Back in 2024, Tesla (TSLA +0.68%) CEO Elon Musk wrote a series of posts on X, saying that he needed 25% voting control of Tesla to feel comfortable leading it into its new era as an artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics company.
He hasn't reached that threshold yet, but he's getting close. Musk recently exercised options to boost his voting power to nearly 20%, up from 13%. Here's what it means for Tesla shareholders as Musk approaches a 25% controlling interest in the company.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Image source: The White House.
What Musk said and why it still matters
Musk wrote on X a couple of years ago that he is "uncomfortable growing Tesla to be a leader in AI & robotics" without having 25% voting control, saying, "If I have 25%, it means I am influential but can be overridden if twice as many shareholders vote against me as for me. At 15% or lower, the for/against ratio to override me makes a takeover by dubious interests too easy."
Musk has touted Tesla's focus on self-driving and its Robotaxi and Optimus humanoid robot as the company's future, and he wants a controlling interest so he can set Tesla's direction with minimal interference.
At face value, there's nothing unusual for a CEO wanting control over a company's direction. The potential problem for shareholders is that Tesla is in the midst of a massive transition from an electric vehicle company to a robotics and AI company. And it's risky.
So far, Tesla has built only hundreds of its Optimus robots (which are still not available for purchase), and its self-driving service is in the test phase in a limited number of cities. Meanwhile, some of the goals laid out in Musk's nearly $1 trillion pay package include selling 1 million robots and having 1 million Robotaxis on the road.
And Tesla hasn't performed all that well over the past couple of years. The stock is up just 51% since Musk's 2024 comments -- less than the S&P 500's 62% returns over the same period.
Musk recently increased his ownership stake in Tesla to an estimated 20%, so he's getting much closer to his originally stated goal. Those new shares won't fully vest until January 2028, but their legal structure gave Musk immediate voting power.
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A Tesla/SpaceX merger could change everything
A recent WSJ report explained that Tesla would consider half of the company's ambitious targets achieved if it were acquired or otherwise taken over.
It added that if Space Exploration Technologies (SPCX -0.91%) bought Tesla, valuing it at $2 trillion, that could result in Musk owning 32% of the combined company, with 73% voting power from Class B voting shares.
Many analysts believe that Musk will move to merge the two companies, with Gene Munster, managing partner at Deepwater Asset Management, saying recently, "I would put the odds that these two will combine at 90% today." Tesla was mentioned 87 times in SpaceX's S-1 filing ahead of its IPO.
Musk himself has mentioned the possibility many times, most recently saying on the Tesla earnings call that he couldn't talk about it, and "It's got to be done with the appropriate process." Morningstar analysts believe Tesla shareholders would only approve a deal if it gave Tesla 50% of the combined company.
All of this means that Tesla shareholders could soon face a big decision: whether they want to own a company where Musk could have even more control than the 25% he nearly has over Tesla.
A while back, Morgan Stanley's well-respected automotive analyst Adam Jonas evaluated Tesla (TSLA +0.68%) using a sum-of-the-parts model between artificial intelligence (AI), software, energy, and robotics rather than considering it a traditional automaker. What's interesting is that Jonas believes autonomous driving technology and the robotaxi business drive 41% of Tesla's valuation compared to 34% from its core automotive and energy business and about 25% from Optimus robot potential. So, when robotaxi rival Waymo of Alphabet (GOOG -0.12%)(GOOGL -0.13%) points out why Tesla's driverless technology strategy could have serious drawbacks, investors should take note.
What's going on? Recently, Alphabet's Waymo co-chief executive officer, Dmitri Dolgov, seemingly took a shot at Tesla when speaking at Y Combinator's Startup School, though he didn't name the automnaker specifically. Dolgov essentially argued that camera-only self-driving technology could be considered "weak sensing" and that the strategy would develop quickly initially before hitting a lower ceiling of capability and performance long term.
Image source: Y Combinator / Waymo co-CEO Dmitri Dolgov at Startup School 2026.
For years, the common argument for a camera-only system was that it's cheaper and that humans rely solely on vision when driving. Therefore, a camera-only system could work adequately for driverless vehicles. Dolgov essentially agreed that a camera-only system could match human performance, but that to build a driverless technology that's safer than humans, which is the entire goal, there needs to be more sensors.
Although Tesla has opted for a camera-only driverless system strategy, which enables the automaker to lower costs, Waymo opts to use three sensor types: cameras, LiDAR, and radar. "These different sensing modalities, they're not backups to each other," Dolgov said during the presentation. The data fuses into a single view of the world that he noted is "vastly superior to what you get with any one sensor."
It's true that using three sensors is better than one unless you believe all three are redundant. In my opinion, they aren't. Consider this simple scenario: A snow storm could cause a whiteout for camera-only systems, which would see next to nothing, while LiDAR in the same scenario would have no problem detecting a human or obstacle on the roadside. Even a fluke event such as mud covering the camera lens could completely shut down the driverless vehicle, whereas a Waymo vehicle with LiDAR and radar could safely navigate back to its home base to clean the camera.
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Falling behind? For Tesla investors, the criticism about camera-only systems should be concerning because there is truth to it. It's a potential speed bump for Tesla especially when you consider there are other issues with Tesla's driverless technology and robotaxi strategy, such as Tesla being on the hook to replace the self-driving computer in roughly 4 million vehicles, or figure out a way to compensate owners fairly after admitting Hardware 3 isn't powerful enough to deliver the unsupervised self-driving as advertised.
Image source: Tesla.
Another issue for Tesla investors to chew on is that the automaker has yet to deliver much transparency or a timeline for its Cybercab approval process. The vehicle needs approvals to begin charging for rides. Amazon-owned Zoox recently received approval by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to commercially deploy its purpose-built, steering-wheel-free robotaxis, enabling it to officially charge for rides, which it plans to do shortly in Las Vegas.
What it all means Simply put, investors need to be aware of not only Tesla's camera-only capability for its driverless system but the steps it needs to take for the approval process so that its robotaxi business can truly start expanding. Waymo, among other rivals, has already established a lead in the business compared to Tesla. Considering the latter's valuation is largely believed to be from its robotaxi potential, Tesla needs to play catch up fast.
The longest labor conflict in modern Swedish history is ending, and Tesla (TSLA +0.68%) won it without signing a collective agreement. Swedish union IF Metall said Thursday that it will call off its strike against the electric-car maker on Aug. 19. The walkout reached day 1,021 this week -- about 130 Tesla mechanics across seven workshops were covered when the strike began on Oct. 27, 2023, demanding the collective agreement that covers most Swedish workers.
The strike isn't ending because either side gave in at the bargaining table. By the union's own account, Tesla offered severance packages to every remaining striking member, and enough of them accepted that IF Metall has no striking members left to represent.
The sympathy actions that spread across the Nordics end with it. Dockworkers had blocked Sweden-bound Tesla cars in Denmark, Norway, and Finland, the postal service stopped delivering license plates for new Teslas, and electricians refused Tesla work.
For nearly three years, Tesla absorbed all of that rather than sign.
Elon Musk. Image source: The White House.
An unusual ending
Sweden was a strange place for Tesla to dig in. The company has no factory there. The dispute covered mechanics who service its cars, so the direct cost of meeting the union's demands would have been small.
But I'd argue the agreement itself was the stake. Tesla has never signed a collective agreement with IF Metall, and conceding one in Sweden could have handed organizers elsewhere in Europe a working template.
So the company took the harder route. It rerouted cars around the port blockades, and it went to court where it could. Eventually, it paid the last strikers to leave. The union's core issue, as it acknowledged in ending the fight, remains unresolved.
Neither side has said what the buyouts cost. Whatever the figure, it's small. The strike began with about 130 mechanics, and Tesla generated $28.2 billion of revenue in the second quarter alone.
Why the line matters more now
Tesla's willingness to spend nearly three years defending its labor model arguably makes more financial sense today than when the strike began. The company's profitability has thinned dramatically.
In the second quarter, Tesla's revenue rose 26% year over year to $28.2 billion, and it delivered a second-quarter record of 480,126 vehicles, up 25%.
But its operating margin collapsed to 1.4% from 4.1% a year earlier, as operating expenses jumped 47% year over year and lower average selling prices, mix included, pulled profitability down. Net income fell 5% to $1.11 billion. Free cash flow swung to negative $1.1 billion, too.
Capital expenditures soared 142% to $5.79 billion, part of a plan to spend more than $25 billion this year on artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure and new manufacturing capacity.
A company running margins that thin, while spending that heavily, can't easily absorb a structurally higher cost base. Collective agreements tend to raise labor costs and slow workforce changes. And that's exactly the flexibility Tesla is leaning on as it retools factories for its Optimus robot and Cybercab programs. Holding the line in Sweden preserved that flexibility across its European operations.
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The fight wasn't free
Still, the victory came with a visible cost in the market where Tesla fought.
The company registered 21,894 vehicles in Sweden in 2024, when the Model Y was the country's best-selling car. In 2025, registrations collapsed 67% to 7,252. Electrek, which has covered the strike closely, attributes the drop more to political backlash against CEO Elon Musk than to the labor dispute itself. But the two overlapped, and together they turned one of Tesla's stronger European markets into an afterthought.
However the blame gets divided, the pattern should concern shareholders -- Tesla spent nearly three years fighting 130 mechanics while its brand deteriorated in the one market where the fight played out.
Ultimately, Tesla kept the labor cost structure it wanted, in a period when its 1.4% operating margin gives it little room for anything else. That flexibility is worth a lot to a company remaking itself around robots and AI. But Sweden was a small market and a small workforce. A similar challenge in a bigger European market, with more workers involved, could cost far more than 1,021 days and a round of severance packages -- and Germany, where Tesla actually builds cars, is the market where that test would matter most.
BayBridge Capital Group LLC cut its holdings in shares of Tesla, Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA) by 54.5% during the undefined quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 1,748 shares of the electric vehicle producer's stock after selling 2,094 shares during the period.
Tesla (TSLA +0.68%) shareholders approved what could become the largest executive compensation package in corporate history. If Elon Musk achieves every performance target over the next decade, the award could eventually be worth roughly $1 trillion. That's massive.
Many criteria must be met before the award is given, and one number stands above all the others: $8.5 trillion. That's the market capitalization Tesla must reach for Musk to earn the maximum stock award under the new compensation plan.
To put that in perspective, Tesla is currently worth roughly $1.34 trillion, meaning the company would need to grow by roughly 635% to hit the final valuation milestone. Indeed, that may sound unrealistic, but it's important to understand how the package works.
Image source: Getty Images.
A structure that rewards shareholders Unlike a traditional salary or cash bonus, Musk only earns these bonus shares if Tesla meets a series of performance hurdles. Those include market capitalization targets as well as additional operational milestones designed to ensure the company's financial performance keeps pace with its valuation.
This structure will reward shareholders, assuming Tesla becomes dramatically more valuable. So this is less about whether Musk deserves the compensation and more about whether these incentives encourage decisions that increase long-term value. Supporters argue they do.
Does Musk have too much influence? If Tesla reaches an $8.5 trillion market value, shareholders will own a slightly smaller piece of the company, but it would be a much more valuable company. That's the trade-off built into the compensation plan.
But critics see it differently. They argue that the targets place too much emphasis on market capitalization, which can be influenced by investor sentiment as much as business fundamentals. Others have questioned whether such a large equity award gives Musk excessive influence over a public company that already depends heavily on his leadership.
Not a trivial amount of capital expenditures Tesla remains in the middle of one of the largest investment cycles in its history. The company is spending heavily on artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure, autonomous driving, robotics, and manufacturing capacity. Management believes those investments, not just traditional electric vehicle sales, will ultimately determine whether Tesla can justify a much higher valuation over time.
Recent quarterly capital expenditures, by the way, reached $5.8 billion, reflecting the company's aggressive push into AI and robotics. That exceeds what Domino's generated in revenue in all of 2025. Make no mistake: $5.8 billion in one quarter is not trivial.
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No guarantees Ultimately, Musk's compensation package doesn't really guarantee anything, but it does set an extraordinarily high bar that few companies have ever approached. Whether Tesla eventually reaches an $8.5 trillion market value will depend less on the compensation plan itself and more on whether the company can successfully commercialize autonomous driving, scale its robotics business, and build entirely new revenue streams beyond selling electric vehicles. If it does, shareholders are likely to benefit alongside Musk.
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Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA | TSLA Price Prediction) shares have bounced from a recent 52-week low. The stock is up more than 4% over the past week and last seen trading around $345. Zoom out and the picture reverses: down 13.5% over one month, down 23.8% year to date, and up 2.0% from a year ago. The market cap is about $1.4 trillion, and the trailing P/E is near 306x. The bounce appears to be sentiment, while the problems underneath it are structural.
Wall Street is not confident either. More analysts say hold than buy, and they have a consensus target of $396.62. Prediction markets tell a similar story: the crowd prices a $326.34 target, or roughly 5.81% downside, at high confidence.
Problem One: Strategic Sprawl Tesla is running the most expansive capital program in its history. 2026 capex is guided above $25 billion versus $8.5 billion last year. Q2 capex hit $5.79 billion, up 141.81%, while free cash flow flipped to negative $1.09 billion. Simultaneous bets include Optimus, Cybercab, robotaxi, FSD, Dojo, in-house semiconductor fabrication, lithium refining, cathode production, a proposed Texas solar plant, and a redesigned Roadster that Reuters reported may be unveiled soon. Elon Musk framed the strategy on the July call: “It’s okay to be a little less capital efficient if we get things done sooner.” That choice has a cost.
Problem Two: The Core as Cash Cow Record volume is not producing record profit. Q2 deliveries hit 480,126, up about 25% year over year, beating the 402,776 consensus. Morningstar’s Seth Goldstein said afterward it would be “very hard to see a decline for the full year.” Yet adjusted EPS came in at $0.33 versus $0.51 expected, operating margin compressed to 1.4%, and operating income fell 56.88%. Regulatory credit revenue collapsed to $146 million. Freedom Broker’s Dmitriy Pozdnyakov estimated U.S. sales likely declined at least 10% in the quarter after the EV tax credit was removed. The lineup is aging, and growth rides refreshes like the Model Y L six-seater. The auto business is being harvested to fund the moonshots.
Problem Three: Governance and Key-Person Risk The roughly $1 trillion Musk pay package passed in November 2025 over significant institutional opposition, including New York State pension officials urging rejection. Stock-based compensation tied to that award is now an explicit driver of the 47% operating expenses surge to $4.35 billion.
