Investor's Corner
Elon Musk’s bet-the-company Tesla Model 3 gamble appears to be paying off
Elon Musk recently described the Model 3 ramp as a “bet-the-company” situation, where the future of Tesla as a whole hinged on the success of the vehicle. Considering recent reports that are emerging about the electric car, it appears that while it might have taken longer than expected, Elon Musk’s Model 3 gamble is starting to pay off.
True to the CEO’s prediction, the 5,000/week milestone that the company achieved at the end of Q2 2018 seemed to have ushered in a new standard for the production of the electric car. Prior to the end of Q2, Tesla was still struggling to build the Model 3 according to its self-imposed targets. Despite doubts from Wall St. that the 5,000/week pace for the Model 3 was unsustainable, signs have emerged since the beginning of July suggesting that the production ramp of the vehicle this Q3 2018 would be better than what critics expect.
Tesla’s journey to reach this point, however, has been painful. In an interview earlier this month with Bloomberg, Elon Musk admitted that his Model 3 gamble came at a high price. Musk noted that while he believes that the Model 3’s production hell is about to end, the whole ordeal has caused him to develop some “permanent mental scar tissue.” In the same interview, Musk also mentioned that he is optimistic about the next few months, and that he would let Tesla’s results speak for themselves.
These results are starting to emerge in a steady stream now. Since the beginning of July, Tesla does not appear to have relaxed its push to deliver as many Model 3 as possible. Test drive programs were started, more than 19,000 new Model 3 VINs were filed in half a month, a new 5-minute Sign & Drive delivery system was adopted, and the Fremont factory appears to be as busy as ever. Tesla enthusiast Anner J. Bonilla, for one, recently shared a recent drive-by video of the Fremont factory (originally uploaded at the Tesla Model 3 Owner’s Club closed Facebook Group), and the facility’s premises were filled with semi trucks waiting to transport Tesla vehicles.
Near Fremont from FB. We are gonna need @boringcompany tunnels to distribute to delivery centers soon. pic.twitter.com/2fhhkADl97
— Anner J. Bonilla 🇵🇷🛩️🔋🔧 (@annerajb) July 18, 2018
Reports have also emerged that Tesla Senior Director of Investor Relations Aaron Chew recently met with investors and analysts, where he reportedly revealed that Tesla is targeting a sustained production rate of 5,000-6,000 Model 3 per week for the third quarter. To support this continued ramp, Tesla seems to be optimizing its workforce once more. Since July started, the electric car maker’s hiring activity has jumped 19%. On July 1, Tesla had 1,662 job openings, and by July 16, the company had 1,974 open positions. Among these, openings for sales and deliveries, such as Customer Experience Specialists and Delivery Experience Specialists were many. Openings for Field Service Associates, which would be assigned to Tesla Energy, have also shown a rise since the beginning of the month.
Perhaps Tesla’s biggest vote of confidence for the Model 3, recently came in the form of Sandy Munro of Munro & Associates, who recently completed his teardown and analysis of the electric car. While initially critical of the Model 3 due to its build quality, Munro ultimately admitted in a recent Autoline Network segment that he had to “eat crow” with regards to the electric car, adding that the vehicle, particularly its battery and electronics, were a “symphony of engineering.” Munro also concluded that based on his company’s teardown and analysis, the Model 3’s Long Range RWD variant could give Tesla a 36% profit. The Detroit veteran further noted that even the base Model 3, which costs $35,000, can give Tesla a profit of 18%.
Amidst signs that Tesla is maintaining its production ramp and Munro’s conclusions that the Model 3 is profitable, the company’s stock started to recover on Tuesday. After a steep dive on Monday after Musk’s incendiary tweets during the weekend, Tesla shares (NASDAQ:TSLA) climbed 4.06% on Tuesday, ending the day at $322.69 per share. With Elon Musk recently returning on Twitter and issuing an apology over his recent statements, there appears to be very little that can get in the way of the company performing better than expected this third quarter.
In a new interview on Wednesday, Tesla uber bull Ron Baron said that anyone looking to buy the company’s stock should do so as soon as they can.
Baron, founder and CEO of Baron Capital and one of Tesla’s most persistent institutional bulls, used a CNBC Squawk Box appearance on Wednesday to deliver a familiar message with fresh urgency: In his opinion, Tesla stock is a buy:
“The time to buy the stock is now. FSD is catching on, and it’s going to be bigger and bigger. 55% of new buyers are buying it (Teslas) with FSD. It’s going to be everywhere. It’s safer.”
The Baron Capital frontman’s case is built around Full Self-Driving. Tesla reported 1.48 million active FSD subscriptions in the second quarter, up 56 percent year over year, and company officials have said roughly 55 percent of new North American deliveries left with a subscription enabled.
Baron framed that attach rate as proof the product is moving from enthusiast extra to default expectation, and as a reason software, not just vehicle volume, should drive the next phase of value.
His conviction on Tesla shares is not theoretical, as Baron Capital made its first Tesla investment in 2014, after years of meetings that began around the 2010 IPO roadshow. The firm later built a large SpaceX position starting in 2017.
