a "parlor trick". Musk has defended humanoids, arguing that robots must resemble people to perform the full range of human tasks.

Chinese companies, including Unitree and UBTech, accounted for about 90% of humanoid shipments last year, according to technology research firm Omdia. Musk has argued that Optimus will be much more sophisticated than its Chinese rivals, but has shared few details so far.

"Optimus is designed to have a lot of intelligence and to have the same electromechanical dexterity, if not higher, than a human," Musk said on a podcast earlier this year. "Unitree does not have that."

Where Optimus stands nowEven though Tesla has not publicly unveiled the next-generation Optimus, it released photos this week of the Fremont production line, where manufacturing is expected to begin soon. Musk previously said that Tesla was keeping the robot under wraps to prevent competitors from copying its design.

Tesla stopped producing the Model S and Model X in Fremont earlier this year to make room for an Optimus line designed to eventually produce a million robots a year. A second line under construction in Austin is planned to have an annual capacity of 10 million robots.

Tesla's first-generation Optimus production line in Fremont, California.  Tesla The first bots will join Tesla's "Optimus Academy," where they will practice tasks and generate data used to improve the AI models that serve as their "brains." Musk has said that 10,000 to 30,000 robots will refine their real-world skills at the academy.

On the company's earnings call this week, AI chief Ashok Elluswamy said that the training could push the robots' capabilities to a "superhuman level."

Musk cautioned investors this week that production will ramp slowly because there is no established supply chain for many Optimus components.

Tesla has three big problems to solveTo make Optimus a reality, Musk says Tesla must solve three problems: intelligence, hands, and mass production.

First, the robot must learn to understand and move through the physical world. Musk believes Tesla's self-driving work gives it a head start because Optimus can use Tesla-designed AI chips and technology developed to help its cars interpret camera footage.

Tesla has adapted its driving simulator, a virtual environment used to train and test its self-driving technology, to train millions of virtual robots. But simulations cannot capture every real-world scenario, so Tesla also needs data from physical tasks. Tesla employees have recorded themselves performing factory jobs, for instance.

Hoffman, the Cornell professor, said Musk is underestimating how much harder humanoid robotics is than self-driving.

"It's like playing checkers versus doing nuclear physics," he said. Humanoids must balance on two legs without falling, he added, and today's AI models are still far from operating reliably in the physical world.

The second challenge is what Musk calls the "hands problem": replicating the human hand with motors, sensors, and software. A robot hand must combine strength, precision, and flexibility in a remarkably small space, making it exceptionally difficult to engineer.

Tesla has not unveiled the latest version of Optimus to prevent competitors from copying its design.  Costfoto/NurPhoto via Getty Images On Tesla's earnings call this week, Musk said Optimus is being designed to have "human and then superhuman dexterity." Achieving that has required Tesla to develop custom motors, gears, and sensors.

The final challenge is scaling up manufacturing. Musk has warned that early production will be "agonizingly slow." But once Tesla starts producing a million robots a year — the timeline for which is still unclear — he estimates each Optimus could cost about $20,000 to $25,000 to produce.

How Optimus fits into Musk's AI empireMusk has increasingly talked about a "convergence" across his business empire, which is becoming more intertwined around AI.

Ahead of and during Tesla's earnings call this week, shareholders and analysts pressed Musk about a rumored merger with SpaceX. Musk wouldn't comment on the speculation, but highlighted the company's synergies, including the Robotaxi and AI businesses.

Musk has previously explained how Optimus could work with SpaceX's technology, which acquired xAI in February. Each robot would have enough computing power to perform some tasks independently, while xAI's Grok could coordinate larger groups, he said.

"Let's say you wanted to build a factory," Musk said earlier this year. "Grok could organize the Optimus robots, assign them tasks to build the factory floor to produce whatever you want."

Have a tip? Contact Rya Jetha via email at [email protected] or Signal at rjetha.07. Use a personal email address and a nonwork device; here's our guide to sharing information securely.

Read next

Rya Jetha You're currently following this author! Want to unfollow? Unsubscribe via the link in your email.

Rya is a senior reporter at Business Insider covering physical AI and robotics. She writes about factory automation, humanoid robots, and the race to collect the real-world data needed to bring AI into the physical world. She previously worked at The San Francisco Standard, where she reported on tech culture and autonomous vehicles. She has a bachelor’s degree in history and politics from Pomona College and a master’s in history from the University of Cambridge. Rya lives in San Francisco. Contact her at [email protected] or on Signal at rjetha.07. Use a personal email address, a nonwork WiFi network, and a nonwork device. Here's our guide to sharing information securely.

Robotics Tesla Elon Musk More Electric Vehicles

4:15pm: Nasdaq closes deep in the red US stocks ended sharply lower on Thursday, with the Nasdaq leading the losses as investors dumped technology shares after earnings from Tesla and Alphabet failed to ease concerns about rising spending.

The Nasdaq fell 2.2% to 25,138, while the S&P 500 dropped 1.2% to 7,408. The Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 507 points, or 1%, to close at 51,712.

Despite reporting strong revenue growth, Tesla and Alphabet came under heavy selling pressure after both companies warned that capital expenditures are set to climb, raising fresh questions about profitability and free cash flow. The disappointing market reaction weighed on the broader technology and communications sectors, dragging the Nasdaq to its steepest decline in weeks.

Adding to the pressure, oil prices surged toward the $100-a-barrel mark as escalating conflict in the Middle East fueled fears of supply disruptions. The jump in crude prices reignited inflation concerns, pushing Treasury yields to their highest levels of the year and further denting appetite for growth stocks.

Investors are increasingly worried that higher energy prices could complicate the Federal Reserve's path on interest rates, particularly if inflation proves more persistent than expected.

