Investor's Corner
Former Tesla bear explains why the clock is ticking on TSLA shorts
Tesla shares (NASDAQ:TSLA) have largely leveled out in the ~$1,400 per share range following the company’s release of its impressive second quarter earnings. But despite this pullback following its massive run that went as high as $1,794 per share, a former Tesla bear has stated that the company’s critics are still missing the big picture. This is because Tesla will continue growing, regardless of how many times goalposts are moved.
The run up to the company’s release of its Q2 2020 earnings was bolstered by a lot of momentum, part of which was the company’s potential inclusion into the S&P 500, which seems more likely considering that the electric car maker was able to post a profit in the second quarter. An inclusion into the S&P 500 could provide Tesla with both short term and long term benefits, since TSLA stock could see another run up after massive funds purchase the company’s stock. Long term, an inclusion into the S&P would allow Tesla shares to be less volatile as well.
One thing that is remarkable now is that Tesla’s uncanny similarities to Apple and Amazon are starting to become more evident. Both Apple and Amazon are performing well in their respective segments, and Tesla seems poised to follow the two companies’ lead. Similar to Apple, Tesla has developed a disruptive new technology. The company is also supported by a strong brand and loyal customers. Its products like the Model 3 are also quite similar to iPhones in the way that they are sleek, powerful, and easy to use.
Tesla’s similarity with Amazon is a bit more subtle, but both companies have so far prioritized scaling up market share over profits. This was mentioned by Elon Musk in the previous earnings call when he stated that Tesla will not be prioritizing profitability as it grows. Instead, Musk stated that the company would be passing on profits to consumers to scale up market share. Interestingly enough, this is where TSLA bears usually misinterpret the company, with price cuts and other strategies being connected to weak demand instead of optimizations.
“While bears continue to misinterpret this as a lack of demand for their product, it is quite the opposite. As Tesla becomes more efficient at producing vehicles, they find internal cost savings. “Normal” companies would use this opportunity to expand their margin profile and improve profitability. Tesla uses this opportunity to lower pricing, passing on the margin to consumers. This lower pricing leads to increased demand, improving Tesla’s market share dynamics,” the former Tesla bear wrote.
And here lies what could very well be the fatal flaw of Tesla’s critics. Over the years, and as the company continued to dismantle the bear case against it, the goalposts for Tesla have been moved several times. During its early days, the argument was that BEVs weren’t feasible. When this was proven wrong with the original Roadster, it became replaced with the allegation that Tesla only produces high priced cars. The next came in allegations that the company could not produce a mass market car.
When the Model 3 was ramped, the goalpost was moved to the argument that there was no demand for a mass market EV. Sure enough, when that thesis was dismantled, the goalpost was moved once more. This time around, the allegation was that the company could not make mass market cars profitably. This was debunked as well, but the goalpost was moved once more to the argument that Tesla’s profits are “manipulated” since it includes BEV credits, which the company earns from other carmakers who are not producing EVs.
These moving goalposts could ultimately result in some grief for Tesla short sellers. After all, the electric car maker is now in more stable ground. And if it could not be brought down when it was struggling, it would be very difficult to topple it now that its business is stronger. Ultimately, the former Tesla bear noted that with these factors in mind, the clock may very well be ticking on TSLA critics.
“The clock is ticking on bears and disbelievers in the Tesla story. The company is executing, they are going to be admitted into the S&P 500, their business parallels big tech companies like Apple and Amazon, and bears continually move the goalposts. At a time when Tesla is called one of the greatest bubbles in the market, I would consider it the exact opposite. The recent dip in the stock is an opportunity to buy,” the former bear wrote.
Disclosure: I have no ownership in shares of TSLA and have no plans to initiate any positions within 72 hours.
Elon Musk
SpaceX Starship just nailed something it’s never done before
SpaceX’s Starship flew successfully Friday, landing both stages and deploying its first Starlink V3 satellites.
Starship’s thirteenth test flight delivered exactly what SpaceX needed with a clean liftoff, two successful stage recoveries, and the first real payload the vehicle has ever carried to space. Booster 20 and Ship 40 lifted off at 5:51 p.m. CT from Starbase, and by the time the mission wrapped roughly an hour later, both halves of the rocket had done exactly what they were supposed to do.
Booster 20 separated from Ship 40 a few minutes into the flight and stuck a controlled splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico about six minutes after liftoff. That is a meaningful turnaround from Flight 12 in May, when the booster lost several engines during its boostback burn before a hard water landing attempt.
Starship as seen from Starlink satellites pic.twitter.com/e2hvfmnewh
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 25, 2026
Starship 40’s performance was arguably the bigger win. The vehicle deployed the first 20 operational Starlink V3 satellites Starship has ever carried, then flew a suborbital arc to a landing in the Indian Ocean that SpaceX commentator Dan Huot called the company’s softest splashdown yet. “This is a dream scenario for this team that’s trying to get this heat shield data,” Huot said on the live broadcast, according to Space.com’s live coverage. “I’m a little over the moon right now. Wow. Lucky number 13.”