The board is designed to represent independent shareholder interests, but in practice it operates under the immense gravitational pull of a single individual. Tesla’s identity and valuation are inextricably tied to Musk. Running multiple major entities simultaneously (Tesla, SpaceX, X, xAI, Neuralink, and The Boring Company) creates an inherent split in his focus. Concerns arise when corporate resources appear to be deployed in ways that align with the CEO’s broader vision rather than strictly Tesla’s stand-alone bottom line.
What Would Prove the Bear Case Wrong There is a real bull case. UBS raised its target to $442 from $364, citing Optimus, FSD and Dojo. The Swedish IF Metall strike ended August 13, 2026, after nearly three years. Robotaxi has scaled to seven U.S. markets with over 380,000 unsupervised miles and zero notable incidents, growing at more than 10% a week. FSD attach rates cleared 55% of new North American deliveries, with 1.48 million active subscriptions. None of that resolves the three structural issues; it only justifies the spending if execution delivers.
Three specific things could prove the bear case wrong. First, operating margin recovering toward double digits without leaning on regulatory credits. Second, free cash flow returning to positive territory while capex stays elevated, evidence the moonshots are self-funding rather than draining the auto business. Third, a governance signal: an independent chair, a real capital allocation framework, or a credible succession plan. Until then, the chart is recovering while the fundamentals are not.
Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.
Tesla (TSLA +0.68%), an electric vehicle (EV), autonomous driving software, and energy storage company, closed at $342.27, up 0.68%. Recent momentum and TD Cowen's “buy” reiteration helped shares, while investors are watching progress in robotics and autonomous driving.
Trading volume reached 45.1 million shares, coming in roughly 4.6% above its three-month average of 43.1 million shares. Tesla IPO'd in 2010 and has grown 21,426% since going public.
How the markets moved todayThe S&P 500 (^GSPC -0.17%) closed at 7,786, down 0.17%, and the Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC -0.28%) finished at 26,729, down 0.28%. Among EV and autonomous driving peers, Rivian Automotive (RIVN -2.91%) closed at $15.36, down 2.91%, and Lucid Group (LCID -3.42%) closed at $6.22, down 3.42%.
What this means for investorsIn the midst of a two-week rally in which Tesla shares have bounced 10%, TD Cowen analyst Itay Michaeli reiterated his firm’s bullish stance on the company. Michaeli thinks investors should add Tesla shares, setting a $460 price target representing 34% upside from today’s closing price.
But it was what CEO Elon Musk said to the employees of another of his companies that might have investors jumping into Tesla stock, too. In a talk to all Space Exploration Technologies (SPCX -0.91%) employees earlier this week, Musk emphasized how quickly the company’s AI segment revenue is growing. He predicted AI revenue will surpass revenue from SpaceX’s traditional rocket and Starlink segments by next month.
Musk has repeatedly said that Tesla’s future growth will be driven by its autonomous driving and robotics segments. Those divisions are tied to SpaceXAI technology.
Advancements in SpaceXAI likely signal progress in Tesla’s automation projects as well.
Howard Smith has positions in Lucid Group, Rivian Automotive, and Tesla. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Tesla. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Tesla (TSLA) shares advanced 1% Friday morning as attention returned to the company's long-delayed Roadster, with a redesigned version potentially set for a rev
TSLA stock is moving. See the chart and price action here.
Rocket-Car Demo Nears After DelaysThe thruster package uses pressurized inert gas, the same category of hardware SpaceX relies on for attitude control during Falcon 9 booster landings, rather than combustion.
Roughly ten thrusters are expected to sit where the rear seats would normally go, and Musk has claimed the system could push the Roadster from 0 to 60 mph in about 1.1 seconds while briefly lifting the car off the pavement.
Spectators would need to stand several hundred yards back because of potential hearing damage from the high-pressure gas release, per The Information’s sourcing. The demo vehicle will reportedly be remotely operated, without a driver, and will not be street legal.
Tesla intends to sell a limited-edition SpaceX version equipped with the thruster package alongside a separate “scaled-down” variant of the car, with pricing potentially running into the hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars.
The program has a rocky history. Electrek noted the Roadster demo has missed at least eight internal deadlines, sliding from an original target date to April, then May, then June and now August.
Musk reportedly received a private preview of the A71 system from Tesla and SpaceX engineers in late April, well before the public timeline kept slipping.
Skeptics Doubt ‘Flying’ Claims Skepticism persists about how literally “flying” should be taken. Electrek previously flagged a Roadster-related patent filing that made no mention of thrusters, rocket, lift, or flight, suggesting the production hardware may diverge from years of hype.
Automotive analysts have also questioned whether a hovering feature would clear basic safety and liability hurdles for a road-legal vehicle.
Regardless of how much the car actually leaves the ground, the event doubles as a marketing showcase for Tesla-SpaceX engineering collaboration at a moment when investors are watching the product pipeline closely. No official date or broadcast plan has been confirmed by Tesla or SpaceX.
TSLA, SPCX Stock Price Activity: Tesla shares were up 0.71% at $342.36 and SpaceX shares were down 3.64% at $136.13 at the time of publication Friday, according to Benzinga Pro.
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Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) shares are fluctuating on Friday. TD Cowen reiterated a Buy rating on the stock and kept its price target unchanged at $460. Here’s what you should know.
Tesla stock is showing downward bias. What’s ahead for TSLA stock? TD Cowen Keeps Bullish Stance on TeslaTD Cowen analyst Itay Michaeli maintained a Buy rating on Tesla and held his price target at $460, implying about 32.76% upside from the stock’s current price of $346.50.
The reiteration followed a conversation TD Cowen hosted with autonomous vehicle expert Alex Roy during the firm’s Internet Bus Tour, centered on the outlook for AV ridesharing and the potential for licensing self-driving technology to automakers.
Roy told the firm that Tesla and Waymo remain the two companies best positioned to scale autonomous vehicles nationally, though each faces a different challenge. Waymo leads on safety and rollout scale but must shrink the size of its sensor hardware to make licensing to automakers realistic, while Tesla is working to improve the safety of its software even though it lacks the kind of head-to-head safety data that would let it be compared directly with Waymo.
Roy framed rider behavior as a factor that could work in Tesla’s favor over time, predicting that younger customers will likely accept whatever safety level Tesla offers as good enough for their needs, regardless of how it stacks up against Waymo’s. He also floated a longer timeline for the industry overall, telling the firm a leading U.S. company has roughly a five-year window to lock in dominant national scale.
Michaeli described his overall view on Tesla as cautiously positive, saying the Buy rating reflects confidence in the company’s AV positioning, tempered by the lack of disclosed metrics that would let investors size up Tesla’s safety record against Waymo’s.
Tesla’s Chart Shows a Stock Stuck in NeutralTesla’s chart offers some clues as to why today’s pullback hasn’t turned into something sharper. Shares are holding above their 20-day simple moving average of $328.87 and trading roughly in line with their 20-day exponential moving average of $337.65, a setup that has kept the decline from accelerating.
The bigger concern shows up further out on the chart. Tesla remains 9.2% below its 50-day moving average of $370.98, 12% below its 100-day average of $382.73 and 17.1% below its 200-day average of $406.05, a gap that keeps the intermediate and long-term trend tilted lower.
Momentum readings back up that picture of a stock caught in the middle. The relative strength index sits at 45.96, a neutral level that signals the stock isn’t oversold enough to expect a bounce or strong enough to suggest buyers are back in control. The stock’s recent momentum extremes bracket that range, with RSI hitting overbought territory around May’s swing high and oversold territory around July’s swing low.
The moving-average structure still favors sellers over the longer term. Tesla’s 20-day average remains below its 50-day average, and an April death cross, when the 50-day average fell below the 200-day, continues to keep the broader trend cautious until the stock can reclaim those higher averages. Traders are watching $355.50 as resistance, a level that lines up with a zone below the 50-day average where past rebounds have stalled, and $297.50 as support, just above the stock’s 52-week low of $297.38.
TSLA Shares Are FluctuatingTSLA Price Action: Tesla shares were up 0.07% at $340.21 at the time of publication on Friday, according to Benzinga Pro.
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Tesla’s long-delayed next-generation Roadster is expected to briefly lift off the ground at SpaceX’s rocket test site in McGregor, Texas, in a demonstration that could come as soon as August 2026, according to reporting by The Information, which cited sources familiar with the plans. The report was picked up on Aug. 14, 2026, by outlets including Electrek, Benzinga and StreetInsider, all tracing back to that original account. Neither Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA | TSLA Price Prediction) nor SpaceX has officially confirmed the details.
What Is Actually Being Shown The vehicle is best described as a hovering car rather than a science-fiction flying car. According to The Information, the Roadster is equipped with SpaceX-developed cold gas thrusters, internally code-named “A71,” that allow the car to lift off the ground briefly. The concept has reportedly been scaled back from earlier, more elaborate plans, which included driving up a magnetized ramp and driving upside down, to something closer to a straightforward hover.
The demo vehicle will be remotely operated with no driver inside, and spectators will reportedly need to stay several hundred yards back because the thrusters are loud enough to cause hearing damage at close range. The limited-edition Roadster will not be street-legal and is expected to cost in the hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars. Musk has reportedly told staff internally that the demo “could go wrong.”
Track Record The next-generation Roadster has missed its delivery date at least eight times since reservations opened in 2017.
The Stock Tesla shares are down 24.41% year to date, falling from $449.72 at the end of 2025 to $339.96 at Thursday’s Aug. 13, 2026 close. The stock traded at $338.90 on Friday, Aug. 14, down 0.31%. Over the past month, shares are down 14.19%, from $396.18 on July 14, 2026.
There are brighter spots in the data. Tesla is up 6.39% over the past week, from $319.53 on Aug. 6, 2026, and roughly flat over a full year, up 0.17% from $339.38 on Aug. 13, 2025. Over five years the stock is up 42.21%, from $239.06 on Aug. 13, 2021. Coverage has described Tesla as trailing every other “Magnificent Seven” stock in 2026.
Why the Stock Is Down Analysts and coverage have cited several factors. Vehicle deliveries have plateaued since 2023, stalling revenue growth. Operating margin has compressed to roughly 4.6% over the trailing 12 months, down from a historical peak above 15%. Tesla has guided for roughly $25 billion in capital expenditures in 2026, about double prior spending, which weighs on near-term profitability through depreciation. And investor attention and capital have rotated toward other AI-linked names, including SpaceX itself, reducing Tesla’s relative appeal as a growth story.
SpaceX remains privately held and does not trade publicly, so investors cannot directly price Musk’s other moonshot bets alongside Tesla.
What to Watch Whether a brief, remotely operated hover at a Texas test site moves shareholders focused on deliveries, margins and capital spending is an open question. The demonstration has not been officially scheduled by Tesla or SpaceX, and Musk himself has reportedly warned staff it could go wrong.
Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.
Tesla plans to unveil a redesigned Roadster as early as this month, The Information reported on Friday, nearly a decade after the electric-vehicle maker first revealed a next-generation version of its original sports car.
Tesla (TSLA) remains a dominant player in the EV industry, argues Ben Rose, pointing to growing traction in Europe and China despite the U.S. rescinding tax credits. An area of concern he sees: margin compression, especially in the energy storage business.
Shares of Tesla, Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA - Get Free Report) have been given a consensus rating of "Hold" by the forty-five ratings firms that are presently covering the company, Marketbeat.com reports. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell recommendation, nineteen have given a hold recommendation, twenty-one have given a buy recommendation and
HomeInvestingLawrence G. McMillanLawrence G. McMillanTarget, Walmart and Home Depot are the focuses of earnings reports next week, and options traders are eyeing these tradesAug. 14, 2026, 7:44 a.m. ET
While the pace of earnings releases continues to be slow, there are still some high-profile companies due to report results next week that have often led to oversized post-earnings moves in their stocks: Alibaba Group Holding, Deere, Home Depot, Target and Walmart, to name a few.
And there are different ways investors can profit from these stocks through stock options.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has been critical of unions in the past. Alex Wong/Getty Images Elon Musk's long battle with Tesla's striking workers in Sweden is finally coming to an end.
On Thursday, IF Metall said it is suspending its nearly three-year industrial action against Tesla, effective August 19, after the company bought out all of the Swedish union's striking workers.
The fractious dispute has disrupted Tesla's operations in the Scandinavian country, with dockworkers refusing to unload the company's EVs from ships and cleaners boycotting Tesla's showrooms and offices as other unions joined the fray.
The strike action, which lasted more than 1,000 days, has drawn Musk's attention, with the Tesla CEO previously calling it "insane." Musk has been sharply critical of unions in the past, and the automaker was accused of cracking down on unionization efforts in the US in 2023.
In a statement announcing the end of the industrial action, which was initially intended to force Tesla to agree to negotiations with the union over pay and working conditions, IF Metall accused the company of "systematic strikebreaking."
"We can conclude that Tesla is so strongly opposed to collective agreements that they would rather buy out employees who are members of the union than give them safe conditions," the union wrote, according to a translated announcement.
Such collective agreements are common in Sweden's heavily unionized workforce. The initial strike action, which began in 2023, covered around 120 Tesla workers.
It is unclear how many employees were bought out by Tesla or how much the company paid to resolve the strike. Tesla did not respond to a request for comment.
The Model Y maker has regularly clashed with unions in Europe. Tesla fended off an attempt by German union IG Metall to win control of a workers' body overseeing its Berlin Gigafactory earlier this year, in a fierce dispute that peaked when Tesla management accused union members of secretly recording an internal meeting.
Musk, the world's richest man, has in the past paid out large sums to draw a line under issues, either directly or through his companies. In 2018, Musk paid a $20 million SEC fine after falsely claiming to have secured funding to take Tesla private, and in 2025 reached a settlement with former top Twitter executives over unpaid severance.
Tesla's latest victory over union opposition in Sweden comes as the brand's sales in Europe recover after slumping in 2025 amid backlash over Musk's political interventions.
The automaker's European registrations surged 50% year-over-year in June, according to data from the European Automobile Manufacturers Association, and are up around 43% in Sweden so far this year.
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Key Takeaways Tesla's China sales fell sharply in July, but Shanghai-made output rose 37.8% year over year.Shanghai exports hit a record 66,330 units as Tesla shifted more production to overseas buyers.Tesla's Model Y ranked second in six-month China sales despite costing far more than budget EVs.
Tesla's (TSLA - Free Report) July vehicle sales numbers in China point in opposite directions. Deliveries in the country fell nearly 33% year on year to 27,249 vehicles and 48.51% month over month, per CnEVPost. On the surface, it looks like the company is losing ground in the world’s biggest electric vehicle (EV) market.