Attention now turns to Intel, which is set to report quarterly earnings after the closing bell, with investors looking for further clues on the health of the semiconductor industry after a bruising session for the broader tech sector.

3:40pm: Proactive news headlines Custom Health Holdings Inc (TSX:CHLT) initiated Buy-rated coverage from Stifel with a C$12 price target, with analysts highlighting significant upside driven by the company's medication management platform. 374Water Inc (NASDAQ:SCWO, FRA:8LL) said a US Army Corps of Engineers report independently validated its AirSCWO technology, demonstrating 99.9993% destruction and removal efficiency for PFAS during testing. Royalty Management Holding Corp (NASDAQ:RMCO) said its royalty partner ReElement Technologies secured new financing to expand operations, a move expected to increase royalty revenue under their existing agreement. Replenish Nutrients Holding Corp (CSE:ERTH, OTC:VVIVF, FRA:7KE) closed the $7.5 million equity portion of a previously announced $15 million strategic investment from SRC Agrominerals Sales, with the convertible debenture portion expected to close in August 2026. 2:30pm: Market movers Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) shares fell despite record vehicle sales and stronger-than-expected revenue as investors focused on weaker profitability and future growth concerns. Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) shares dropped despite beating earnings and revenue forecasts as investors weighed concerns around valuation and expectations following the results. American Airlines Group Inc (NASDAQ:AAL, XETRA:A1G) shares fell despite beating second-quarter earnings expectations as the carrier warned that higher fuel costs could pressure third-quarter results. T-Mobile US Inc (NASDAQ:TMUS, XETRA:TM5) reported stronger-than-expected second-quarter earnings but saw shares decline after revenue narrowly missed Wall Street estimates. 374Water Inc (NASDAQ:SCWO, FRA:8LL) said a US Army Corps of Engineers report independently validated its AirSCWO technology, showing 99.9993% destruction and removal efficiency for PFAS during a demonstration. RTX Corp (NYSE:RTX, XETRA:5UR) shares climbed after the aerospace and defense company delivered better-than-expected second-quarter results and raised its full-year 2026 outlook. Southwest Airlines Co (NYSE:LUV) shares declined after stronger-than-expected second-quarter earnings were offset by a weaker-than-expected third-quarter outlook. International Business Machines Corp (NYSE:IBM) shares slipped after second-quarter revenue and earnings missed expectations and the company lowered its full-year revenue growth forecast. Replenish Nutrients Holding Corp (CSE:ERTH, OTC:VVIVF, FRA:7KE) closed a $7.5 million equity investment from SRC. 12:50pm: Oil prices surge after Houthi attacks Oil prices surged above US$100 a barrel on Thursday after Houthi rebels claimed attacks on two Saudi oil tankers in the Red Sea, raising fresh concerns over global energy supplies and rattling financial markets.

“Two of the world’s busiest shipping corridors are under threat in the same month, and markets are only just beginning to work out what that means," said Nigel Green, CEO of deVere Group.

"The timing is awkward for the Federal Reserve, which meets on July 29. Inflation had climbed for three straight months to 4.2% in May, its highest level in years, before cooling to 3.5% in June largely because gasoline prices fell nearly 10% during the brief ceasefire between the US and Iran. 

"With that ceasefire now collapsed and oil back above $100, the drop which gave the Fed room to relax may already be reversing."

11:45am: Alphabet's spending rattles investors Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) shares fell more than 6% after investors looked past better-than-expected second-quarter earnings and focused on the company’s soaring AI spending.

The Google parent reported revenue of $119.8 billion and earnings per share of $9.11, beating Wall Street forecasts, while Google Cloud revenue jumped 82% year over year.

However, quarterly capital expenditure doubled to $44.9 billion, keeping Alphabet on pace for up to $190 billion in spending this year, while free cash flow dropped sharply. Investor sentiment was also weighed down by reports that Google delayed its Gemini 3.5 Pro AI model, although the company has disputed those claims.

11:00am: Tesla sinks on spending, profit Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) shares were down about 14% after the electric vehicle maker reported second-quarter results that topped revenue expectations but missed on profit.

Revenue rose 26% year over year to $28.24 billion, while deliveries reached a record 480,126 vehicles, marking the first annual growth in two years. Services revenue climbed 50% and Full Self-Driving subscriptions increased 56%, with the company also reporting its largest order backlog since 2023.

However, adjusted earnings of $0.33 per share missed forecasts, while gross and operating margins weakened as lower vehicle prices, declining regulatory credit sales and rising costs weighed on profitability.

Heavy capital spending also pushed free cash flow into a deficit.

10am: Nasdaq leads losses as Tesla and Alphabet slide US stocks have extended yesterday's losses in early deals, with Tesla dropping over 10% to lead the Nasdaq down 1.8%.

The S&P 500 and Dow Jones are both off more than 0.9%.

Alphabet fell 6.6%, with other Mag 7 names dropping too, including Amazon and Meta both slipping more than 3%.

Biggest faller on the S&P is pest controller Rollins, down 12% after reporting weaker second-quarter revenue growth than expected.

Semis are also being sold again, with Microchip Technology, Qualcomm and Texas Instruments among the Nasdaq's biggest fallers.

Top of the S&P leaderboard is United Rentals after saying it will increase its spending on its fleet this year and raising full-year guidance.

9.20am: Record low US jobless claims US initial jobless claims have fallen to their lowest level since 1969.

New unemployment claims fall to 187K, down from 209K, while the market forecast was for a small rise to 210K.

"While seasonal factors may be impacting the headline number at the margins, the extremely low level of claims highlights a low layoff rate and the strength underlying the labor market," says Matthew Martin at Oxford Economics.

"In the wake of moderating jobless claims, continued claims fell a touch further in the week ended July 11, with the four-week moving average creeping lower.