Unlike the mass simulators SpaceX flew on Flight 12, these were production Starlink V3 satellites, meant to extend solar arrays and antennas and attempt to link with the broader constellation before reentering minutes later. Getting real hardware through a full deploy sequence on only the second flight of the V3 generation keeps Starship on schedule for the payload work NASA is counting on for future Artemis lunar landings.
What an awesome launch, really seems like everything went super well and it was all incredibly smooth.
SpaceX is awesome. Very interested to see how the market will respond on Monday pic.twitter.com/KSHmyBfV55
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) July 25, 2026
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) July 25, 2026
The flight also arrives at a moment when SpaceX needed a win. SPCX has traded below its $135 IPO price since mid-July, as Teslarati reported when the mission slipped to Friday, and short interest has climbed to roughly a third of the tradable float. A clean flight will not fix a balance sheet, but it does answer the one question SpaceX absolutely needed answered this week: whether the fixes made after the July 16 abort would hold up under real flight conditions. They did, on both stages, on the first try after the redesign.
SpaceX has not set a target date for Flight 14, though the company has said it wants to push toward an orbital attempt on the next mission. After Friday, that goal looks a lot more within reach.
Tesla short sellers won big following the company’s massive fall on Wall Street after it reported subpar Earnings on Wednesday.
Tesla short sellers collected about $4.12 billion in single-day profits on Thursday, according to Bloomberg. Shares fell as much as 15 percent during Thursday’s session. It closed as one of the worst days for Tesla on Wall Street in the past three years.
Investors sold off the stock after Tesla said it would aggressively direct its spending toward AI and its Optimus robot project. The company had record revenues, which were driven by one of the strongest quarters in terms of vehicle deliveries in company history.
However, it missed EPS estimates by reporting just $0.33, a far cry from the $0.53 analysts expected.
S3 Partners reported that about 3 percent of Tesla’s outstanding stock is sold short. Managing Director at S3, Ihor Dusaniwsky, provided the short seller’s potential profit, as well as another figure: shorts have likely had paper gains of $8.92 billion this year, as Tesla shares are down 30 percent in 2026.
Tesla (TSLA) Q2 2026 earnings results: miss on EPS, beat on revenue
Tesla has burned short sellers many times in the past, but the company’s latest Earnings Call was a chance for those skeptics to taste some payback. Although the company gave some very transparent information regarding future projects, the rollout of Robotaxi, Optimus, and Semi, many investors took their profits on Thursday.
Notable short sellers like Michael Burry have been transparent about their skepticism around Tesla shares. Burry just revealed three weeks ago that he had opened up a new short on the stock, stating he shorted Tesla shares at $416.22. “Happy it jumped back to this level,” he said in a blog post.
At the time of publication, Tesla shares were down about 3 percent and the stock was trading at $309.92.
Tesla stock (NASDAQ: TSLA) endured one of its sharpest single-day declines in years on July 23, tumbling approximately 14.5 percent and closing near $320 after opening the session around $374. The drop erased more than $140 billion in market value amid heavy trading volume and left the shares at multi-week lows.
The sell-off followed the company’s second-quarter 2026 results, released the previous evening. Tesla reported record revenue of $28.2 billion, up 26 percent year over year, driven by a Q2-record 480,126 vehicle deliveries. Energy storage deployments also rose strongly.
Tesla (TSLA) Q2 2026 earnings results: miss on EPS, beat on revenue
Yet profitability disappointed sharply. Operating income fell 57 percent to $398 million, compressing the operating margin to just 1.4 percent. Non-GAAP earnings per share came in at $0.33, well below the roughly $0.53 analysts had expected. Free cash flow turned negative by $1.1 billion as capital expenditures surged 142 percent to $5.8 billion, largely tied to accelerated spending on artificial intelligence, robotics, and autonomous systems.
The losses on capex were expected, as Tesla said it would be spending heavily in 2026.
Investors also reacted to lingering uncertainty surrounding key product timelines. During the Earnings Call, management reiterated ambitions for Robotaxi deployment and the Optimus humanoid robot, but offered limited new concrete milestones, renewing questions about execution pace that have long accompanied Tesla’s ambitious roadmap.
The magnitude of the decline places it among Tesla’s more severe one-day percentage losses since its 2010 initial public offering. Historically, the two largest single-day drops (split-adjusted) remain September 8, 2020, when shares fell 21.1 percent amid broader market volatility and valuation concerns, and January 13, 2012, with a 19.3 percent plunge during the company’s early growth struggles.
Other notable declines include an 18.6 percent drop on March 16, 2020, at the onset of pandemic-related market turmoil. Thursday’s move ranks roughly ninth on the all-time list but stands out as the steepest in more than a year.
Despite the short-term pain, Tesla’s long-term trajectory has repeatedly recovered from such volatility. The latest results underscore both the strength of its core automotive and energy businesses and the near-term costs of heavy investment in next-generation technologies.
SpaceX Starship just nailed something it’s never done before
Tesla’s Supercharger Diner probably just secured more locations