But in the same month, exports from Tesla's Shanghai plant hit 66,330 units, up 143.24% year on year and 83.38% from June, a new monthly record beating the previous high set in October 2022. Combined, Tesla's Shanghai-made output— domestic sales plus exports— actually rose 37.8% year on year to 93,579 units, the ninth straight month of growth.
Tesla seems to be selling fewer cars to Chinese buyers, while its Shanghai plant ships more cars than ever to buyers elsewhere. The company doesn't need to win China’s price war because it isn't fighting it. It's using Shanghai as a global export base while holding a premium position at home, and the numbers show why that's working.
China EV Price War Is Brutal but Tesla Isn't in ItEVs dominate China's car market. New energy vehicles made up 65.1% of new passenger car sales in July, up from 54% a year earlier, per China Passenger Car Association. EV makers are competing hard on price—a race Tesla has largely stayed out of, since it doesn't sell a budget model in China.
Even BYD Co Ltd (BYDDY - Free Report) , China's largest automaker, isn't immune. Its domestic passenger car sales fell more than 10% in the first half of the year, squeezed by rivals offering similar specs for less. BYD is still exporting well, but at home, the company that competed hardest on price is now losing ground to rivals doing the same thing. That's the game Tesla has opted out of.
Why Chinese Buyers Still Pay Up for TeslaIf we look at China vehicle sales rankings over the six months through July per Autohome data as cited in Forbes, Geely Automobile's (GELHY - Free Report) Xingyuan hatchback topped the charts with nearly 197,500 units — a cheap, mass-market car (priced under $15,000). Tesla's Model Y was second, with more than 180,000 units sold, at a price of $39,050 to $46,460. That's around three times the cost of the budget EVs.
BYD's best-selling model, the Yuan UP, managed fifth place with about 97,700 units. Three BYD models made it to the top 10, but none outsold the Model Y.
While cheap EVs dominate the bottom of the market, Tesla holds the top on its own. Legacy foreign brands like Volkswagen and Toyota don’t feature strongly in the rankings— Volkswagen's Lavida is the lone gasoline holdout in the top 10. That’s seemingly because Chinese buyers are less willing to pay extra for foreign badges that no longer feel premium. Tesla is the exception and benefits from strong brand perception in EVs that not many other companies carry.
Tesla isn't chasing volume in a segment defined by margin-destroying discounts— that's Geely and BYD's fight, not Tesla's. Instead, Shanghai is shipping more of its output to Europe and other markets at Tesla's own pricing.
Last WordTesla could be at risk if its brand image in China starts to fade. Volkswagen and Toyota didn't lose ground in China because their cars got worse but because Chinese consumers decided those brands weren't worth paying extra for. That's the fight worth watching. As long as Chinese buyers see Tesla as worth paying up for, it doesn't need to win China's price war. It just needs to stay above it.
The Zacks Rundown on TSLA StockShares of Tesla have declined 24% year to date, underperforming the industry.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
From a valuation standpoint, TSLA trades at a forward price-to-sales ratio of 11.84, above the industry and its own five-year average. It carries a Value Score of F.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
See how the Zacks Consensus Estimate for Tesla’s 2026 and 2027 EPS has been revised over the past 60 days.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
TSLA stock currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).
You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
(We are reissuing this article to correct a mistake. The original article, issued on August 13, 2026, should no longer be relied upon.)
Odměňování generálních ředitelů největších amerických firem dosáhlo v roce 2025 nového rekordu. Podle analýzy odborové federace AFL-CIO vzrostla průměrná odměna šéfů společností z indexu S&P 500 bez započtení mimořádných balíčků Elona Muska o 21 % na 22,8 milionu dolarů. Současně se dále rozevírají nůžky mezi vrcholovým managementem a běžnými zaměstnanci, když průměrný poměr odměn dosáhl 312 ku jedné. Odbory varují, že rostoucí využívání umělé inteligence, slabší vyjednávací pozice zaměstnanců a rychle rostoucí manažerské odměny zvyšují napětí kolem příjmové nerovnosti v americké ekonomice.
Mzdy šéfů firem zahrnutých do akciového indexu S&P 500 jsou na rekordu, a to i bez zahrnutí mimořádných balíčků odměn pro šéfa společností SpaceX a Tesla Elona Muska. S odkazem na údaje, které sesbírala AFL-CIO (Americká federace práce a Kongres průmyslových organizací), o tom píše agentura Reuters. Společnosti analýzu zveřejní během dne.
Když se nezapočtou finanční odměny generálního ředitele společností Tesla a SpaceX, vzrostlo v roce 2025 průměrné odměňování nejvyšších představitelů firem z indexu S&P 500 o 21 procent na 22,8 milionu dolarů (bezmála 479 miliard Kč). To je podle Reuters nejvyšší částka od doby, kdy nejvyšší americká odborová federace začala toto číslo v devadesátých let sledovat.
Hlavním motorem tohoto nárůstu byly obří odměny, kterými se vícero firem inspirovalo u Muskovy Tesly. Její šéf a spoluzakladatel si může, pokud splní stanovené cíle, odnést až bilion dolarů.
Včetně již odsouhlasených Muskových odměn pak dosáhla loni průměrná odměna generálních ředitelů společností z indexu S&P 500 výše 340,1 milionu dolarů (7,1 miliardy Kč), uvádí AFL-CIO.
Zároveň se zvyšuje propast mezi mzdami šéfů firem a řadových zaměstnanců. Podle tajemníka a pokladníka odborové centrály AFL-CIO Freda Redmonda brzdí mzdy zaměstnanců nástup umělé inteligence (AI). Růstu jejich mezd také brání činnost Národní rady pro pracovní vztahy (NLRB), kterou řídí republikáni. Odboroví předáci totiž vnímají tyto představitele jako nepřátelsky naladěné vůči snahám o zakládání odborů, řekl Redmond agentuře.
Oba faktory přispěly k tomu, že se průměrný poměr mezi odměnou generálního ředitele a běžného zaměstnance ve společnostech z indexu S&P 500 loni zvýšil na 312:1 (oproti 285:1 v předchozím roce), a to bez započtení odměny Elona Muska ve společnosti Tesla. Pokud se odměna Muska v Tesle do výpočtu zahrne, dosáhl loňský průměrný poměr mezi mzdami ředitelů a zaměstnanců hodnoty 5387:1.
"Když mluvíme s našimi členy, jsou naštvaní na to, co se s nimi děje, a mají pocit, že by se měli hlasitěji ozývat a upozorňovat na nerovnost," uvedl Redmond.
Tesla is planning one of its largest supercharger stations yet — right in the middle of San Francisco
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Katherine Li
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Tesla is planning a 124-stall Supercharger hub in San Francisco at 75 Waterloo Street.
Marcin Golba/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Tesla is making a major bet on demand from urban EV owners by planning an unusually large charging hub in San Francisco.
Plans filed with the city show that Tesla is planning for 124 V4 Supercharger stalls at 75 Waterloo Street, a triangular vehicle storage lot near the intersection of Alemany Boulevard and Bayshore Boulevard, alongside Highway 101.
The proposed station would be among Tesla's largest globally, and a rare project of that scale inside a major city. By comparison, Tesla's planned V4 Supercharger at 25 Mason Street, near Market Street in the city, would have 35 stalls. That permit application was submitted on May 18.
Tesla's 124-stall Supercharger hub plan, as seen in the company's permit application to the city of San Francisco.
Official Tesla Filings
Tesla's biggest charging hubs are typically built along heavily traveled interstate corridors, where land is cheaper and demand surges during road-trip season. The hub sits at the crucial location where the 101 meets Interstate 280, which leads to the Peninsula, Silicon Valley, and San Francisco International Airport. It's also not far from Bernal Heights and the Bayview, which have significant residential populations.
Some of Tesla's largest charging locations include a 200-stall station in Yeehaw Junction, Florida, and a 164-stall station in Kern County, California. While the latter became fully operational in November 2025, the largest hub in Florida has yet to open.
Based on maps submitted to the city, the 124 stalls would use a conventional parking configuration rather than the pull-through stalls Tesla has introduced at some newer locations.
The plans include a roughly 416-square-foot "micro-amenity" building.
Official Tesla Filings
The plans indicate the station would operate around the clock and include a roughly 416-square-foot "micro-amenity" building. Sketches show that the building contains two gender-neutral, accessible restrooms with diaper-changing stations, water fountains, and vending machines, as well as space for storage, cleaning equipment, and the site's security and IT systems. The vending area would offer coffee, hot drinks, and snacks.
The plans do not appear to include solar canopies or Tesla Megapack batteries, features used at some of the company's other large charging hubs. Solar canopies are typically used to lower peak-demand costs and keep chargers operating during some outages.
The latest version of the application was submitted on July 29, but the project still needs to go through the city's permitting process. No construction or opening date has been announced.
Tesla did not respond to a request for comment.
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Katherine Li
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Elon Musk received over 2.5m times as much compensation at Tesla as the company’s average worker, according to a new report on the growing gap between top corporate executives and their workers.
Musk’s $158.3bn pay deal was an outlier but came as the gap between CEO and worker pay continued to grow. Excluding Musk, last year the average ratio of CEO to worker pay for the top S&P 500 companies was 312 to 1, up from a 285:1 ratio in 2024. With Musk, the average pay ratio was 5,387:1, according to the executive pay watch report released this week by the AFL-CIO, the largest federation of labor unions in the US.
“In 2025, Elon Musk received the median Tesla worker’s pay every 4.23 seconds – less time than it takes to read this sentence,” states the report. “A majority of S&P 500 CEOs made more in one day than the median US worker made in one year.”
Average CEO pay, excluding Musk, was $22.8m in 2025, up from $18.9m in 2024. With Tesla accounted for, the average increases to $340.1m.
The report notes workers’ share of US national income has fallen to the lowest level since the second world war.
The report also looks at Donald Trump’s income in 2025. At $2.2bn, largely from his crypto holdings, Trump’s income rose nearly 254% from 2024. The median US worker would require 43,154 years to earn what Trump received in 2025.
“This is political grift unlike what we have ever seen in our lifetimes, perhaps ever, but it only tells part of the story of how CEOs and the Trump administration has rigged our economy to enrich themselves at the expense of working people,” said Fred Redmond, AFL-CIO’s secretary-treasurer.
“Trump’s radical budget bill that Republicans rammed through Congress last year, it made drastic cuts to healthcare, food assistance for children and families in order to give massive tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy.”
The report cited data demonstrating the economic struggles of most Americans; 33% of US adults have no retirement savings, 37% of adults do not have enough money to cover a $400 emergency expense, 26% of US adults have skipped medical care due to costs, and 23% of renters in the US have fallen behind on rent over the past year.
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Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the report.
“As President Trump said, he has a lot of assets because he was a massively successful businessman prior to becoming President, which was why he was elected to office in the first place,” said a White House spokesperson in an email. “All of the President’s assets are in held in fully discretionary accounts managed by independent third-party financial institutions. There are no conflicts of interest.”
The shine has come off Tesla (TSLA +1.75%) in the last few years. At one point, it was considered the definitive growth stock for investors to own, with shareholders betting that founder Elon Musk would take the lead in the emerging electric vehicle (EV) industry, along with other promises in areas like energy storage and self-driving technology.
There was no price too high to pay for owning Tesla. Now, investors have begun to sour on the EV maker, in favor of other artificial intelligence (AI) stocks, including the other Musk-led business, Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX).
In 2026, Tesla shares are down 26% year to date. Here's what the business needs to do to get the share price moving in the right direction.
Today's Change
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Upcoming AI products
Originally, Tesla was a bet on the growth of electric vehicle sales. It showed tremendous growth in scaling up production of its Model 3 and Model Y, increasing from 100,000 total deliveries in 2017 to 1.8 million in 2023. However, since 2023, total vehicle deliveries have stalled, leading to a similar stagnation in the share price.
Musk has pivoted Tesla's business toward new AI products, while keeping his chatbot and cloud computing ambitions within the xAI/SpaceX corporation. These Tesla AI products include the Cybercab, a two-seat vehicle that will be the flagship of the company's self-driving taxi network, similar to how Waymo operates today. It also has its standard full self-driving (FSD) software, which is sold on top of vehicles. It is a bit confusing because this is not necessarily fully autonomous software right now, but it has 1.48 million active subscriptions, growing 56% year over year.
Lastly, Tesla is working extensively to embed AI in robotics with its humanoid robot, Optimus. This is in even earlier days than the Cybercab, but the company is working to scale up a factory in California for humanoid robot production as we speak.
Image source: Getty Images.
Margin recovery
Besides revenue stagnation, a major deterioration in profit margins is a key reason why Tesla's stock price has struggled recently. It had an operating margin of 4.6% over the last 12 months, which is much lower than its historical peak of over 15% and has only declined in the last few years.
Margin recovery will be key to Tesla's share price recovering. An even higher hurdle for said margin recovery is being erected by guidance for a record $25 billion in capital expenditures this year, roughly double what the business spent in the last 12 months. Capital expenditures will flow through the income statement as depreciation in the future, which will be a headwind to profit margins.
This means that, to improve its profit margin, Tesla will need to grow its revenue significantly to get a return on all this capital spending. It won't be easy, but Musk has pulled plenty of miracles out of his hat before.
A merger miracle in waiting?
With Tesla's market cap at $1 trillion, the company will need to show strong growth in its AI-related hardware products for the stock price to start rising again. It can sell more vehicles, but Tesla is already valued at a higher market cap than even the world's largest automakers. Shareholders are focused on FSD and Optimus, and will be disappointed if these products don't deliver on the gains Musk promised, despite vehicle deliveries returning to growth last quarter.
Where a miracle may arrive is in a potential merger with SpaceX. During Tesla's most recent earnings call, a Wells Fargo analyst asked Musk about speculation swirling around the prospective deal. Musk said he couldn't speculate about mergers, but mentioned the growing overlap between the two businesses.
A merger could be a life vest for Tesla at a time when the stock is struggling to meet high expectations, and it seems to have a decent chance of happening over the next few years. I wouldn't buy the stock solely because of a potential merger with SpaceX, but it does add a nice potential catalyst for anyone holding shares today.
Key Takeaways Tesla's China sales fell sharply in July, but Shanghai-made output rose 37.8% year over year.Shanghai exports hit a record 66,330 units as Tesla shifted more production to overseas buyers.Tesla's Model Y ranked second in six-month China sales despite costing far more than budget EVs.
Tesla's (TSLA - Free Report) July vehicle sales numbers in China point in opposite directions. Deliveries in the country fell nearly 33% year on year to 27,249 vehicles and 48.51% month over month, per CnEVPost. On the surface, it looks like the company is losing ground in the world’s biggest electric vehicle (EV) market.