"The decent pace of nonfarm payroll gains amid weak labor-supply conditions should translate into lower continued claims in the weeks ahead."

8.30am: Iran war has entered a more dangerous phase, RBC warns  The Iran conflict has entered a "decidedly more dangerous phase", with Red Sea oil flows and critical infrastructure increasingly at risk, according to RBC Capital Markets.

Brent crude has topped $99.30 in recent minutes, but commodity strategist Helima Croft says these prices are a "lagging indicator of the extreme pressure building in the region".

Croft warns that the reported targeting of two Saudi tankers by Yemen's Houthis could cause a "material reduction" in Red Sea oil shipments and undermine the belief that "the market always finds a workaround".

Prices could surpass the 2022 peak of $128 a barrel or even reach the 2008 high of $146 in a full regional war, Croft warns. 

She says alternative routes for tankers would significantly increase costs and extend journeys to Asia by around four weeks to roughly 54 days.

Iran's attacks on Kuwaiti desalination facilities are described as "especially concerning", with Kuwait relying on desalination for 90% of its drinking water.

Some Gulf cities could reportedly have only seven days of clean water if plants were disabled.

7.45am: Nasdaq and Dow set to extend losses Wall Street is set for a moderately lower open on Thursday after mixed results from Alphabet and Tesla, while a fresh surge in oil prices revived concerns about inflation and interest rates.

Futures for the Dow Jones, S&P 500 and Nasdaq were all down around 0.3%.

This would see losses extended from the day before, when the Nasdaq dropped 0.6% to 25,691, the S&P fell 0.1% to 7,499, and the Dow finished essentially flat, down six points at 52,219.

After the closing bell, Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) beat revenue and earnings forecasts, with cloud revenue surging 82%, but its shares fell in after-hours trading after the Google owner raised its planned capital expenditure to as much as $205 billion this year. Shares were down 4.1% in pre-market trading.  

Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) shares declined 6.2% after reporting its first quarter of negative free cash flow in more than two years as operating costs surged.

European markets were also lower, led by a 1.7% decline in Milan as semiconductor manufacturer STMicroelectronics (NYSE:STM) fell sharply after weaker second-quarter earnings and soft third-quarter guidance disappointed investors following a three-month rally.

In commodities, WTI crude has jumped 4.1% on Thursday morning to above $90.65 a barrel, its highest level in six weeks, as US Central Command confirmed another round of strikes against Iran.

"Strikes between the US and Iran show no sign of easing, and the Houthis said they targeted two oil tankers in the Red Sea yesterday, raising fears that the conflict is widening," said Henry Allen at Deutsche Bank. 

This has raised fresh supply fears as Saudi Arabia has redirected oil exports to the Red Sea port of Yanbu, prompting "fresh concerns about a more prolonged stagflationary shock", with investors pricing in higher inflation and a more hawkish path for central banks.

Fed futures now indicate a 36% chance of an interest-rate increase next week. The European Central Bank is expected to leave rates unchanged when it announces its latest decision later today.

Before the bell, earnings are due from defence groups RTX and Lockheed Martin, telecoms names T-Mobile and Nokia, and other heavyweights including Thermo Fisher, TotalEnergies, Blackstone, Freeport-McMoRan, Comcast and Honeywell.

After the close, attention turns to Intel and SAP, along with gold miner Newmont.

The silhouette of Elon Musk and Tesla logo are seen in this illustration taken June 11, 2026. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab

SummaryCompaniesFrance cited safety concerns over Tesla FSD in its current formThe Netherlands provisionally approved FSD on Dutch roadsBelgium, Denmark, Estonia and Lithuania followed suit ahead ​of a possible EU vote this fallAMSTERDAM, July 23 (Reuters) - France opposes the use of Tesla's (TSLA.O), opens new tab Full Self-Driving (FSD) driver assistance software in its current form ​on roads in the European Union due to safety concerns, its transportation ​minister said.

The French stance on the FSD software is the ⁠first public rejection by an EU government of a Dutch-led initiative to approve ​the technology for use throughout Europe.

The Reuters Daily Briefing newsletter provides all the news you need to start your day. Sign up here.

In a video statement released on Wednesday, Philippe ​Tabarot pointed to worries over speeding and driver inattention.

"In France, we believe that, while this system brings a number of technological advances, the safety tradeoffs are not yet sufficient to ​justify authorisation in its current form," he said.

Tabarot added that other European ​countries shared France's concerns regarding the software, though he did not name them.

Reuters reported in June ‌that Sweden ⁠may also oppose approval.

Tesla's FSD is a driver assistance system that can accelerate, brake, and steer a car, while its human driver remains ready to intervene.

The Netherlands' road authority RDW approved the technology for use on Dutch roads on ​a provisional basis in ​April, prompting Belgium, ⁠Denmark, Estonia and Lithuania to do the same in advance of a possible bloc-wide vote on the plan this ​fall.

The RDW could not immediately be reached for comment on ​Thursday.

FSD software ⁠is seen as a selling point and revenue-generator for Tesla, whose European registrations are gradually recovering following a slump last year.

Responding to Tabarot's remarks in a statement on ⁠X, ​Tesla CEO Elon Musk wrote that "delaying the approval ​of FSD in France will cost lives".

Tabarot said France is continuing technical discussions with the Netherlands and ​other EU countries over the technology.

Reporting by Toby Sterling; Editing by Joe Bavier

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab

ToplineElon Musk’s fortune was cut by more than $18 billion on Thursday amid the worst intraday selloff in Tesla shares in more than a year, following the automaker’s earnings report that disappointed Wall Street, as analysts called for Musk’s firm to bring “tangible” results for its robotics and robotaxi businesses.

