Investor's Corner
Bob Lutz Is Right about Tesla’s Home Battery Solution
Last week on CNBC, maximum Bob Lutz took aim at Tesla Motors and, specifically, the Powerwall product offering. Lutz says, “I think [the battery] is greatly overvalued because having batteries as backup storage has been around for hundreds of years. I can’t understand the fascination with this.”
Maximum Bob is right on the mark, the Powerwall is overvalued by the media. The two home products, 10kWh (the backup battery) and the 7kWh daily cycle, will make up a small portion of the revenue mix for Tesla.
Musk even said so at the annual shareholder meeting. In response to a question about the powerwall, Musk said,“Actually it’s probably worth also elaborating on the Powerpack which we expect most of our activities to be with the Powerpack, not the Powerwall.”
“So, it’s probably 80%, maybe more than that of our total energy sales likely to be at the Powerpack level to utilities and to large industrial customers.”
However, the only problem for maximum Bob is that he keeps on speaking without mentioning the powerpack potential or he doesn’t understand it. Or maybe it’s a narrative for CNBC to milk, since Bob is a CNBC contributor. I enjoy Uncle Bob, but he’s a one-trick pony, Automotive guy.
Industrial and utilities are the big catch here and there’s no waiting for an energy market in this space. It’s here and Musk and JB Straubel are really smart, but how smart?
Musk on how the powerpack can assimilate in the utility space:
So, you can take our Powerpacks and they are compact enough to fit in an existing substation. This is a very big deal because it means that they do not have to create an new substation or expand the existing substation because in most neighborhoods in order for them to do that they would have to buy someone’s house and level it and put a new substation and then the neighbors do not like that.
I guess that’s why Tesla didn’t go for the bulky, lead acid batteries solution that Lutz advocated on the “Squawk Box” segment. To be fair, maximum Bob was talking about a home battery solution.
So, the utilities will have a plug-n-play product that will be able to put power on the grid quickly at the local level, without having to build out any new infrastructure. I wonder if the utilities will say thanks?
Plus, there will be a healthy supply of customers in the industrial manufacturing space, too. I’ve been writing for Automation World magazine since 2008 and energy management has been a growing issue for manufacturers and those companies love plug-n-play solutions.
For example Cummins Inc., a manufacturer of truck engines, could be a candidate for the Powerpack. They just installed 7,200 solar panels and 2-megawatts of solar power at its Pennsylvania plant. Currently, Cummins sells it back to the utilities but a Powerpack solution could help them avoid large demand charges for heavy use in the afternoon, say during large production times.
Sure, Tesla Energy has to execute and utilities have to come on board. However, it’s getting there. Listen to a couple Energy Gang podcasts and you hear about utility infrastructure buildout costs, and utilities bemoaning that it will be selling less energy to retailers.
It looks like Elon has worked all this out for the utilities, first, the infrastructure and, secondly, the energy demand component. If Tesla produces 500,000 electric cars annually in, say, five or six years, then you have a big demand for energy and for the utilities. That’s a lot of juice.
Then, maybe maximum Bob will see the “fascination” with battery storage.
In a pointed message on X, Elon Musk warned that firms maintaining significant short positions in SpaceX over time face “very low” survival probability.
The statement comes amid post-IPO volatility for the rocket company, now trading under the ticker $SPCX.
The survival probability of firms who maintain a significant short position in SpaceX over time is very low
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 17, 2026
Five weeks after what was described as the largest IPO in history, the stock had fallen roughly 30% from its peak above $2.6 trillion, briefly surpassing Microsoft and Amazon in market value. Short sellers celebrated gains of about $8.7 billion, but Musk’s reply underscores his long-term conviction.
The warning directly echoes a detailed bullish analysis arguing that Starship’s cost reductions could unlock a multi-trillion-dollar space economy. Projects ranging from solar power beamed from orbit and asteroid mining to orbital data centers and Mars terraforming were projected to create over $100 trillion in new market capitalization.
In this vision, SpaceX acts as the essential infrastructure provider, akin to AWS for cloud computing, capturing monopoly-like revenues from launches, crew transport, and data traffic across a rapidly expanding frontier.
This is far from the first time Musk has targeted short sellers. With Tesla, he has repeatedly framed persistent bears as destined for major losses. In July 2024, Musk declared that once Tesla achieves full autonomy and volume production of Optimus robots, “anyone still holding a short position will be obliterated. Even Gates,” referencing Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates’ reported short bets.
Elon Musk reveals what Tesla stock surge could do to Bill Gates
Earlier, in 2018, he taunted shorts that they had “about three weeks before their short position explodes,” a remark followed by sharp stock gains. Musk has also called short selling “value destroying” and once suggested it “should be illegal,” viewing it as betting against innovation and progress.