But in the same month, exports from Tesla's Shanghai plant hit 66,330 units, up 143.24% year on year and 83.38% from June, a new monthly record beating the previous high set in October 2022. Combined, Tesla's Shanghai-made output— domestic sales plus exports— actually rose 37.8% year on year to 93,579 units, the ninth straight month of growth.
Tesla seems to be selling fewer cars to Chinese buyers, while its Shanghai plant ships more cars than ever to buyers elsewhere. The company doesn't need to win China’s price war because it isn't fighting it — it's using Shanghai as a global export base while holding a premium position at home, and the numbers show why that's working.
China EV Price War Is Brutal but Tesla Isn't in ItEVs dominate China's car market. New energy vehicles made up 65.1% of new passenger car sales in July, up from 54% a year earlier, per China Passenger Car Association. EV makers are competing hard on price—a race Tesla has largely stayed out of, since it doesn't sell a budget model in China.
Even BYD Co Ltd (BYDDY - Free Report) , China's largest automaker, isn't immune. Its domestic passenger car sales fell more than 10% in the first half of the year, squeezed by rivals offering similar specs for less. BYD is still exporting well, but at home, the company that competed hardest on price is now losing ground to rivals doing the same thing. That's the game Tesla has opted out of.
Why Chinese Buyers Still Pay Up for TeslaIf we look at China vehicle sales rankings over the six months through July per Autohome data, Geely Automobile's (GELHY - Free Report) Xingyuan hatchback topped the charts with nearly 197,500 units— a cheap, mass-market car (priced under $15,000). Tesla's Model Y was second, with more than 180,000 units sold, at a price of $39,050 to $46,460. That's around three times the cost of the budget EVs.
BYD's best-selling model, the Yuan UP, managed fifth place with about 97,700 units. Three BYD models made it to the top 10, but none outsold the Model Y.
While cheap EVs dominate the bottom of the market, Tesla holds the top on its own. Legacy foreign brands like Volkswagen and Toyota don’t feature strongly in the rankings— Volkswagen's Lavida is the lone gasoline holdout in the top 10. That’s seemingly because Chinese buyers have stopped paying a premium for brands that don't carry premium status anymore. Tesla is the exception and benefits from strong brand perception in EVs that not many other companies carry.
Tesla isn't chasing volume in a segment defined by margin-destroying discounts — that's Geely and BYD's fight, not Tesla's. Instead, Shanghai is shipping more of its output to Europe and other markets at Tesla's own pricing.
Last WordTesla could be at risk if its brand image in China starts to fade. Volkswagen and Toyota didn't lose ground in China because their cars got worse but because Chinese consumers decided those brands weren't worth paying extra for. That's the fight worth watching. As long as Chinese buyers see Tesla as worth paying up for, it doesn't need to win China's price war. It just needs to stay above it.
The Zacks Rundown on TSLA StockShares of Tesla have declined 26% over the past year, underperforming the industry.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
From a valuation standpoint, TSLA trades at a forward price-to-sales ratio of 11.6, above the industry and its own five-year average. It carries a Value Score of F.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
See how the Zacks Consensus Estimate for Tesla’s 2026 and 2027 EPS has been revised over the past 60 days.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
TSLA stock currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).
You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
When it comes to Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA), the electric vehicle giant is notorious for not partaking in much traditional advertising, instead relying on word of mouth and strong sales and ratings to help spotlight the brand. Investor Gary Black believes the company needs a marketing plan for its upcoming new products.
As Tesla pushes beyond electric vehicles into new products, Black believes the company needs to reset.
"Despite a $1.3T market cap, TSLA has not invested in the marketing leadership needed to expand its business beyond EVs to autonomous driving and Optimus," Black tweeted.
The Future Fund managing partner said Tesla needs to "invest in long-term marketing strategy and branding" alongside having a talent team of engineers and product builders.
Black compares the necessity to perhaps one of the greatest product marketers of all time, Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL).
"Without great marketing, $AAPL would not be a $4.4T market cap company. Great products do not just sell themselves through word-of-mouth and the CEO’s posts on X."
The investor says that Tesla has made strategic mistakes in the EV business, such as failing to launch a compact vehicle to expand its total addressable market or a conventional pickup truck. These missteps may have been avoided if Tesla had "long-term marketing thinking" at the company, Black said.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has said the Optimus and robotaxis could be trillion-dollar revenue drivers and the most important products in the company’s history.
The company shows off these products during earnings calls and shareholder events, but likely will not be doing TV commercials, online ads or other traditional marketing methods used by other tech companies.
For those buying Apple products, there’s a good chance they’ve seen a commercial for the product, or a brightly colored poster in a window somewhere. Those marketing methods go alongside Apple’s traditional product showcase events and social media posts.
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Tesla Stock UnderperformingIn the tweet, Black says that Tesla’s lack of marketing efforts could be why the stock has "significantly underperformed" the market over the last five years.
Black shares the five-year performance of Tesla stock vs. the Nasdaq 100 in the tweet. Here’s a look at Tesla stock vs. the Invesco QQQ Trust (NASDAQ:QQQ), which tracks the Nasdaq 100 and the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (NYSE:SPY), which tracks the S&P 500.
Stock/ETFYear-to-Date PerformanceOne-Year PerformanceFive-Year PerformanceTesla-24.8%-3.0% +37.8% SPY+13.5%+20.3% +74.0% QQQ+18.8% +25.5% +97.5% The table shows that Tesla stock has underperformed against the two market indexes year-to-date, over the last 52 weeks, and over the last five years, by a significant margin.
"Key question: What’s going to change this?"
Black says Tesla investors are clinging to "misplaced hope" that SpaceX is going to buy the company later this year.
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Photo courtesy: Giovanni Cancemi / Shutterstock.com
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Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA | TSLA Price Prediction) presents one of the market’s clearest disconnects right now. More analysts rate the stock a hold than a buy, yet the consensus price target keeps drifting higher.
Our 24/7 Wall St. price target for Tesla is $402.67, implying 22.95% upside from the current $327.51 price. That translates to a buy rating with a confidence level of 90%. The model leans positive despite an analyst community that skews neutral.
Metric Value Current Price $327.51 24/7 Wall St. Price Target $402.67 Upside 22.95% Recommendation BUY Confidence 90% A Rough Summer After a Punishing Earnings Reaction Tesla is down 27.17% year to date and 17.04% over the past month, though shares have edged up 1.85% in the last week. The stock trades well below its 52-week high of $498.83 and near the low of $297.38. Q2 2026 explains most of the decline.
Tesla posted revenue of $28.24 billion, up 25.52% year over year and beating consensus by 7.10%. Non-GAAP EPS of $0.33 missed the $0.5367 estimate by 38.51% as operating expenses jumped 47% on AI infrastructure, R&D, and the CEO Performance Award.
Deliveries hit a record 480,126 vehicles and FSD subscriptions reached 1.48 million, but free cash flow swung to negative $1.09 billion. Shares fell 14.52% on the report.
The Case for $474 and Higher In our bull scenario, Tesla reaches $474.14 within twelve months, a 44.77% total return. Robotaxi is the swing factor. The service runs in seven US metros, and Elon Musk said unsupervised miles are growing “more than 10% a week.”
Optimus lines are being installed at Fremont, Megapack 3 is on track for 2026, and Cybercab engineering drives are underway. UBS upgraded the stock earlier this year, citing the long-term AI opportunity balancing near-term demand risk.
What Could Go Wrong Our bear case takes Tesla to $358.43, still a 9.44% return but well below the base case. CFO Vaibhav Taneja confirmed capex will exceed $25 billion this year and grow for two to three more. Operating margin collapsed to 1.4% in Q2.
Prediction markets assign only a 10.5% probability to an Optimus release by year end. Bulls counter that the OpEx surge reflects AI compute and CEO Performance Award vesting, both non-recurring drags on the reported EPS line.
How Tesla Compares to Rivian and Ford Rivian (NASDAQ:RIVN) is the closest pure-play EV comparable. Rivian carries a market cap of $23 billion against Tesla’s $1.31 trillion, and posted a Q1 2026 adjusted loss of $0.54 per share. It trades at a negative earnings multiple, which makes Tesla’s 169x forward P/E look expensive on paper but reasonable given actual profitability.
Ford (NYSE:F) offers the legacy contrast. Ford raised full-year 2026 adjusted EBIT guidance to $8.5 billion to $10.5 billion and pays a 5.5% dividend yield. Its Model e segment is still losing $4 billion to $4.5 billion annually. Ford is priced as a mature manufacturer; Tesla is priced on AI, robotics, and autonomy. That framing supports our buy, though it explains why 18 analysts sit on the sidelines.
Tesla Price Prediction 2026-2030 The 24/7 Wall St. model output is buy at $327.51 with a price target of $402.67 and 90% confidence. The bull thesis rests on robotaxi miles compounding as management describes, while the key downside catalyst would be FSD approvals in China and Europe slipping further into 2027.
Extending the model forward, here is where Tesla could trade if the base-case trajectory holds.
Year 24/7 Wall St. Price Target 2026 $402.67 2027 $455 2028 $510 2029 $560 2030 $607.17 These projections assume Tesla executes on robotaxi scaling and Optimus production. Meaningful upside or downside will hinge on FSD regulatory approvals and the return on that $25 billion annual capex commitment.
Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.
Elon Musk’s net worth is surging this week as the SpaceX stock recovery gains steam and as analysts suggest that it has more upside ahead.
Data shows that Musk’s wealth is bouncing back this week. According to Bloomberg, he added $65 billion in wealth on Wednesday, bringing his total wealth to $884 billion. He has added $ 265 billion to his wealth this year and is now richer than the other three people, combined.
Larry Page has a net worth of $295 billion, while Jeff Bezos and Sergey Brin are worth $288 billion and $275 billion, combined.
The rising net worth means that Musk will likely hit a trillionaire status again in the coming days. Most importantly, according to the WSJ, he has a chance of accelerating his $1 trillion pay day if he successfully merges Tesla and SpaceX.
Elon Musk’s wealth has supercharged this week as SpaceX stock has bounced back. After bottoming at $104 after earnings and employee lockup expiry, it has surged to $146 as investors buy the dip.
The stock has also soared as analysts boosted their estimates. In a recent note, Morgan Stanley, which took part in its IPO, said that the stock may eventually surge to $300. Such a move would push its market capitalization to over $3.95 trillion, with Musk’s stake being worth over $1.4 trillion.
Morgan Stanley cited the company’s AI business, which it believes is being underappreciated. Its AI business is made up of xAI, which includes Grok, a top rival to ChatGPT and Claude.
It also owns AI data centers on earth, with Musk planning to launch orbital data centers as early as 2028. Its data center business, which competes with the likes of CoreWeave and Nebius, is seeing strong demand from companies like Google, Anthropic, and Reflection AI.
Its last earnings report showed that its AI business brought in the second most revenue after its connectivity business. It made over $4.2 billion in revenue. However, its high costs means that it made a $1.2 billion loss. It is also consuming the most amount of money, with its capital expenditure rising to $15.8 billion.
Tesla remains a major challenge for Elon MuskWhile SpaceX’s shares are doing well, Tesla remains a major challenge, with its stock trading at $327, down sharply from the all-time high of $499. Musk owns a nearly 20% stake in Tesla.
The most recent earnings report showed that Tesla’s revenue did well in the second quarter as deliveries rose. As a result, its revenue jumped by double digits, possibly as customers moved to EVs as gasoline prices soared. However, Tesla’s free cash flow turned negative as its AI spending gained momentum.
Tesla has other challenges as well. For example, its robotaxi business is seeing slow growth, with competition from Waymo intensifying. At the same time, its Optimus robot is still an unproven business. As we saw with the Cybertruck, there is a risk that this robot will not be all that successful.
Additionally, Tesla is still highly valued, with its forward price-to-earnings ratio being 185. In contrast, other vehicle manufacturers trade with single digit earnings multiples.
Stock-market fortunes can change quickly when ownership is measured in billions of shares. Elon Musk got a fresh reminder of that yesterday when SpaceX (NASDAQ:SPCX | SPCX Price Prediction) jumped 10% to $146.15, adding roughly $66 billion to his wealth in a single trading session.
Two months ago, the SpaceX IPO briefly pushed Musk above the $1 trillion threshold. Then the stock collapsed below $105 and took his trillionaire crown with it. Now the comeback is underway — and Musk may need only one more 20% rally to reclaim it.
SpaceX Has Already Made One Big Comeback SpaceX priced its June 12 IPO at $135 a share and opened at $150. The stock quickly climbed, eventually reaching $225.64 on June 16 and briefly making Musk the world’s first trillionaire, according to Bloomberg and Forbes.
Then gravity took over. SpaceX eventually fell below $105, wiping hundreds of billions of dollars from Musk’s paper fortune.
That decline has now reversed as SpaceX has gained about 40% in less than two weeks, including Wednesday’s 10% jump. The stock is finally back above its $135 IPO price, although it remains below where it began trading two months ago.
Ironically, the biggest test for the stock produced the opposite result investors expected.
The Lockup Didn’t Break SpaceX On Aug. 6, the first major post-IPO lockup expired, making another $100 billion worth of shares eligible for trading. Between now and October, newly available shares will more than double the stock’s tradable supply. Yet, instead of collapsing, SpaceX continued higher.
One likely explanation is positioning. SpaceX had attracted substantial short interest, and the absence of the expected wave of selling gave short sellers a reason to cover. That buying can become self-reinforcing when a heavily shorted stock moves higher.
Although a larger float creates more potential selling pressure, it doesn’t guarantee that sellers will win. Price ultimately depends on the balance between buyers and sellers.
Musk Needs About 20% More Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index put Musk’s fortune around $884 billion on Aug. 12, while Forbes’ real-time estimate is roughly $890 billion. SpaceX remains the dominant piece, alongside Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) and smaller holdings including Neuralink and The Boring Company.
Bloomberg cites roughly 4.76 billion SpaceX shares plus 352.5 million options with an exercise price around $8.40. Forbes has used similar ownership figures.
At $146.15, that works out to roughly:
Holding Approximate Value 4.76 billion SpaceX shares $701.5 billion 352.5 million SpaceX options $48.2 billion 699.6 million Tesla shares ~$225 billion Exclusion of some restricted/performance-based TSLA and SPCX options – ~$90 billion Total SpaceX + Tesla ~$880 billion to $890 billion The important number for investors is this: every $1 move in SpaceX changes the value of Musk’s counted SpaceX stake by roughly $5 billion. Yesterday’s $12.86 per share gain therefore added about $66 billion.
At current Tesla prices and assuming nothing else changes, SpaceX likely needs to reach roughly $168 to $175 for Musk to regain trillionaire status. That’s about a 15% to 20% gain from yesterday’s close.