The automaker reported earnings that disappointed Wall Street, with plans to spend billions more on AI.

Getty Images

Key FactsShares of Tesla plunged 14.1% as of Thursday afternoon, pacing what would be the largest single-day decline for the stock since June 5, 2025 (14.2%).

That drop in Tesla’s share price lowered Musk’s net worth by $18.6 billion to $731.7 billion, even as he remains the world’s richest person ahead of Google co-founder Larry Page ($263.8 billion) and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos ($245.4 billion).

Tesla's slump follows the company’s quarterly earnings report on Wednesday, in which the automaker reported $28.2 billion in revenue, beating consensus analyst estimates of $27.2 billion, according to FactSet, while posting earnings that fell well below projections of 55 cents at 33 cents.

Chief financial officer Vaibhav Taneja, during Tesla’s earnings call, reiterated plans for the automaker to spend $25 billion this year and more in the coming years.

That brought some criticism from Wall Street: Morgan Stanley analysts said in a note that while Tesla’s spending is a “necessary investment,” the company will need to present “tangible” milestones for its robotaxi and Optimus programs.

Canaccord Genuity analysts echoed that sentiment, writing the firm wanted to see meaningful robotaxi deployments over the next six months as Tesla ramped up its AI strategy.

surprising factCanaccord analysts noted they hoped to see momentum around a merger between Tesla and SpaceX. In Tesla’s earnings call, Musk deflected a question about a possible tie-up following months of speculation: “We can’t talk about, you know, combining companies and that kind of thing on an earnings call—it has got to be done with the appropriate process.” Musk did note there is “more and more overlap” between his two firms, pointing to Starlink’s integration in Cybertrucks, and TeraFab, a proposed AI chip manufacturing venture between Tesla, SpaceX and the former xAI, which is now a SpaceX subsidiary.

what to watch forSpaceX will launch its 13th test flight of the Starship rocket on Thursday, its first since the rocket maker’s initial public offering last month. An earlier launch scheduled for last week was aborted after Musk said some of the rocket’s engines failed to start. That pushed SpaceX shares down by more than 4%, lowering Musk’s net worth by more than $45 billion.

contraSpaceX shares were largely flat on the day, down only 0.1% as of around 1:45 p.m. EDT, having little impact on Musk’s fortune.

key backgroudnMusk’s fortune has fallen more than $700 billion from its peak, which came shortly after SpaceX’s IPO. A trading debut for his SpaceX made him a trillionaire, and surging shares in the rocket maker boosted him to a high of $1.45 trillion before a weekslong selloff that has since pushed his net worth below pre-IPO levels. The latest dip in Tesla shares followed speculation from shareholders about whether Musk would reveal updates for Tesla’s Optimus robotics or robotaxi plans, with submitted questions ahead of the automaker’s earnings asking why its robotaxi business had been “stalled.” Another question posed: “What is keeping Tesla back from accomplishing these short-term goals that they’ve set for themselves?”

further readingForbesMusk Says Tesla And SpaceX ‘Can’t Talk About’ Merging On Earnings Call—But Here’s What He Did SayBy Ty Roush

Tesla’s budding “Robotaxi” network drove fewer miles for paying customers in the second quarter than it did in the first, according to a chart the company released on Wednesday.

The quarter-over-quarter decline runs counter to Tesla’s rhetoric and actions in the past year. Tesla has staked much of its future on the idea of a massive, low-cost, cash-generating Robotaxi fleet — or going “balls to the wall for autonomy,” as CEO Elon Musk framed it in 2024. The quarterly step-down in Robotaxi miles also comes amid weakening profits in Tesla’s core businesses, which underperformed Wall Street’s expectations, according to figures released Wednesday. Tesla’s stock plunged more than 13% in early trading on Thursday.

At a passing glance, the chart appears to show steady growth in paid Robotaxi rides between August 2025 and June 2026. But the numbers displayed are cumulative, and when broken down by quarter, they show that Tesla’s Robotaxi fleet of Model Y SUVs carrying paying passengers covered around 1.1 million miles in the first quarter. That fell to roughly 700,000 miles in the second quarter, a decline of about 36%.

That’s despite the fact that the company has expanded its nascent operation to six cities across Texas and Florida, with a mix of unsupervised and supervised vehicles.

Image Credits:Tesla It’s likely Tesla is counting the paid miles driven in the San Francisco Bay Area, too, even though these branded Robotaxis don’t have the state-required permits to operate autonomously and also have a safety driver behind the wheel. Tesla has referred to that operation as part of its “Robotaxi coverage.”

The decline in miles driven also comes as Tesla made a striking admission on a conference call Wednesday about its second-quarter results. In response to a question about how slowly Tesla is scaling the Robotaxi service, Musk said the company needs to “accumulate driving data that is specific to the Cybercab” — the company’s gold, purpose-built, two-seater sedan that is expected to make up the bulk of its autonomous vehicle fleet — “before we can put a lot of them on the road.”

“Unlike, say, Model 3, Model Y, and our other vehicles where we’ve got a lot of vehicles on the road, millions of vehicles on the road, we don’t have that for Cybercab. So we actually have to accumulate miles with Cybercabs that are retrofitted with steering wheels and acceleration and braking pedals, that kind of thing, to calibrate to the Cybercab chassis,” he said. “As we are confident about that, the number of Cybercabs in cities will increase dramatically.”

This represents something of a break from claims the company has made for years about how its fleet of nearly 10 million customer cars has been silently collecting data in the background to train future robotaxis (in addition to training the driver assistance software for consumers, which Tesla calls Full Self-Driving).

On the call, Tesla executives framed the slow progress as a matter of being cautious about safety.

“Our goals are very ambitious for Robotaxi, but we do need to be cautious about causing any accidents or causing any harm to anyone,” Musk said.