Critics often dismiss Musk’s optimism as hype, especially when near-term metrics like quarterly deliveries or stock fluctuations disappoint.
Yet his pattern remains consistent: framing short positions against his companies as fundamentally misjudging exponential technological leaps. For SpaceX shorts, the message is clear: betting against multi-planetary ambitions and the infrastructure monopoly they enable carries existential risk for the firms involved.
As Musk and supporters see it, the space economy’s upside dwarfs Earth-bound valuation models, making today’s dips temporary in a decades-long ascent.
Elon Musk
SpaceX Starship Flight 13 aborted at Zero and Musk just told us what broke
Four Raptor engines failed to ignite at T-zero, forcing SpaceX to scrub Starship Flight 13 Thursday.
SpaceX scrubbed the Starship Flight 13 launch attempt Thursday evening at the last possible moment, after four of the Super Heavy booster’s 33 Raptor 3 engines failed to ignite during the startup sequence. The 90-minute window had opened at 6:45 p.m. EDT from Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas, and the countdown had proceeded without issue all day, with more than 11.5 million pounds of liquid methane and liquid oxygen being fully loaded into the rocket before the automated abort triggered. SpaceX’s launch directors posted on X, “Standing down from today’s flight test attempt,” and shut down the livestream shortly after.
Musk confirmed the root cause within hours. “Some of the engines didn’t start, triggering an automatic launch abort,” he wrote on X. “To be confident of a good flight, 2 Raptors will be removed and replaced. Most probable launch timing is early next week.” SpaceX engineers began draining propellant tanks immediately and Booster 20 was rolled back to its hangar for inspection.
The timing adds a layer of significance that did not exist during any of the previous 12 Starship flights. This is the first time SpaceX has attempted to launch Starship since the company made its stock market debut in June, listing under ticker SPCX at $135 per share. Public investors are now watching every Starship outcome in real time, and a last-second abort carries more visibility than it would have six months ago.
Flight 13 was designed to be one of the most consequential tests in the program’s history. It was set to carry 20 Starlink V3 satellites, the first operational payload Starship has ever attempted to deploy. Six of those satellites carried external cameras to photograph Starship’s heat shield from the outside during flight, which would act as a self-inspection approach SpaceX has never attempted before. The mission also needed to complete a Raptor engine relight in space, a step SpaceX skipped on Flight 12 in May after losing an engine during ascent. That Flight 12 booster also flipped 90 degrees off course during its boostback burn when five engines failed to reignite.
SpaceX has not announced an official next launch date. Musk’s “early next week” window points to July 21 or 22 at the earliest, pending the engine swap and a return to the pad.
Lucid CEO Silvio Napoli responded to rumors of an imminent bankruptcy that was reportedly being mulled after a report stated the automaker was working with the firm AlixPartners to iron out its next steps.
The company felt a massive loss on Wall Street yesterday, as the report essentially pushed the stock down as much as 55 percent on Tuesday.
The report, published initially by Eletric-Vehicles.com, claimed Lucid was essentially in dire straits and was told by AlixPartners, a commonly used restructuring advisor, to either take shares private or file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
Lucid’s head of Communications, Nick Twork, immediately challenged the report and stated the company “has sufficient liquidity to carry its operations well into next year.”
Now, the company’s CEO is chiming in as well, stating that the report is “so far from the facts that they require a direct response.”
Napoli said:
“Lucid is not considering bankruptcy or a transaction to take the company private. Those reports are false. The Board did not explore either scenario. Period.
As disclosed in our most recent quarterly filing, Lucid has sufficient liquidity to fund its operations well into next year.
We work with outside advisors to improve operational performance and execution. They are not advising Lucid on a take-private transaction or bankruptcy, and any suggestion that they have recommended either course of action to management or the Board is false.
My priority is clear: turn this company around. That is where the leadership team and I are focused.
I look forward to providing a full update during our quarterly earnings call on August 4th.”
🚨 Lucid CEO Silvio Napoli calls rumors of financial issues “so far from the facts that they require a direct response.”
Read his full remarks here: https://t.co/t3Pg1NHvzy pic.twitter.com/LvHUPhO4Qf
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) July 15, 2026
It seems pretty clear that Lucid is confident things will be okay, and, to be honest, they should not have much to worry about, especially considering the company has been backed by the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF) for years. It has solid financial backing, and its sales, while weak, are pretty much right on par with a company of this age.
Lucid also sent a Cease & Desist letter to the publication for their report.
Lucid shares have rebounded nicely and are up nearly 21 percent at the time of publication. As soon as the company dispelled the rumors of bankruptcy yesterday, the stock began to climb back toward more reasonable levels.
Elon Musk sends first warning to SpaceX short sellers
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