Key Takeaway Musk doesn’t need SpaceX to revisit its $225.64 peak to become a trillionaire again. He needs something closer to $170 a share. That makes the next 20% surprisingly important. Granted, SpaceX remains a young public company with enormous valuation and volatility risks. The lockup expirations will also continue increasing the available float. But the stock has already demonstrated that those risks don’t automatically translate into lower prices.
For investors, the bigger question isn’t whether Musk can become a trillionaire again. It’s whether SpaceX’s underlying businesses can grow fast enough to justify a stock price that gets him there.
Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.
Elon Musk said Tesla and SpaceX are each working on building 100 GW of solar manufacturing capacity in the US. Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images Tesla has revealed a $10.1 billion proposal for a solar factory in Texas, offering the clearest look yet at how CEO Elon Musk could pursue his ambitions to ramp up solar manufacturing in the US, documents show.
In a tax-incentive application filed in Texas, Tesla proposed a solar factory, code-named Project Crystal Sun, that would be built in Fort Bend County, southwest of Houston. The application said the facility would be expected to begin commercial operations in the first quarter of 2029 and employ more than 9,700 people full time.
The application doesn't detail the factory's gigawatt output capacity, but cites a statement Musk made at the World Economic Forum in January about his two companies' solar ambitions.
"The SpaceX and Tesla team, both separately, are working to build to 100 GW a year of solar power in the US — of manufactured solar power," he said. "That'll probably take us three years or something. These are pretty big numbers, and I'd encourage others to do the same."
For comparison, the Solar Energy Industries Association reported in August that the US currently has 74.1 GW of operational module manufacturing capacity, which is enough to supply about 170% of expected US demand in 2026.
The Texas filing provided clues into how deep Tesla wants to go with its solar manufacturing capabilities. The company said it would manufacture "photovoltaic solar cells and/or assembled solar modules," while listing equipment related to key stages further up the solar supply chain.
A Tesla spokesperson and representatives for Project Crystal Sun did not respond to a request for comment.
Musk has increasingly focused on solar as an energy source for Tesla's AI and robotics ventures, Business Insider previously reported. Tesla also said in its July second-quarter shareholder deck that site selection, preparation, construction, and equipment procurement for solar and semiconductor manufacturing have "progressed."
Beyond Tesla, hyperscalers like Meta have shown how AI is fueling demand for new energy infrastructure. In Louisiana, a solar project is being built to help power Meta's massive Hyperion AI data center.
Crystal Sun is not a done deal. Tesla said it's considering another US location and that the Texas site would be less competitive without the economic incentives.
Tesla is seeking approval from state and local officials for tax incentives tied to the project. If that moves forward, the company said it expects construction to begin this year and finish in 2028.
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Elon Musk’s Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA | TSLA Price Prediction) stake is one of the largest personal equity positions in American history, and depending on how a tax proposal now circulating in Washington gets written, a meaningful slice of any future tax bill on it could simply disappear.
Musk beneficially owns roughly 700 million Tesla shares — about a 19.9% stake — built from a mix of decades-old founder shares and freshly exercised stock options. The Trump administration is developing a capital gains package that would index cost basis to inflation, a change National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett has confirmed is part of a broader midterm election tax push.
For an investor whose earliest Tesla money went in back in 2004, that’s not a small detail. Let’s work through what indexing would actually do to Musk’s tax bill — and where the number stops being impressive and starts being a rounding error.
Not All 700 Million Shares Are Created Equal Musk’s position splits into two very different tax situations. Roughly 413 million shares sit in the Elon Musk Revocable Trust — the long-held core position dating back to Tesla’s 2004 Series A, when Musk put in about $6.5 million alongside later rounds that brought his cumulative founder-related investment to around $291 million. After two stock splits (5-for-1 in 2020, 3-for-1 in 2022, a combined 15-for-1), the split-adjusted basis on those early shares is exceptionally low.
The other roughly 286 million net shares came from exercising 2018 CEO performance options in June at a $23.34 strike price, carrying a basis near the fair market value at exercise — north of $400 a share. With Tesla trading around $325 today, those recently exercised shares currently show little or no taxable gain at all, meaning indexing would do essentially nothing for them.
Basis Assumption Inflation Uplift Estimated Tax Savings Very low basis (~$1, split-adjusted) Modest relative to $325+ price Low tens to low hundreds of millions Higher basis (later rounds, options) Larger absolute uplift Hundreds of millions to low single-digit billions Either way, the combined federal long-term capital gains rate — 20% plus a potential 3.8% Net Investment Income Tax, for a roughly 23.8% total — applies only to whatever gain indexing leaves on the table. Tesla’s stock has compounded hundreds of times over since Musk’s earliest investments, dwarfing the 1.5x to 1.8x inflation adjustment.
In short, the phantom-inflation portion of Musk’s gain is real, but it’s a sliver next to the genuine business appreciation Tesla has delivered.
A Proposal, Not a Payout That said, none of this happens automatically or soon. Republican Sens. Ted Cruz and Tim Scott have pushed similar indexing language, and other lawmakers have urged Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to implement it through executive action — but nothing has become law. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget has warned that this version of the policy could add $170 billion to $950 billion to the national debt by 2035, a cost that invites political resistance regardless of who benefits.
And for Musk specifically, most of his position remains unrealized; existing step-up-in-basis rules at death would already erase the gain for his heirs unless those rules change too.
Key Takeaway Indexing capital gains to inflation would meaningfully lower Musk’s eventual tax bill on his long-held Tesla trust shares — plausibly by hundreds of millions of dollars, conceivably more — but it wouldn’t come close to zeroing it out, since the overwhelming majority of his gain reflects real appreciation, not inflation. His recently exercised options get essentially no benefit at all.
Investors should treat this as a data point on how indexing behaves for concentrated, high-conviction founders, not as a signal to reposition around a tax policy that hasn’t been written into law.
Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.
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Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA | TSLA Price Prediction) currently trades at $332.81, while Wall Street’s consensus price target sits at $396.62, implying roughly 19% of upside if analysts are right.
Wedbush’s Dan Ives carries a Street-high $600 price target on the stock, implying about 80% in potential gains. His thesis treats Tesla as an AI and robotics company that happens to build cars.
Tesla’s core business remains electric vehicles, energy storage, and autonomous driving software. Wall Street is watching because near-term financials have deteriorated sharply while management pours cash into Robotaxi, Optimus, and AI infrastructure.
The Q2 Miss That Reset the Narrative Tesla posted non-GAAP EPS of $0.33 against a $0.5367 estimate, missing expectations by 38.51%, while revenue of $28.24 billion beat by 7.1%.
Operating expenses jumped 47% year over year to $4.35 billion, capex surged 141.81% to $5.79 billion, and free cash flow flipped to negative $1.09 billion. Operating margin collapsed to 1.4%. Record deliveries of 480,126 vehicles and a 56% jump in FSD subscriptions to 1.48 million could not offset the profit shock.
Tesla is down 18.38% over the past month, trading below both its 50-day moving average of $378.22 and its 200-day moving average of $408.24. Recent recalls tied to excessively bright headlights on more than 20,000 Model 3 and Model Y vehicles and Autopilot scrutiny have kept sentiment defensive.
Why the Bull Case Just Got Louder Analysts have not folded because the spending they dislike funds AI, autonomous software, and robotics. Ives applies a tech-like multiple of roughly 214x estimated 2026 EPS to build his $600 target, projecting a $2 trillion to $3 trillion market cap as those businesses scale.
Robotaxi has expanded to seven US metros including Austin, Dallas, Houston, Miami, Orlando, and Tampa. Cybercab production started at Gigafactory Texas, Optimus lines are being installed at Fremont targeting 2026 output, and FSD attach rate has cleared 55% of new North American deliveries. Morgan Stanley is more cautious but argues Tesla needs tangible proof of the Robotaxi flywheel before conviction returns.
Of 47 analysts covering Tesla, 23 rate it Buy or Strong Buy, 18 rate it Hold, and 6 rate it Sell or Strong Sell. Recent activity has been reiterations rather than upgrades or downgrades.
How the EV Peer Group Stacks Up Rivian (NASDAQ:RIVN) trades near $16.43 against a consensus target of $19.23, roughly 17% of upside. Q1 revenue of $1.38 billion beat, but free cash flow was negative $1.08 billion. Ratings run 12 Buy, 8 Hold, 5 Sell, with the R2 launch as the key swing factor.
Lucid Group (NASDAQ:LCID) sits around $6.61 versus a $8.20 target, or about 24% upside. Q2 delivered a 20% EPS miss and a $299 million inventory write-down. Analysts skew 1 Buy, 8 Hold, 3 Sell.
General Motors (NYSE:GM) trades near $87.96 against a $100.04 target, roughly 14% of upside. GM raised full-year adjusted EPS guidance to $12.00 to $14.00 after a Q2 beat, and 22 of 28 analysts rate it Buy or Strong Buy.
Tesla holds the largest outlier upside in the group through Ives’ $600 call.
What the Stock Actually Says Tesla trades at $332.81, down 26% year to date, while the S&P 500 is up 13% over the same span. The stock sits closer to its 52-week low of $297.38 than its high of $498.83.
The consensus $396.62 target on 47 analysts translates to 19% of upside. The bull outlier at $600 implies 80%. Prediction markets assign only 14.5% probability to an Optimus release by year-end, a core Ives catalyst.
Tesla trades at a forward P/E of 169, meaning the bull case is already partially embedded even at this reset price.
Where I Land on Tesla Here The bull case works at these levels if the AI and robotics thesis plays out as a 2027 to 2028 story. Robotaxi scales beyond the current seven metros, Optimus reaches meaningful volume, FSD attach rates climb past 55%, and current spending generates recurring software margins. That path leads to $396.62 and toward Ives’ $600.
The bear case dominates if capex outruns commercialization. Free cash flow is already negative $1.09 billion, operating margin has been reduced to 1.4%, and a forward P/E near 169 leaves no margin for slipping timelines. Prediction market probabilities suggest the crowd is not yet buying the roadmap.
My lean is cautiously constructive. Tesla is meaningfully cheaper than a month ago, and optionality on AI and robotics has real value. One clean quarter of margin stabilization is the key marker to watch before assuming the worst is over.
Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.
Image Credits:View Stock (opens in a new window) / Getty Images Tesla intends to build a massive solar panel factory 45 minutes southwest of Houston, according to documents filed with the state of Texas.
The new factory, called Project Crystal Sun, could cost as much as $10.1 billion. Tesla has applied for tax incentives to partially offset the cost, saying that it is exploring other sites “across multiple U.S. states.” The factory would create about 9,700 full-time jobs, Tesla said.
Without incentives, Tesla’s accountants estimated that the property tax liability for the project would be about $1.1 billion over 37 years.
The project aims to break ground this year and be completed by 2028, and Tesla said the first solar panels would roll off the line in 2029. The company hasn’t indicated whether the panels would be destined for terrestrial installations or satellites. However, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who also runs SpaceX, is famously bullish on orbital data centers.
In the filings, Tesla did not publicly disclose the factory’s annual output, though it has said that it plans to build 100 gigawatts’ worth of manufacturing capacity in the U.S. by 2028.
Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA | TSLA Price Prediction) and BYD (OTC: BYDDF) just gave investors a fresh way to argue an old question. Tesla’s Q2 2026 report leaned harder into AI, robotaxis, and Optimus. BYD keeps compounding through vertical integration and vehicle volume. One asks you to pay for optionality. The other asks you to trust the factory floor.
Software Bets Squeeze Tesla. Scale Keeps BYD Steady. Tesla delivered 480,126 vehicles and posted revenue of $28.24B, up 25.5% year over year, beating consensus by 7.1%. That is a strong top line. The problem sits below it. Non-GAAP EPS of $0.33 missed the $0.5367 estimate, operating margin fell to 1.4%, and free cash flow flipped to negative $1.09B as capex ran to $5.79B. AI compute in Texas more than doubled during H1 2026, and Services revenue jumped 50% to $4.58B. The message: management is spending today to unlock software, energy, and robotaxi revenue tomorrow.
BYD does not file with the SEC, so quarterly disclosure is thin here. Its story is qualitatively different. Blade Battery integration, DM-i hybrid volume, and mass-market pricing anchor a hardware business built for cash-flow durability rather than valuation multiples.
Premium Optionality vs. Present-Day Manufacturing Lens Tesla BYD Core Bet AI, FSD, Optimus, Megapack Vertical integration, hybrid volume Valuation P/E 347 Traditional hardware multiple 1-Year Price -1.83% -18.56% YTD Price -26% -5.74% Tesla’s FSD attach rate above 55% of new North American deliveries and 1.48M active subscriptions hint at the recurring software layer bulls keep pointing to. BYD is the counter-argument. It sells more cars, in more places, with fewer bells and whistles, and it lets the balance sheet do the talking. The choice is between paying up for long-dated software optionality and buying present-day manufacturing dominance.
The Next Test Is Whether Capex Converts I will keep an eye on Tesla’s robotaxi footprint, now live in 7 U.S. metros, and whether Cybercab production at Gigafactory Texas stays on schedule. Reddit sentiment turned bearish after the report, with r/stocks focused on capex inefficiency and margin pressure, while wallstreetbets swung bullish (70-75) into early August. Polymarket assigns just a 14.5% probability to an Optimus release by year-end. For BYD, the watch item is export share in Europe, LatAm, and Southeast Asia.
Why I Lean BYD for Patience and Tesla for Conviction Personally, if I want compounding without needing a narrative to hold, I lean BYD. Manufacturing dominance is unglamorous, but it prints cash. If I already believe autonomy and Optimus are real, Tesla at $332.81 is the conviction trade, and the $43.5B cash pile buys time. Margin compression continuing into the next quarter would be the key signal to watch on both names.
Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.
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Elon Musk reframed how investors should think about the company at a SpaceX all-hands meeting, telling employees that artificial intelligence revenue is on track to exceed every other line of the space business as soon as September 2026. This marks a striking development for the business, as SpaceX is still primarily associated with rockets, satellites, and the Starlink broadband network.
Musk’s framing was blunt. “Definitely our AI revenue will exceed all other space revenue probably in September, like next month,“ he told the room, adding that “we’ll significantly exceed all other space revenue in the fourth quarter.“ He went further on strategy: “AI has become an extremely important part of SpaceX’s future. I think it’s actually vital that we succeed in AI, not just in hardware, but also in software.” And on the long arc: “The future is fundamentally AI and robots.”
SpaceX’s AI Revenue Could Overtake Rockets Next Month Until this year, most sum-of-the-parts models on SpaceX leaned on three buckets: launch services, Starlink connectivity, and a growing national-security business. Musk’s comments push AI into the top slot on the revenue stack with an aggressive timeline.