He then said he doesn’t want Tesla Robotaxis causing accidents because he thinks bad media coverage could lead to a regulatory crackdown.

“Although there are, I think, 30 to 40,000 automotive deaths per year in the United States alone, most of those do not generate any press, you don’t really read about almost any of those. But if we injure even one person, it will be worldwide headline news, and regulators will immediately clamp down on our activities,” he said.

Ashok Elluswamy, Tesla’s VP of AI, boasted that Tesla’s Robotaxis have had “zero notable incidents” while driving “more than 380,000 miles” without a safety operator onboard. He did not define what the company considers “notable incidents,” though he claimed that “any reports have been of other actors impacting us when we were stationary.”

Tesla has reported 22 crashes to the National Highway Safety Administration in the year since it started trialing its Robotaxi service. While most of them involve other cars crashing into Tesla’s Robotaxis, the company has reported three crashes caused by its teleoperators moving the vehicles remotely, and multiple instances of the cars hitting objects at low speeds including curbs, utility poles, and a tow truck’s bed.

This represents another narrative change for the company. Tesla spent years claiming that the largest hurdle to full-scale Robotaxi deployment was regulatory in nature — though the company never really specified what those prohibitive regulations were.

Now the company says proving safety is all that’s holding Robotaxis back. And although it is still in the very early stages, Tesla still chose this moment to take a victory lap about its decision to build an autonomy stack that doesn’t use radar or lidar sensors, like industry leader Waymo.

“Historically, the so-called experts have always claimed that you need lidars, radars, HD maps, and the entire kitchen sink to drive safely. Here, we show that such is not true. You can have safe, comfortable, and affordable autonomy with just cameras,” Elluswamy said.

Both Musk and Elluswamy also promised growth is coming. They noted that the number of unsupervised miles traveled has grown roughly 10% every week since Tesla started offering them at the end of last year.

“We’ll continue to scale, I think, very, very rapidly,” Musk said.

When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.

© Avda, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Tesla’s (NASDAQ: TSLA | TSLA Price Prediction) earnings showed that, at an extremely rapid pace, it has become two companies (at least). One makes and sells cars—the other gambles, often on what appears to be longshots, on AI and robotics. (Tesla does have an energy generation business which produced $3.1 billion, or 11% of the total, in the most recent quarter. It does not fit neatly into either silo.)

The proof that Tesla’s car business continues to be the revenue core is that at $20.5 billion, it was 73% of Tesla’s total revenue of $28.2 billion. Auto revenue was up 23% year over year in Tesla’s second quarter. Overall revenue rose 26%. Net income for the entire company was $1.1 billion, which was down 5% year over year.

Total vehicle deliveries were 480,126 in the quarter, up 25% year over year. Anyone who believes that Tesla’s car operations are in trouble is wrong. China sales may have been unstable over time. Tesla took a brutal beating in the EU last year, and lost the EV sales lead there to China’s BYD. However, this year, EU figures have gotten better. The US remains an EV graveyard, but Tesla is still the market leader, and what might have been major competitors like Ford (NYSE: F) have quit.

Tesla breaks out the status of what it calls its “robotics” operation. It reports that two facilities are under construction. One is in California, and the other is in Texas. Tesla reported, “The initial Optimus builds will be used in our Optimus Academy for training data collection and further functionality development. Additionally, we continued site development at Gigafactory Texas with building construction now in full swing.”

Tesla offered updates to its “robotaxi” business. It admitted that the effort is still in early stages, with wide-scale deployment contingent on both technological breakthroughs and regulatory approvals.

Capital expenditures jumped 142% to $5.8 billion from $2.4 billion in the same quarter last year. Part of the cost of the robotics business is AI training and development of hardware and software that make a robot a real robot (CEO Elon Musk has said that, in the future, the world will have billions of robots).

Act now: the analyst who called NVIDIA in 2010 just named his top 10 AI stocks — and Tesla didn't make the cut. Grab the names FREE today.

The question is how the company actually gets broken apart. The self-driving parts of the auto business are really AI-based. The ultra-advanced autopilot business is growing rapidly. The system is called Full Self-Driving (Supervised). Tesla said “active FSD subscriptions” rose 56% in the quarter to 1.48 million. It does not function without a car, so it belongs with the auto operations. Similarly, the robotaxi business and its Cybercab are modes of transportation and, thus, cannot be separated from these car operations.

So what does that leave? Robotics and AI are what Musk says are the future of Tesla. That is at the core of the debate over Tesla’s valuation, which is $1.4 trillion. That makes it the 11th most valuable company in the world. The market caps of other major car companies are, in every case, a fraction of that.

Spin-outs and break-ups of public companies are meant as a way to unlock value that is locked because disparate businesses have been put together under one roof. Tesla should “unlock.” Let investors who want to invest in EVs and their software buy an EV stock. Let people who want to own a robotics company that relies on advanced AI features own a robotics company.

The challenge, of course, remains in the execution of such a split. While the automotive arm can provide the cash flow necessary to fund Musk’s more ambitious visions, the robotics side is what currently inflates Tesla’s staggering $1.4 trillion valuation. Once again, by separating them, the market would finally be forced to decide if the robotics venture is a revolutionary tech giant or a speculative longshot, all while allowing the car business to be judged on its industry-leading fundamentals.

Act now: the analyst who called NVIDIA in 2010 just named his top 10 AI stocks — and Tesla didn't make the cut. Grab the names FREE today.

Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.

© 24/7 Wall St. / Getty Images

On Wednesday’s earnings call, Elon Musk stopped short of confirming a Tesla-SpaceX merger and did something arguably worse for shareholders of Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA | TSLA Price Prediction): he refused to shut the door.

Asked about synergies between his automaker and SpaceX, Musk told analysts, “Well, as you can tell from all the many collaborations on so many fronts with SpaceX, there’s more and more overlap, especially with Terafab, that’s really going to be a gigantic project.” He then pulled back, adding, “But obviously, we can’t talk about combining companies and that kind of thing on an earnings call, it has got to be done with the appropriate process.” Nothing was confirmed. Nothing was denied.

The overlap Musk referenced is already visible. Starlink connectivity is built into Cybertruck and planned across Tesla’s fleet, including Cybercab. The Grok chatbot is embedded in Tesla vehicles, Tesla is supplying batteries and manufacturing know-how to SpaceX, and Terafab is a jointly relevant AI chip facility. Q1 disclosures flagged a semiconductor fab under construction in Austin, and Tesla previously took a $2 billion equity stake in SpaceX. The integration is already operational.

The Dilution Problem Here is the part that should worry Tesla holders. BNP Paribas notes SpaceX’s cash flow is sharply negative. SpaceX is expected to burn roughly $30 billion this year and as much as $194 billion cumulatively through 2030. Folding that into Tesla would almost certainly require fresh equity raises, diluting existing shareholders. BNP Paribas has separately argued a merger “won’t save investors.”

That warning lands on top of a quarter that already rattled the base. Tesla posted Q2 2026 revenue of $28.24 billion, up 25.52% year over year and ahead of consensus, but non-GAAP EPS of $0.33 missed the $0.5367 estimate by 38.51%. Operating margin compressed to 1.4%. Gross margin slipped to 16.8% from 17.2% a year earlier. Free cash flow swung to a negative $1.092 billion as capex jumped 141.81% year over year to $5.789 billion. Shares fell nearly 3% in after-hours trading, and TSLA is now down 16.83% year to date.

Markets are pricing this ambiguity in real time. Deepwater Asset Management’s Gene Munster raised his odds of a Tesla-SpaceX merger from 80% to 90% after the call. Kalshi shows 52% odds of a merger by roughly May 2027. On Polymarket, the year-end 2026 announcement contract sits at 22.5%, with the September deadline at 9.5%.

No terms, structure, or timeline have been confirmed. That is the point. With operating income already down 56.88% year over year and a $25 billion capital budget in flight, Tesla investors now carry a second, unquantified risk: an equity-funded absorption of the most capital-hungry company in Musk’s orbit. Until Musk says otherwise, that risk is priced in and rising.

Act now: the analyst who called NVIDIA in 2010 just named his top 10 AI stocks — and Tesla didn't make the cut. Grab the names FREE today.

Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.

Tesla said Wednesday that its robotaxi fleet has logged more than 380,000 unsupervised miles across six cities in two states without what the company described as a "notable" safety incident.

Ashok Elluswamy, Tesla’s vice president of AI software, highlighted the fleet’s safety record during the electric vehicle maker’s second-quarter earnings call, telling investors it had recorded "zero notable incidents."

Any reported incidents involved "other actors impacting us when we were stationary," Elluswamy said.

"I'd like to emphasize how safe the operation has been so far," Elluswamy said. "Zero notable incidents over 380,000 miles."

MUSK SAYS TESLA, SPACEX TO BUILD ADVANCED CHIP MANUFACTURING FACILITY

A Tesla robotaxi travels along South Congress Avenue in Austin, Texas, June 22, 2025. Tesla said that its robotaxi fleet has logged more than 380,000 unsupervised miles across six cities in two states without what the company described as a "notable" (Reuters/Joel Angel Juarez / Reuters)

Elluswamy said the results support Tesla’s camera-based approach to autonomous driving.

"Historically, the so-called experts have always claimed that you need lidars, radars, HD maps and the entire kitchen sink to drive safely," he said. "Here, we show that such is not true. You can have safe, comfortable and affordable autonomy with just cameras."

Tesla said mileage traveled by its unsupervised robotaxi fleet has grown at a double-digit weekly rate for months.

"We have grown at such a high compounding rate on a week-over-week basis over the last several months," Elluswamy said. "Not only that, we expect to continue growing at such a large rate through the rest of this year."

ELON MUSK REVEALS PRICE OF TESLA'S CYBERCAB

A Tesla robotaxi operates on South Congress Avenue in Austin, Texas, on June 22, 2025.  (Reuters/Joel Angel Juarez / Reuters)

The remarks came one day after Tesla expanded its robotaxi service to Orlando and Tampa, according to Reuters.

Tesla launched the service in Austin in June 2025, initially placing safety monitors inside the vehicles. 

It later began offering fully unsupervised rides in Austin and expanded the service to Dallas, Houston and Miami, Reuters reported.

Stocks In This Article: SELF-DRIVING CAR COMPANIES WAYMO, TESLA TO TESTIFY AT KEY SENATE COMMITTEE ON REGULATING GROWING INDUSTRY

Passengers exit a Waymo self-driving car, Dec. 26, 2025, in San Francisco. Unlike Waymo, which uses lidar sensors, Tesla relies mainly on cameras and AI software. (John J. Kim/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images / Getty Images)

Unlike Waymo, which uses "light detection and ranging" or "lidar" sensors, Tesla relies mainly on cameras and AI software, according to the outlet.

GET FOX BUSINESS ON THE GO BY CLICKING HERE

"We expect that the time to launch to a new city will continue to trend towards zero, towards an end where we operate in entire states as a whole, instead of going city by city," Elluswamy added.

Tesla could not immediately be reached by FOX Business for comment.

Reuters contributed to this report.