If AI revenue tops all other space revenue in September and significantly exceeds it in the fourth quarter, the company will end 2026 looking like a hyperscaler that happens to own the world’s dominant launch provider.
The connectivity opportunity Starlink targets is expected to be roughly $1.6 trillion, while the AI market SpaceX is now chasing is estimated at $26.5 trillion. Analysts described SpaceX as effectively Musk’s AI holding company, noting that the majority of revenue within the next year will come from renting data centers on Earth.
SpaceX Is Starting to Look Like an AI Hyperscaler Musk’s emphasis on succeeding in both hardware and software lines up with the compute build-out already in motion. SpaceX’s AI spacecraft program is set to consume roughly 75% of the annual AI compute capacity from the new Terafab facility in Grimes County, Texas, with Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA | TSLA Price Prediction)’s Optimus program taking about 25%.
The facility targets 1 terawatt of annual AI compute capacity at full scale and is expected to create more than 3,000 jobs in Texas. Musk and Tesla are jointly committing $16.8 billion to the complex.
On the software side, the previously reported acquisition of AI coding platform Cursor for $60 billion could deliberately position SpaceX against Anthropic, OpenAI, and the hyperscalers. Musk has said before that SpaceX will launch more AI than the cumulative amount of everything else on Earth, and that within 36 months, space will be the cheapest place to put AI.
What to Watch Next The near-term milestones are straightforward. Investors should watch whether Musk’s September revenue crossover appears in SpaceX’s next disclosure, what portion of AI revenue comes from terrestrial data centers versus spacecraft compute and software, and how quickly Terafab begins adding capacity.
If AI revenue surpasses the rest of SpaceX’s business as soon as September, investors might start viewing SpaceX as one of the world’s most ambitious AI infrastructure platforms.
Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.
The Electric Vehicle industry is rebounding. Tesla, Inc.'s Q2 '26 earnings report is showing that car deliveries are back on track and Robotaxi efforts continue as planned. Next year will be Tesla's “iTruck moment” in which Semi “Class 8” truck deliveries will soar.
The market is watching an industrial sector powerhouse attempt to rewrite its fundamental DNA in real time. Tesla, Inc. NASDAQ: TSLA is aggressively pivoting from a traditional electric vehicle manufacturer into an autonomous mobility and AI network. This ambitious transition comes with an immediate financial reckoning. As full-year capital expenditures are tracking to exceed $25 billion, quarterly free cash flow recently turned negative to $1.09 billion.
Tesla Today
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52-Week Range$297.38▼
$498.83P/E Ratio301.35
Price Target$401.74
Strip away the futuristic narrative, and Tesla's core automotive business is facing severe pressure. Price reductions across key global markets continue to squeeze profitability.
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Operating margins compressed to a razor-thin 1.4% during the second quarter of 2026, while adjusted EBITDA came in around $3.27 billion. Adjusted earnings arrived at 33 cents per share, missing Wall Street expectations, even as top-line quarterly revenue showed resilience at approximately $28.24 billion.
What does a 1.4% operating margin mean for a heavy manufacturing operation? It leaves almost zero room for error. Unit volume growth is no longer preserving net margins or return on equity. The entire valuation thesis now rests almost entirely on software monetization and progress in physical AI. Tesla is actively decommissioning traditional assembly lines at its Fremont facility to build dedicated Optimus robotics lines, funneling billions into Gigafactory Texas for Cybercab tooling.
Wall Street Demands Proof of the Robotaxi FlywheelHigh-conviction institutional investors demand concrete operational proof points rather than forward-looking guidance. Morgan Stanley NYSE: MS recently issued notes highlighting that long-term institutional confidence hinges on tangible progress in the Robotaxi division. The market needs to see actual vehicle deployment density in active metropolitan areas and exponential growth in unsupervised driverless miles.
The ultimate goal is to demonstrate the unit economics of the Robotaxi network, targeting an operating cost of around 81 cents per mile.
If Tesla hits or beats this metric, the high valuation multiples are easily justified by the sheer scale of the global transportation market. If the deployment data fails to demonstrate scalable cash flow, the narrative premium built into the stock begins to evaporate.
There is a highly lucrative bright spot in the current software transition. Full Self-Driving attach rates on new North American deliveries reached about 55%, significantly outpacing early Wall Street projections. Converting these software subscriptions into high-margin driverless mobility remains the central hurdle, but this level of consumer adoption proves that direct-to-consumer software monetization is accelerating.
Software revenue carries incredibly high margins, which is exactly the lifeline the balance sheet needs to offset the brutal physical electric vehicle price war. The current environment presents a race against the clock. Tesla needs to scale its higher-margin software revenue fast enough to bridge the gap left by falling automotive profits.
Energy Storage Offers a Much-Needed Revenue BufferWhile automotive margins are in decline, the commercial energy storage division continues to scale as a vital secondary growth driver. The Megapack business provides a non-automotive revenue stream that helps absorb the elevated capital expenditures for AI.
Commercial execution was recently highlighted by SpaceX's NASDAQ: SPCX purchase of approximately $300 million in Megapacks to supply power for dedicated data center infrastructure. This internal cooperation showcases a broader blueprint for AI data center energy demand, proving that Tesla has viable, high-margin revenue streams beyond selling consumer vehicles. Energy generation and storage now represent a critical stabilizer for the bottom line, keeping the autonomous dream funded while the core auto segment fights a grueling war of attrition.
A 300x Multiple Teeters on Deployment MetricsTrading at over 300 times trailing earnings, Tesla assumes substantial future cash flows from high-margin software revenues. For context, legacy automakers generally trade at single-digit multiples. This valuation gap creates a highly volatile, data-dependent environment. If the upcoming Robotaxi operational data fails to confirm scalable unit economics, the stock could face a severe downward re-rating towards a multiple more typical of the automotive sector.
Tesla, Inc. (TSLA) Price Chart for Wednesday, August, 12, 2026
The options market reflects this exact vulnerability. Options positioning for Tesla leans heavily toward downside protection, with a put-to-call ratio sitting near 1.18. Traders currently hold significantly more put contracts, instruments used to bet on or protect against a price drop, than call contracts. The options' max pain level is anchored around $320. Max pain is the price at which the most options contracts expire worthless, and it often acts as a magnetic anchor for the stock price as expiration approaches. Thirty-day implied volatility remains elevated at nearly 44%, suggesting market makers are pricing in severe price swings ahead.
Short interest currently sits at roughly 70 million shares, representing nearly 3% of the available float. While some short covering occurred recently, this level of bearish betting indicates that a well-capitalized portion of the market expects the autonomous pivot to stumble over regulatory or manufacturing hurdles. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration recently initiated recalls and preliminary investigations concerning potential suspension safety issues, adding regulatory friction to the operational headwinds.
The Autonomy Gamble Reaches Its Tipping PointThe transition from bending metal to deploying scalable artificial intelligence requires unparalleled capital. Expanding commercial Robotaxi operations across a dozen target states by year-end burns cash rapidly. The market is currently forgiving the negative free cash flow because it believes in the autonomous payoff.
Upcoming deployment data will likely act as a binary valuation trigger. Strong data confirming the 81-cent-per-mile unit economics could short sellers to cover and validate the high price-to-earnings multiple. Weak data could strip away the technology premium, leaving Tesla priced as a struggling automaker fighting for market share in a fierce price war.
Investors holding long positions might consider maintaining their exposure while closely monitoring the rollout density and unit economics of the Cybercab fleet. Those looking to deploy new capital may prefer to wait for clear cash flow metrics from the autonomous network before taking a heavy position.
Given the high implied volatility, options traders could find strategic opportunities by hedging against sudden downside re-ratings while keeping upside exposure open for potential deployment breakthroughs. The next few quarters will determine whether Tesla secures its future as a dominant software network or faces a harsh reversion to automotive realities.
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Investors, more and more likely to look at Tesla’s (NASDAQ: TSLA) | TSLA Price Prediction car sales, should be encouraged by official EV figures out of China for the month of July. According to the China Passenger Car Association, across the world’s largest car market, sales of passenger cars fell 20.9% in July from the same month the year before to 1.46 million retail units. Sales of EVs and other cars that are not run entirely by fossil fuels dropped 3.9% to 951,000.
Tesla’s sales were extremely strong. According to The Wall Street Journal, “In July, Tesla exported 66,330 units made at its Shanghai plant and sold 93,579 units to Chinese buyers.” Keep in mind that in the second quarter, Tesla said it produced 450,000 vehicles and delivered over 480,000 vehicles. On top of China, Tesla sells hundreds of thousands of cars in the US, UK, and EU each quarter. Although the Chinese numbers cannot be used as an exact way to estimate third-quarter sales, investors should be optimistic.
On top of the good Tesla news, its primary global EV rival BYD had a horrible month. It did not sell enough units to be among the top three by units sold in China in July.
Tesla’s stock is down 26% this year, while the S&P 500 is up 12%. To some extent, this is because of a tug-of-war between Elon Musk and a group of investors who believe his argument that Tesla will grow because of Robotaxis, AI, and robots is unlikely. Rather, they would like to see Tesla as the dominant EV company in the world, as it was a half a decade ago. It continues to trail some of the largest EV companies in China, which include Geely.
In Europe, after a difficult year in 2025, Tesla’s sales have rebounded in double digits year over year in the first half of 2026. However, BYD is growing faster and now sells more units per month.
In the US, Tesla has over half the EV market. It is helped by the fact that large US car companies, particularly GM (NYSE: GM) and Ford (NYSE: F), have retreated after billions in losses on their EV divisions. But US EV sales dropped by about 20% in the first half of the year. Most of this has been blamed on the elimination of the $7,500 federal tax credit, which ended in September of last year. High gas prices could help reverse that trend–if they remain high. Used EV sales have already started to rise. (That could draw people away from new models, which tend to be expensive compared to gas-powered cars.)
Tesla may never get back its global market share, but it could benefit from a sharp growth in EV sales across a large number of nations, particularly those where gas prices are high already. If the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz remains very low, EVs will become more and more attractive. Gas prices in the US could move toward $5. They are currently just above $4 a gallon, but US oil reserves are a multi decade low. According to The Independent, “US oil reserve just hit a low not seen since 1983.”
If Tesla has an ace in the hole, it is the 100% tariff the US has put on Chinese EVs. Many experts consider these cars to be as well-built as Teslas, but they are also less expensive. China may be important for Tesla, but the US tariffs may be the key to a rebound.
Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.
Key Takeaways Tesla registered about 12,000 vehicles in Japan in the first half, with June sales up 183.7% year over year.Tesla plans to expand Japan delivery sites from seven to 11 this year to ease capacity bottlenecks.A second import port lifts TSLA's annual Japan capacity to about 48,000 vehicles and improves western access. U.S. electric vehicle (EV) and tech giant Tesla (TSLA - Free Report) is gaining momentum in a market that has historically been difficult for foreign automakers to crack. After selling more than 10,000 vehicles in Japan in 2025 (doubling from 2024), Tesla registered roughly 12,000 vehicles in the first six months of this year.
June was particularly impressive, with registrations jumping 183.7% year over year to 3,997 vehicles from 1,411 a year earlier, per the data from the Japan Automobile Importers Association, as cited in EVwire. Tesla overtook BMW (BMWKY - Free Report) to become Japan's second-best-selling imported brand for the month, trailing only Mercedes-Benz (MBGYY - Free Report) .
In fact, demand appears to be running ahead of Tesla’s delivery infrastructure. Some June handovers were pushed into July because Tesla did not have enough delivery capacity.
TSLA’s Delivery Expansion Plans in JapanTesla plans to increase its delivery sites in Japan by 60% this year, taking the total from seven to 11. New locations are being added in Yokohama and Kobe this month, followed by additional sites in the Greater Tokyo Area and Nagoya by the year-end. Notably, these are delivery hubs, not showrooms. Tesla keeps sales online and treats physical locations as places for browsing and questions. Deliveries are handled through dedicated centers or directly to customers.
That means the expansion is less about creating visibility and more about removing a bottleneck. Tesla already appears to have found buyers. It needs enough physical capacity to process those buyers efficiently.
On the import side, Tesla added Mikawa Port in Aichi prefecture as a second entry point, supplementing its long-standing reliance on Yokohama's Daikoku Wharf. That roughly doubles the brand's annual import capacity to about 48,000 vehicles and gives it a more direct route into western Japan.
If demand continues at the current pace, this additional capacity could become increasingly important.
Why the Timing Works in Tesla's FavorChanges to Japan's EV subsidy system have created a more favorable environment for Tesla while making the competitive landscape tougher for some Chinese EV makers.
Japan increased the maximum national EV subsidy to ¥1.3 million, and the revised framework places greater emphasis on factors such as supply-chain security, battery sourcing, V2X capability and service coverage. Tesla benefits because its vehicles use Panasonic battery cells, helping it meet the criteria around non-Chinese battery supply. Its bidirectional charging support checks the V2X box. Tesla can therefore qualify for subsidies close to the maximum level, while BYD faces a substantially lower incentive.
That matters in a market where Toyota and other Japanese automakers have traditionally enjoyed a strong home-market advantage. Tesla's growth is being driven largely by the Model Y and Model 3, and the brand is pulling affluent, tech-inclined buyers away from both Japanese hybrids and German luxury marques like Mercedes-Benz and BMW.
In June, Tesla's 3,997 registrations put it ahead of BMW's 3,379 and behind only Mercedes-Benz's 4,512 among imported brands.
Last WordThe company has found a pocket of demand, helped by the Model 3 and Model Y, and is now expanding the infrastructure needed to serve it. Japan’s favorable subsidy design and Tesla’s expanding logistics and buyer base are expected to boost the company’s prospects in Japan. Tesla doesn't need Toyota-scale volumes to make the Japan bet worthwhile, because each sale carries a premium-brand margin.
The Zacks Rundown on TSLA StockShares of Tesla have declined 26% over the past year, underperforming the industry.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
From a valuation standpoint, TSLA trades at a forward price-to-sales ratio of 11.6, above the industry and its own five-year average. It carries a Value Score of F.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
See how the Zacks Consensus Estimate for Tesla’s 2026 and 2027 EPS has been revised over the past 60 days.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
TSLA stock currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).