HomeEarnings AnalysisConsumer 

SummaryTesla, Inc. delivered a solid revenue result in Q2, but earnings fell dramatically short of street estimates.Short-term performance was driven by strong auto sales amid high gas prices, shifting focus from long-term autonomous ambitions.TSLA stock trades at a substantial premium to the auto space and tech giants, but recent results don't justify this valuation. jetcityimage/iStock Editorial via Getty Images

After the bell on Wednesday, we received second quarter results from Tesla, Inc. (TSLA). The electric vehicle maker had a strong sales period thanks to higher gas prices amidst the U.S.

38.95K Followers

Analyst’s Disclosure: I/we have no stock, option or similar derivative position in any of the companies mentioned, and no plans to initiate any such positions within the next 72 hours. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

Investors are always reminded that before making any investment, you should do your own proper due diligence on any name directly or indirectly mentioned in this article. Investors should also consider seeking advice from a broker or financial adviser before making any investment decisions. Any material in this article should be considered general information, and not relied on as a formal investment recommendation.

Seeking Alpha's Disclosure: Past performance is no guarantee of future results. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. Any views or opinions expressed above may not reflect those of Seeking Alpha as a whole. Seeking Alpha is not a licensed securities dealer, broker or US investment adviser or investment bank. Our analysts are third party authors that include both professional investors and individual investors who may not be licensed or certified by any institute or regulatory body.

Tesla is no longer planning to reach “volume production” of three of its newest products – the Cybercab, the Tesla Semi, and its Megapack 3 commercial energy storage solution – in 2026, according to a second-quarter shareholder letter published Wednesday. The company also removed language from its first-quarter letter about its Optimus robot reaching “volume production.”

The company said Wednesday that it’s trying to increase battery production, specifically around the company’s 4680 cell, in order to start building the Cybercab and Tesla Semi at scale. It did not offer a reason for pushing back volume production of the new Megapack, or say whether there are any holdups around Optimus.

Tesla started making the first production Cybercabs at its factory in Austin, Texas earlier this year, but said in the letter that it’s still building out the manufacturing lines for the Semi and Optimus. The company had said as recently as January that the Cybercab, Semi, and Megapack 3 would reach “volume production” this year.

The pullback comes as the company plows money into its next generation of products while attempting to shift from an EV maker to an AI and robotics company. Tesla’s results, which showed net income falling 5% year-over-year to $1.1 billion, capital expenditures more than doubling, and negative free cash flow, were slightly buoyed by an uptick in revenue. 

Still that revenue boost wasn’t enough to offset the cost of business and Tesla’s push to develop and launch new products, which Tesla CFO Vaibhav Taneja previously said would lead to negative cash flow for the remainder of the year.

The company reported revenue of $28.2 billion, a 26% increase from the $22.5 billion it generated in the second quarter of 2025. Tesla’s second-quarter revenue also grew from the previous quarter’s haul of $22.38 billion.

The bulk of its revenue came from selling and leasing its EVs — and those results improved significantly this quarter.

The company reported automotive revenue of $20.5 billion in the second quarter, compared to $16.6 billion in the same-year ago period. Tesla delivered more than 480,000 vehicles in the second quarter, an increase of more than 120,000 from the first quarter.

It was Tesla’s best result for overall sales since the third quarter of last year, when it delivered nearly 500,000 vehicles. The increase was driven by record sales in several markets outside of the U.S., including South Korea, Australia, Colombia, Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, Portugal, the Philippines, Chile, Slovenia and Lithuania, the company said in its shareholder letter.

Tesla’s second-quarter revenue results improved from a year ago when the company suffered from a combination of falling EV sales, lower average selling prices, less cash from regulatory credits, and a drop in solar and energy revenue. 

Sales of energy storage and solar also proved to be a standout, improving 13% to $3.1 billion. And subscriptions to Tesla’s advanced driver assistance system, known as Full Self-Driving (Supervised) continue to rise. The company reported 1.48 million subscriptions, a 56% increase from the same period last year.

Tesla’s bottom line, however, slipped as it poured money into new products and saw its gross margins squeezed.

Tesla reported net income of $1.1 billion, a 5% decrease from the same period a year ago. At the same time, its operating expenses ballooned by 47% to $4.3 billion. Meanwhile, Tesla had negative free cash flow of $1 billion in the second quarter, a stark change from the $1.44 billion in positive free cash flow it reported last quarter and the $146 million it had in the same period last year. 

The company’s operating income was $398 million, a 57% drop from the $932 million it reported in the same period last year. 

A year ago, Tesla called the second quarter of 2025 a “seminal point” in the company’s history and the beginning of its transition from a company that sells electric vehicles, solar, and energy storage to one that leads in “AI, robotics and related services.”

That transition is still underway and Tesla CEO Elon Musk has said the company would boost spending to achieve its goal. Tesla said its capital expenditure will be $25 billion in 2026, about three times more than it historically has spent.

This spring, the company ended production of its flagship Model S sedan and Model X SUV vehicles at its Fremont, California factory to make way for its Optimus humanoid robot. It is also bringing its Tesla Robotaxi service to new cities, albeit with a limited number of vehicles. And it’s still pushing to sell owners on Full Self-Driving (Supervised), and eventually make that product capable enough to handle all driving without the need of a human. 

When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.

Kirsten Korosec is a reporter and editor who has covered the future of transportation from EVs and autonomous vehicles to urban air mobility and in-car tech for more than a decade. She is currently the transportation editor at TechCrunch and co-host of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast. She is also co-founder and co-host of the podcast, “The Autonocast.” She previously wrote for Fortune, The Verge, Bloomberg, MIT Technology Review and CBS Interactive.

You can contact or verify outreach from Kirsten by emailing [email protected] or via encrypted message at kkorosec.07 on Signal.