You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
Key Takeaways SpaceX bought about $329 million of Tesla Megapacks in the first half of 2026 amid rising AI power needs.Tesla says Megapacks can stabilize rapid electricity-demand swings caused by intensive AI training runs.Tesla deployed 13.5 GWh of energy storage in Q2 2026, up 53% sequentially, its second-best quarter. SpaceX (SPCX - Free Report) is becoming a major customer for Tesla’s (TSLA - Free Report) energy storage business, and that could be more important than it first appears. In the first half of 2026, SpaceX bought about $329 million worth of Tesla Megapacks (including $295 million in the second-quarter itself), compared with $506 million for all of 2025. The reason is tied to the growing power needs of artificial intelligence (AI).
Why SPCX is Buying TSLA Megapacks?On Tesla’s latest earnings call, Musk explained why SpaceX is purchasing so many Megapacks. SpaceX is using the batteries to deal with the huge and sudden changes in electricity demand created by AI computing.
During AI training runs, power demand can swing by as much as 70% in a fraction of a second. Hyperscalers may have access to enough chips and generation capacity, but they can't stabilize the power feeding those chips. Batteries with fast power electronics solve that problem.
Musk’s reasoning rests on a capacity-utilization gap— total U.S. generation capacity sits around 1.2-1.3 terawatts, while average demand is only about 0.5 terawatt. That means there could be roughly 0.7-0.8 terawatt of capacity sitting unused at any given time. Batteries could help unlock some of this existing capacity for AI computing, rather than waiting years to build new power plants. If that happens on a large scale, the opportunity for Megapacks is huge.
Tesla is also looking at another idea called Megapods, which would combine AI computing and battery storage in a single package. These could potentially be deployed at Supercharger locations. Tesla already controls around 7 GW of power capacity across its charging network. In effect, the company could use that existing infrastructure to create a distributed network for both power storage and computing.
TSLA Q2 Energy Business NumbersTesla’s energy business is growing. Energy storage deployments in the second quarter of 2026 reached 13.5 GWh, up 53% sequentially and making it the company’s second-best quarter on record.
The weakness was in margins. Energy gross margin dropped to 20.4% from 39.5% sequentially. But there were several reasons for the sharp decline. Tesla recorded a $240 million warranty true-up related to older battery cell issues, while a $200 million-plus tariff benefit recorded in the first quarter was not repeated. The business is also facing continued pricing pressure as competition increases. Tesla expects its long-term energy storage margin to be in the low-to-mid 20% range.
TSLA Energy's Growth CaseTesla's energy business is still small relative to its automotive segment, but it's the one part of the company where three things are pulling in the same direction: rising AI-driven demand, a growing demand across data centers, and Musk's own ambitions to vertically integrate power, compute, and connectivity across his companies.
These Megapack orders from SpaceX matter not for their current size, but the trajectory. SpaceX has plans to build a massive amount of power capacity to support its AI ambitions. Musk's target is 20 GW of power and cooling online by the end of 2027, with a more conservative fallback of around 15 GW.
That's a multi-year buildout that will require a large and growing quantity of battery storage. As long as Tesla holds onto that preferred-supplier position, it locks in a demand stream that's both predictable and likely to grow well past its current size.
The Zacks Rundown on TSLA StockShares of Tesla have declined 26% over the past year, underperforming the industry.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
From a valuation standpoint, TSLA trades at a forward price-to-sales ratio of 11.6, above the industry and its own five-year average. It carries a Value Score of F.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
See how the Zacks Consensus Estimate for Tesla’s 2026 and 2027 EPS has been revised over the past 60 days.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
TSLA stock currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).
You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
Although most Wall Street veterans have learned to tune out billionaire projections that sound like science fiction, Ron Baron just made one worth listening to. Speaking on The Compound and Friends podcast, the founder of Baron Capital revealed that his firm has quietly built a $25 billion position in SpaceX (NASDAQ:SPCX | SPCX Price Prediction) out of roughly $2 billion of invested capital, spread across 27 discrete transactions since 2017. But the number that stopped the room was his forward call. Baron projects SpaceX will be worth “at least $40 trillion” within 10 to 15 years, starting from a $2 trillion IPO valuation.
What’s particularly notable is that this is the same investor who called Tesla when almost no one on Wall Street would touch it. Between 2014 and 2016, Baron put $400 million into Tesla, a position that eventually generated $7.7 billion in profit. The benchmark data underneath that call is stark. Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) shares have vaulted 2,990.14% since January 2, 2014, and 1,875.51% over the trailing decade alone.
The Long Memory: Baron Compounds Themes Over Decades The pattern here is what matters. Baron builds positions over years, sits through the drawdowns, and lets compounding carry the arithmetic. His firm has grown from $100 million in 1982 to $70 billion as of June, and SpaceX now accounts for more than a third of that total. He even purchased an additional $1 billion at the IPO specifically to avoid dilution of his 1.25% ownership stake, an anti-dilution move that only makes sense if you think the next 15 years look like the last 12 did for Tesla.
The math frames the scale of the call. Baron projects Tesla will return 4x to 5x capital over the next 10 years, while SpaceX could return 20x to 30x from the IPO price over the same horizon. A $40 trillion valuation is roughly the size of the entire current U.S. equity market. As Josh Brown put it on the podcast: “What your vision is for something that’s never existed before on Earth.”
Where SpaceX Trades Today Public-market access runs through SpaceX, which recently traded around $135.83 against a market cap of $1.78 trillion. The stock action has been rough. SPCX is down nearly 27% from its post-IPO high on June 18. Reddit sentiment tracked bearish over the past week, driven by short-seller headlines and lockup-unlock anxiety. One widely read r/investing thread noted that roughly a third of tradable shares are now betting against the stock.
Prediction markets are pricing an entirely different time horizon than Baron is. Polymarket’s most active book gives SPCX a 79% probability of closing above $100 by end of July, but only a 20.5% probability of reaching $120. The 12-month analyst consensus target sits at $236.71, implying 104.86% upside. None of these instruments price the 15-year window Baron cares about, which is precisely his edge.
Why the Tesla Comparison Actually Matters Tesla in 2026 has evolved substantially from its 2014 form, and the read-through helps calibrate the SpaceX call. The company just reported Q2 revenue of $28.24 billion, up 25.5% year over year, on record deliveries of 480,126 vehicles. It also missed on non-GAAP EPS at 33 cents against a 54-cent estimate as operating expenses surged 47% to $4.35 billion on AI infrastructure. Tesla shares have been rattled, down 31.24% year to date and 18.56% in the past month.
Baron has seen this movie before. Tesla has drawn down more than 30% eleven times in the last decade, and each time the long-hold thesis absorbed the volatility. The SpaceX filings on SEC.gov show the same vertically integrated business model Baron has bet on before: launch, Starlink connectivity to 164 countries, and now xAI’s Grok folded in after the early-2026 acquisition. Tesla’s Q1 disclosures already showed a $2 billion equity investment in SpaceX and a joint semiconductor fab groundbreaking at Gigafactory Texas. The Musk companies are consolidating into one industrial stack.
The Verdict Baron’s own framing is the tell. “We don’t consider ourselves betting. We consider ourselves investing on the basis of knowledge, not bets.” That is the sentence to remember when SPCX drops another 20% and the short-interest headlines pile up. Long term, Wall Street has always managed to reward operators who compound through the noise, and Baron’s Tesla record is the closest historical mirror we have to what he’s attempting with SpaceX. The pattern says patience gets paid. Whether it pays 20 to 30 times is the question the next 15 years will answer.
Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.
Though Elon Musk’s August 12 reply on X that ‘you will get flying cars’ might appear fairly inconsequential for the relatively near future, ChatGPT’s advanced artificial intelligence (AI) appears to consider an ‘Air Tesla’ a relatively imminent possibility.
Specifically, OpenAI’s flagship model took several seemingly unrelated developments as circumstantial evidence that at least a showcase of an airborne automobile might come as soon as 2026 and that a more commercial launch might arrive as soon as late 2027.
Why ChatGPT believes a flying Tesla could be coming in 2027 To begin with, ChatGPT reflected on a 2025 Joe Rogan episode in which the world’s first trillionaire discussed the upcoming – and often-delayed – Roadster and how its forthcoming demonstration would showcase technology enabling the vehicle to hover or fly.
ChatGPT summarizes Elon Musk’s flying car claims. Source: Finbold & ChatGPT The AI then linked the remarks to several developments over the years, including SpaceX’s (NASDAQ: SPCX) involvement with the model and the supposed inclusion of a ‘cold gas thruster’ in the demonstration now scheduled for August 2026.
Finally, ChatGPT reflected on the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) relatively new rules regarding the powered-lift category, which could cover an ‘Air Tesla.’
Overall, OpenAI’s large language model (LLM) took these facts as circumstantial evidence and, after pairing them with Musk’s comment on X, explained it views a flying prototype in the third quarter (Q3) 2026 as plausible.
Following from the reasoning, it also estimated that an expensive commercial variant could become available in Q4 2027, though it emphasized the hypothetical hovering Roadster is unlikely to be a full-blown flying car as imagined in the genre of Science Fiction.
ChatGPT reveals the possible ‘Air Tesla’ roadmap. Source: Finbold & ChatGPT ChatGPT sets Tesla stock price for after the flying Roadster is launched Elsewhere, after establishing why it estimates an ‘Air Tesla’ flying version of the upcoming Roadster as plausible, the LLM explained that it views the launch as a bullish catalyst for TSLA stock, but one with only a limited upside potential.
Indeed, in ChatGPT’s estimate, Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) shares are already exceptionally expensive with numerous potential technological developments already effectively priced in.
Under the circumstances, the AI explained that recent stock and electric vehicle (EV) trends already push its TSLA equity base case to between $350 and $400 – up to a 20.19% rally from $332.81 at the latest close.
ChatGPT sets the Tesla stock price base case for late 2026 and 2027. Source: Finbold & ChatGPT Thus, OpenAI’s flagship platform estimated a successful ‘Air Tesla’ launch – likely in the form of a flying or hovering Roadster – could see the stock soar to $450 by Q4 2027.
ChatGPT predicts TSLA stock price after the hypothetical ‘Air Tesla’ launch. Source: Finbold & ChatGPT Why a Tesla flying car might not be coming soon Meanwhile, there are several reasons why ChatGPT’s scenario constitutes a plausibility and a possibility rather than a probability. Over the years, Elon Musk has become famous for promising various revolutionary technological developments that overwhelmingly failed to materialize.
Such a history casts doubt on just how seriously his ‘you will get flying cars’ should be taken. Additionally, even if the Roadster proves capable of modest liftoff, it should be noted that the first hovercraft was invented as far back as 1955, making such an achievement less than a revolutionary breakthrough.
Indeed, it is possible that an ‘Air Tesla’ could, once it is made, constitute something of a sidegrade to the traditional hovercraft or, indeed, a new version of the type of vehicle rather than a move toward cars seen in Blade Runner or The Fifth Element.
Simultaneously, it could also represent an American variant of the Chinese ‘flying cars,’ though such an outcome would almost certainly prevent it from falling under the Roadster brand.
Finally, the context of the remark could also betray something about its veracity. Specifically, the promise came in reply to Vercel CEO Guillermo Rauch declaring that instead of flying cars, humanity received ‘infinite superintelligence for everyone.’
By most definitions, ‘superintelligence’ is yet to be achieved, and there is little concrete proof it is even imminent, increasing the risk that the exchange was largely fanciful.
A Wall Street Journal report dissected on the TBPN podcast episode Nvidia’s $500B Compute Deal, Paramount Threatens CA Exit, Musk’s ‘Shortcut’ to $1T Payday | Diet TBPN is drawing fresh scrutiny to an obscure provision inside Elon Musk’s 2025 Tesla compensation plan. The clause could allow the world’s richest executive to skip the operational milestones that otherwise stand between him and one of the largest pay packages in corporate history.
Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA | TSLA Price Prediction) shares traded at $332.81 as of the most recent close, giving the company a market capitalization of roughly $1.31 trillion. The stock is down 26% year to date and 18.38% over the past month.
The Package and the Shortcut Under the 2025 CEO Performance Award, Musk can earn up to 423 million Tesla shares across 12 tranches. Each tranche requires Tesla to hit both a market capitalization target and an operational milestone. The operational goals across the full package include delivering 20 million vehicles, reaching 10 million active FSD subscriptions, producing 1 million Optimus robots, and putting 1 million robotaxis into commercial operation. The Journal estimates the maximum award is currently worth approximately $824 billion.
The catch surfaced by the WSJ, as unpacked on TBPN: if Tesla undergoes a change of control, those operational requirements disappear entirely. As the discussion framed it, “Instead of spending the next decade hitting a dozen separate operating goals, a sufficiently expensive acquisition of Tesla could effectively declare those goals accomplished.” For all 12 tranches to unlock through a deal, Tesla’s value at the time of the transaction would need to reach $8.5 trillion, more than 6 times its recent market cap.
Tesla shareholders approved the compensation plan in November, and would still need to approve any acquisition. Evidence that the award is already flowing through Tesla’s income statement is visible in the Q2 2026 8-K filing, which attributes a 47% year-over-year surge in operating expenses to $4.35 billion to AI infrastructure buildout, R&D, and stock-based compensation tied to the CEO award.
SpaceX as the Only Plausible Buyer The speculated acquirer is SpaceX, a privately held company also valued in the trillions and the only entity plausibly capable of such a deal. Speculation intensified after WSJ reported that Tesla executives were considering separating the company’s China business through a spin-off, sale, or closure to pave the way for a potential SpaceX merger, a claim Musk publicly denied. Prediction markets remain skeptical, assigning only a 17.5% probability to a Tesla-SpaceX merger being announced by year-end 2026.
Analysts are split. RBC Capital Markets sees a hypothetical combined entity valued at $3.31 trillion with Tesla shareholders owning 54%, and other analysts suggest an all-stock deal could carry a 20-30% premium for Tesla holders. Future Fund’s Gary Black has pushed back, arguing that SpaceX could not afford Tesla due to significant dilution to SpaceX shareholders.
The U-Shape Incentive One TBPN host described Musk’s payoff curve as a “U-shape.” Musk owns 19.9% of Tesla as of June 17, 2026, based on 413,152,109 shares. Because his stake in SpaceX is larger, he arguably benefits from acquiring Tesla at a very low price, and he also benefits at a very high price through expanded Tesla equity. The middle, per the discussion, is messy.
What to Watch Tesla’s Q2 2026 operating margin compressed to 1.4%, with free cash flow turning negative at -$1.09 billion even as deliveries hit a record 480,126 vehicles and FSD subscriptions climbed to 1.48 million (+56% YoY). Analyst consensus target sits at $396.62, well below anything approaching the $8.5 trillion threshold. For investors, the compensation clause is worth tracking because it aligns Musk’s incentives around a corporate event that would rewrite Tesla’s governance, not just its market cap.
Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.
At $332.81, Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA | TSLA Price Prediction) looks meaningfully overvalued. The stock has slid 26% year to date while the market has climbed, yet it trades at a valuation that assumes near-flawless execution on projects that have not yet earned a dollar.
Tesla remains an automaker. Automotive sales contributed $20.0 billion of $28.24 billion Q2 2026 revenue, with Energy at $3.14 billion and Services at $4.58 billion. The market prices it as an AI, robotics, and autonomy platform. That gap between current earnings and what shareholders pay for tomorrow is the entire debate.
The Bull Case: A Software and Robotics Flywheel Deliveries hit a Q2 record of 480,126 vehicles, up 25% year over year, and energy storage deployments rose 41%. Services revenue expanded 50%, and active FSD subscriptions reached 1.48 million, up 56%, with attach rates above 55% on new North American deliveries. Bulls cite robotaxi service now live in seven U.S. metros, Cybercab production starting at Gigafactory Texas, Optimus lines being installed, and a $43.5 billion cash pile that funds ambitions few rivals can match.
The Bear Case: A Trillion-Dollar Automaker With Auto Economics Q2 2026 was ugly beneath the delivery headline. EPS of $0.33 missed the $0.5367 consensus estimate. Operating income fell 57% to $398 million, operating margin compressed to 1.4%, and free cash flow flipped to negative $1.09 billion as capex jumped 142%. Regulatory credits dropped to $146 million. Morgan Stanley recently argued Tesla needs “clearer evidence of its Robotaxi program scaling to increase investor confidence.”. An ongoing NHTSA suspension probe adds operational noise.
The Case for Patience: Cash Cushion, No Catalyst The balance sheet, with $43.5 billion in cash and modest leverage, is solid. The problem is timing. Polymarket traders assign only a 14.5% probability to Optimus releasing by year end and a 17.5% probability to a Tesla-SpaceX merger announcement. Investors waiting for confirmation on unit economics from robotaxi or FSD monetization may prefer to watch quarterly margin trends and delivery mix before committing new capital.
What the Stock Is Telling Us Tesla trades at $332.81 against an analyst consensus target of $396.62, implying roughly 19% upside if targets hold. Coverage splits 6 Strong Buy, 17 Buy, 18 Hold, 4 Sell, and 2 Strong Sell, hardly a conviction call. Shares fetch 304 times trailing earnings and 169 times forward earnings, with EV/EBITDA at 106 and a PEG of 5. Over the past month the stock is down 18.38%, and it has fallen 12.3% since the Q2 filing while the SPY rose 4.4%. Year to date, TSLA is off 26% against a market grinding higher.
The Verdict: Overvalued at $333 At $333, Tesla looks overvalued on the numbers. The company is valued as if autonomy, robotaxis, and Optimus already generate meaningful profit, while today’s financials show the opposite. Q2 delivered record volume yet margins collapsed and free cash flow went negative, meaning growth is destroying near-term shareholder value while the multiple assumes the opposite.
Any slip in robotaxi ramp, any Optimus timeline push, or another quarter of operating margin near 1.4% forces the market to reprice Tesla closer to auto peers trading at single-digit multiples. Even a partial derating from 304 times earnings toward premium tech multiples in the 40 to 60 range implies substantial downside from here.
What would invalidate the thesis: a step change in FSD unit economics, a credible robotaxi profit disclosure, or Optimus revenue that is measurable rather than promised. Absent those, the risk/reward remains skewed to the downside. Watch Q3 operating margin, capex trajectory, and any pricing action in China and Europe.
Paying 304 times earnings for an automaker whose profitability is going the wrong way is a bet that Tesla can outrun physics, competition, and time all at once, and $333 is still too much to pay for that bet.
Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.
Investor Gary Black believes Tesla Inc.’s (NASDAQ:TSLA) pullback in its self-driving ambitions is causing investors to lose faith that the company will eventually solve autonomy.
Gary Black Outlines ‘Fundamental’ Reason Behind Robotaxi SlowdownIn a series of posts on X, The Future Fund LLC co-founder opined that there was “some fundamental reason” behind Tesla slowing down its unsupervised Full Self-Driving (FSD) and Robotaxi targets.
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The company had outlined serving half the U.S. population with its autonomous vehicles by the end of last year, but then moved to say it was targeting “doubling fleet size every month” and finally to its “current planned growth rate of +10%/week,” Black said, referring to AI Chief Ashok Elluswamy‘s comments during the company’s second-quarter earnings call.
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The investor then said that Tesla would need to slow down, “given the damage even one headline would cause if a Tesla operated by FSD hit someone,” but added that the stock continues to “underperform because investors are losing faith that FSD will ever be able to scale from its current roster of 90-100 unsupervised autonomous vehicles,” he said.
Black then compared Tesla’s operations with Alphabet Inc.‘s (NASDAQ:GOOGL) (NASDAQ:GOOG) Waymo, which has “4,000 unsupervised autonomous vehicles without safety monitors” and completes over 500,000 Robotaxi rides per week.
Tesla Management Concerned About FSD Safety?In a response to user Jeff Lutz, who disagreed with Black, saying if there were issues, Tesla would not hire new workers, the investor said that Tesla’s “reluctance to scale” autonomy could be an indication that the company’s management was “concerned FSD may not be as safe as you think.”
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Black added that Tesla hires and builds infrastructure under the assumption that it “will solve for the edge cases and ultimately increase efficacy to 99.999%.” However, the investor pointed to competitors also improving their tech.
“Having chosen the vision only route for economic reasons, $TSLA now has to stick with it and hope competitors can’t develop a safer self-driving technology by spending more,” he said.
Black also said that relying on Tesla management’s “assertions” that the EV giant was close to solving autonomy may be naive. “My ‘lessons learned’ after 30 years in this business is to not rely on managent’s assertions for anything,” he said, adding that the management was “paid to be bullish.”
Benzinga Edge Rankings show Tesla scores poorly on the Momentum and Value metrics, but provides satisfactory Growth and Quality. Tesla shares also fail to provide a favorable price trend in the Short, Medium and Long term.
Price Action: Tesla shares were down 0.07% to $332.59 during overnight trading on Tuesday.
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Check out more of Benzinga’s Future Of Mobility coverage by following this link.
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Near the end of July, Tesla (TSLA +0.58%) achieved something no other automaker has done in history: It produced its 10 millionth full-electric vehicle (EV). It's a huge milestone and feels appropriate for the company that largely drove the global surge in EV investment. With that milestone comes the bittersweet truth that Tesla isn't quite the automaker most long-term investors signed up for.
Tesla's future is clearly driving toward a future of humanoid robots, robotaxis, and Artificial Intelligence (AI). While that could prove wildly lucrative for Tesla down the road, it also adds immense near-term uncertainty as it transitions. For investors considering jumping on board, here are two reasons buying Tesla should make you nervous.
Valuation breakdown Morgan Stanley's Adam Jonas, a longtime Tesla bull and respected auto analyst, broke down Tesla's valuation and believes that roughly 34% of its total valuation is driven by its core automotive and energy business. In comparison, 41% is driven by the hype surrounding its robotaxi and autonomous driving technology. The last 25% is driven by the potential of its Optimus humanoid robot. Let's hit two of those segments and discuss why there are concerns.
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Robotaxi woes While a big chunk of Tesla's valuation is driven by its robotaxi business, which doesn't really exist yet, the company finds itself trailing competitors in full-driverless miles (no supervisor) and in regulatory approvals. Alphabet's Waymo has logged over 200 million fully autonomous, no-supervisor miles and generates roughly 500,000 weekly paid rides across major metropolitan areas, and Baidu has surpassed 137 million fully driverless miles.
On the flip side, per Tesla's second-quarter earnings report, the automaker has a cumulative 2.4 million paid robotaxi miles, and that growth between the first and second quarter was essentially flat. There's a little smoke and mirrors with Tesla, because it announced plans to launch in new markets such as Tampa and Orlando, as well as across the Austin metro area, but it's estimated that Tesla's active unsupervised driverless fleet remains a modest 20 to 40 vehicles.
Another factor that could make investors nervous is that while Tesla is ramping production of its Cybercab, which will need regulatory approvals before it can charge for rides, it hasn't outlined a clear plan or timeline for the approval process. Meanwhile, Amazon-owned Zoox was just granted permission by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to commercially deploy steering-wheel-free robotaxis at a rate of 2,500 vehicles annually for two years, for a total of 5,000 vehicles. Zoox's robotaxi is the first vehicle designed from the ground up with no manual controls to receive approval and is poised to begin paid rides in Las Vegas.
It's also fair to bring up the potential complications of Tesla's strict camera-only approach to driverless vehicles, rather than including sensors such as LiDAR and radar for better depth perception and adverse-weather mapping. That isn't to say Tesla's strategy isn't possible, but that scaling the Cybercab could be much slower. Further, Tesla faces looming issues with its older Hardware 3 (HW3), which lacks the memory bandwidth and processing power required for true unsupervised Full Self-Driving, as promised to consumers -- the outcome of this is still unfolding.
Tesla's Cybercab. Image source: Tesla.
Softening core Tesla's future might indeed be lucrative with investments in robotaxis, robots, and AI, but right now, its core business is still manufacturing vehicles, and that's slowly eroding. For years, Tesla's guidance was for roughly 50% annual growth in production and deliveries, but that trend stopped when the EV maker peaked in 2023 at 1.81 million deliveries. Then, that figure declined for two consecutive years, with 2026 still up in the air.
Tesla's mass-market Model 3 launched in 2017, and the Model Y in 2020, and neither has received a complete redesign; instead, the company relies on minor trim adjustments, stripped-down versions, and software updates to drive demand. Tesla's Cybertruck was a flop; the Model S and Model X were discontinued to free up factory space for robotics production; and the Tesla Semi is years behind schedule, even though it's making a strong impression with truckers. Because of growing global EV competition and an aging lineup, Tesla's profit margins have been under pressure due to price cuts to drive demand, low-cost financing incentives, and other promotional discounts.
TSLA Operating Margin (TTM) data by YCharts.
Time will tell whether Tesla follows through on the next-generation Roadster or ever launches an all-new low-cost Tesla vehicle, but keep in mind the company has historically overpromised and underdelivered, often later than anticipated.
What it all means Tesla has achieved some amazing things, and producing its 10 millionth vehicle is a very real accomplishment. But there's much uncertainty hanging over Tesla, including a potential merger with SpaceX. Its product portfolio is aging and pressuring margins, its capital expenditures on future businesses are exploding with little to no return on the horizon, and its robotaxi business is in the rearview mirror of multiple competitors. Tesla could continue to be a phenomenal investment, but there is much risk and uncertainty, and plenty of reasons to be nervous -- research thoroughly before buying!
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Tesla has a long history of partnering with Musk's other companies. Tesla Tesla is giving its Cybercab a little help from another Elon Musk company.
On Monday, the EV maker shared photos on X of what it called the "First Cybercab with Starlink integration." The images show a square-like cutout in the roofline, where the satellite internet equipment is built directly into the vehicle.
In a subsequent X post, Musk said riders inside the autonomous two-seat car can "watch live sports in 4k or movies or games or productivity."
The integration is another example of how Musk's companies are increasingly intertwined. Tesla is using SpaceX's AI personality, Grok, as a voice assistant in its vehicles; SpaceX is buying hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of Tesla Megapacks and cars; and the companies have partnered on a joint chip factory project called Terafab.
Those collaborations have inspired rumors of a potential mega-merger between the two companies.
Monday's Cybercab post also shows how Tesla plans to keep its future fleet of driverless cars connected.
During the automaker's second-quarter earnings call, Musk said that Starlink would help address gaps in cellular coverage as the company expands its self-driving robotaxi service.
"We can't have robotaxis getting stuck in these Bermuda Triangles of lack of cellular connectivity," Musk said. "Starlink, with its ability to do connectivity anywhere, is actually quite important, so we don't have robotaxis missing in action."
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Ben Shimkus You're currently following this author! Want to unfollow? Unsubscribe via the link in your email.
Ben Shimkus is a reporter for the Business News desk. He writes about cars, transportation, retail, and jobs. Ben's reporting has appeared in Rolling Stone, The Verge, Automotive News, USA Today, AutoBody News, LGBTQ Nation, TopSpeed, and Out Magazine. He's also held staff writing positions at The U.S. Sun and the Daily Mail. He graduated from NYU with a Master's in journalism in 2024. Email Ben at [email protected] or message him privately on Signal at bshimkus.41.
Tesla Inc. (TSLA, Financials), the electric vehicle maker, could face an unusual consequence if speculation about a combination with SpaceX ever turns into a re
ToplineTesla is recalling 20,000 Model 3 and Model Y vehicles with low-beam headlights that violate federal brightness standards—the latest in a string of safety concerns for the automaker that have included problems with rear image cameras, brake rotors, battery packs and warning lights.
A Tesla Model Y is seen on a Tesla car lot on May 31, 2023 in Austin.
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Key FactsTesla has filed a safety recall for 2017-2023 Model 3 and 2020-2023 Model Y vehicles because their low-beam headlights may exceed the maximum light output permitted under federal law.
The too-bright headlights may reduce visibility for the driver and oncoming traffic, the recall report claims, increasing the risk of crash.
Tesla says it doesn’t plan to notify owners of the problem until mid September because it’s still trying to figure out how to fix the problem.
The company says a remedy “is currently under development.”
Owners of affected vehicles can contact Tesla customer service at 1-877-798-3752.
KEY BACKGROUNDTesla has faced sustained regulatory pressure on multiple fronts and the recent headlight recall adds an exterior-lighting compliance failure to a record already crowded with software and driver-assistance controversies. Reuters last month reported the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is investigating 1.2 million Tesla vehicles over reports of suspension failure that could cause “a loss of vehicle directional control,” and Tesla’s Autopilot system has been linked to hundreds of crashes and dozens of deaths, resulting in hundreds of millions of dollars in legal settlements. San Francisco 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan this weekend said his Tesla was on autopilot when he was involved in an accident near downtown Palo Alto.
TANGENTThis is at least the fifth recall Tesla has filed with the NHTSA this year. More than 218,000 model 3, Model Y and Model S/X vehicles were recalled in May due to issues with rear cameras, some Cybertrucks are at risk of brick-rotor stud holes cracking and a handful of Model 3 and Model Y cars were imported to the U.S. from Canada without meeting American safety standards.
BIG NUMBER9.2 million. That's how many Tesla vehicles have been sold to date as of April.
further readingForbesTesla Issues 10th Recall For CybertrucksBy Ty RoushForbesTesla Recalls About 13,000 Newer Cars Over Battery Issue That Can Cause Power Loss While DrivingBy Zachary Folk