Sean O’Kane is a reporter who has spent a decade covering the rapidly-evolving business and technology of the transportation industry, including Tesla and the many startups chasing Elon Musk. Most recently, he was a reporter at Bloomberg News where he helped break stories about some of the most notorious EV SPAC flops. He previously worked at The Verge, where he also covered consumer technology, hosted many short- and long-form videos, performed product and editorial photography, and once nearly passed out in a Red Bull Air Race plane.

You can contact or verify outreach from Sean by emailing [email protected] or via encrypted message at okane.01 on Signal.

EVs, AI, Robots and RobotaxisTesla reports their second-quarter financial results Wednesday after market close and similar to recent quarterly reports, the information and management commentary could be less about consumer electric vehicles and more about AI, robots and autonomous vehicles.

Benzinga asked viewers about Tesla’s future growth plans.

The results are:

Humanoid Robots (Optimus Bot): 32% Robotaxis: 30% New electric vehicle models: 26% FSD Monthly subscriptions: 12% While the Optimus Bot won, the poll divided Benzinga readers on humanoid robots, robotaxis and new EV models. FSD monthly subscriptions finished last in the poll with only 12%.

The fact that humanoid robots and robotaxis got 62% of the votes in the poll signals a major shift for Tesla and one that CEO Elon Musk is betting on.

Musk has said that FSD and Optimus are "the biggest factors" in Tesla achieving its Master Plan Part 4.

"80% of Tesla’s value will be Optimus," Musk tweeted previously.

“I think that’s probably correct if we execute well on autonomous transport and Optimus,” Musk said.

In June 2024, Musk also said Optimus could help Tesla hit a $25 trillion market capitalization.

Tesla is expected to begin third-party sales and high-volume production of Optimus in 2027.

Tesla Q2 EarningsTesla has beaten analyst estimates for revenue and earnings per share in two straight quarters, but the stock price has fallen after three of the last four earnings reports with an average loss of 5% over that time.

The revenue and earnings per share continue to matter less for Tesla investors and analysts than the commentary from Musk and the future timeline for items like FSD, new vehicles, robotaxis and the Optimus Bot.

Tesla gave updates on robotaxi paid miles, robotaxi city rollouts, FSD subscriptions and a timeline on its vehicle releases during its first-quarter earnings report and conference call.

“We are excited about Tesla’s positioning in 2026 with tailwinds persisting for the auto business, our continued progress on FSD 4, the ramp of Robotaxi, progress on Optimus ahead of mass production and the growth of our energy production capacity,” the company said after first-quarter results.

The previous timeline was for the Cybercab to enter volume production "this year."

Investors will be closely watching to see the update numbers on these growth initiatives and an updated timeline on releases.

Price ActionTesla stock is down 0.3% to $377.98 on Wednesday versus a 52-week trading range of $297.82 to $498.83. The company’s shares are down 13.8% year-to-date in 2026.

Photo courtesy: Rokas Tenys on Shutterstock.com

Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs

© 2026 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.

To add Benzinga News as your preferred source on Google, click here.

Key Takeaways Analysts expect Tesla to report Q2 EPS of $0.50.The options market is implying a 6% post-EPS move.Energy and future tech timelines will be important clues for investors to observe. Tesla Q2 EarningsZacks Rank #3 (Hold) stock Tesla ((TSLA - Free Report) ) will report earnings on second quarter earnings results on Wednesday, July 22, after the equity market close. Zacks Consensus Analyst Estimates predict that Tesla will earn $0.50 for Q2, up from the $0.41 the company earning in Q1.

Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

Tesla’s Recent EPS HistoryTesla’s recent earnings track record has been spotty to say the least. The EV maker has missed Zacks Consensus Estimates in 6 of the past 10 quarters.

Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

Nevertheless, Tesla is exhibiting some recent signs of a turn around. Over the past two quarters Tesla has beaten Wall Street estimates by double digits and has an average EPS surprise of 5.48% over the past four.

Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

TSLA Implied Post-EPS MoveThe options market is currently pricing in a rather subdued post-EPS move of +/- $24 or 6%.

The Legacy EV Business: Volume vs. MarginsAlthough most investors own Tesla shares because they are betting on future products such as the Optimus humanoid robot and robotaxi, it’s electric vehicle business still comprises the lion’s share (~85%) of its total revenues. Last month, Tesla delivered a spectacular deliver beat when it reported ~480k vehicles for Q2. The 480K delivery number trounced Wall Street estimates of 406k and represented a 25% year-over-year increase.

However, it’s important that investors do not view the delivery number in a vacuum. Amid a sunsetting of the federal EV tax credits and a slowing EV market Tesla has offered generous promotional financing and has slashed prices in key markets such as China and Europe. The question for investors is “Will increased EV sales volumes supersede incentives or will deep discounts erode profit margins?”

Tesla EnergyTesla’s Energy business continues to be a consistent bright spot for the company. Deployments soared 40% year-over-year. Meanwhile, Tesla is expanding its energy business. SunRun ((RUN - Free Report) ) and TSLA announced a 16GW distributed energy pact targeting utilities and data center operators. Additionally, Tesla brough the largest lithium refinery in the U.S. online earlier this year. While growth will likely continue, investors will be watching to see if CAPEX stabilizes in this segment.

Future Product TimelinesTesla CEO Elon Musk has a reputation for setting extremely aggressive (and sometimes unrealistic) timelines. While these optimistic timelines can lead to increased productivity, they have been a thorn in the side of Wall Street investors, who are often hyper focused on quarterly results as opposed to long-term results. As a result, investors will want to see progress on Tesla’s Robotaxi & Cybercab commercialization, its FSD adoption rates, and Optimus and AI Compute expansion.

Bottom Line

Tesla’s Q2 EPS will answer important questions about the company’s legacy EV business, energy growth, and future product timelines. If strong delivery volumes can offset incentives and Elon Musk delivers tangible updates on autonomous tech, Tesla shares could finally get the spark they need.