Ron Baron today in new interview on Tesla:
“The time to buy the stock is now. FSD is catching on, and it’s going to be bigger and bigger. 55% of new buyers are buying it (Teslas) with FSD. It’s going to be everywhere. It’s safer.” pic.twitter.com/Rv5PB0bVZ2
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) September 16, 2026
Baron said those Musk-led bets have generated about $30 billion of the $71 billion in profits Baron Capital has produced for clients. He put the firm’s current exposure at roughly $25 billion in SpaceX and $5 billion in Tesla. Personally, he described SpaceX as his largest holding, at about $5 billion, with about $1.5 billion in Tesla and additional Tesla exposure through the firm’s funds.
That concentration is also a statement of loyalty. Asked about talk of a SpaceX-Tesla combination, Baron said he had already walked Elon Musk through arguments for and against a deal, then declined to repeat them on air. His public position was simpler: “Whatever you decide is better is what I’m going to support,” he said to Musk.
Baron also said that he picked up the farewell edition of the Model S after Tesla decided to sunset the vehicle earlier this year, calling it his favorite car he’s ever driven.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk gives his most telling Tesla-SpaceX merger conversation yet
Elon Musk hinted a Tesla-SpaceX merger could be coming, and Wall Street is taking notice.
Elon Musk gave his clearest signal yet that Tesla and SpaceX could eventually combine, telling the All-In Summit in Los Angeles that the two companies’ deepening collaboration makes the question worth asking. Sawyer Merritt first surfaced the highlight on X Tuesday.
Asked directly why Tesla and SpaceX remain separate given how closely they already work together, Musk told hosts at the summit: “Great question there. With all this collaboration, on so many levels, who can imagine what action one might take when there’s so much close collaboration in so many areas.” SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell, who joined Musk on stage, added that SpaceX personnel have already moved into xAI to fill leadership and engineering gaps, saying the businesses are integrating “faster than I thought,” though “not fully integrated yet,”
The comments landed on top of merger speculation that has been building on Wall Street for months. JPMorgan has called a tie-up “strategically coherent on paper,” pointing to overlapping ambitions in AI, robotics, energy, transportation and space. Jefferies went further, estimating Musk could retain roughly 55.3 percent voting control in a deal structured without a premium, a scenario that would still leave room for Tesla shareholders to come out ahead. On Kalshi, traders now put the odds of a merger before 2028 at 66 percent.
Tesla’s stake in SpaceX, still under one percent, traces back to its earlier investment in xAI, which converted to SpaceX equity after SpaceX absorbed the AI company. The two are also jointly building Terafab, a chip facility in Austin meant to serve both Tesla’s AI computing needs and SpaceX’s satellite ambitions. Wedbush analyst Dan Ives has stood by a 2027 merger timeline for months, and Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest recently floated a similar case, an idea Musk pushed back on directly at the time.
Another Tesla SpaceX merger prediction by ARK Invest has Elon Musk talking
The timing adds another layer. Tesla has scheduled an October 1 unveiling for its next generation Roadster at a venue near SpaceX’s McGregor, Texas test site, using the phrase “Go for launch” in its promotional material. Both stocks dipped roughly 2 percent Monday before recovering slightly in premarket trading Tuesday, with SpaceX shares up about 0.4 percent and Tesla essentially flat.
Musk stopped short of confirming anything is in motion. But unlike his past denials of a corporate restructuring, this response didn’t rule one out, and it came with Shotwell sitting next to him describing an integration that’s already underway.
Elon Musk
Tesla Cybercabs narrowly miss deadly Amazon cargo plane crash
An Amazon cargo plane crash near Miami’s airport stopped feet from dozens of Tesla Cybercabs.
An Amazon Prime Air Boeing 767 cargo jet overran the runway at Miami International Airport on Sunday afternoon, killing five people and injuring five more. The jet, operated by North Carolina based carrier 21 Air as Flight 7598, touched down around 2 p.m. after arriving from San Juan, Puerto Rico, then crossed the airport perimeter, plowed across NW 67th Avenue and struck multiple vehicles before catching fire, according to the Associated Press.
Photos and video from the scene show the aircraft’s nose stopped within meters of a fenced staging lot holding dozens of gold painted Tesla Cybercabs, the steering wheel free robotaxi Tesla began putting on public roads in Austin last week. Miami-Dade Fire Rescue has confirmed the plane struck “multiple vehicles” but has not said whether any Cybercabs were among them, and neither Tesla nor airport officials have addressed the fleet directly.
The Cybercabs had not yet entered commercial service in Miami. Tesla’s existing Robotaxi operation there runs on modified Model Y vehicles and has been unsupervised since Ashok Elluswamy confirmed the detail on X in July.
Footage of the plane crash from earlier today | #ONLYinDADE pic.twitter.com/iGoOtnd6cD
— ONLY in DADE (@ONLYinDADE) September 6, 2026
Elon Musk offered the briefest of reactions. Replying to a Zero Hedge post about the Cybercabs sitting so close to the wreckage, he wrote a single word: “Weird.” He has not commented further, and Tesla has not issued a statement.
The timing puts Tesla’s newest vehicle near an unrelated but highly visible tragedy just days after its Austin debut, a launch that had already drawn scrutiny from federal regulators. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened an audit how Tesla certified the Cybercab as compliant with federal vehicle safety standards, a process Teslarati covered after the vehicle’s September 3 launch event. That inquiry concerns the car’s lack of a steering wheel and pedals, not the Miami crash.
Investigators from the FAA and NTSB are focused on the plane, not the parking lot beside it. Flight data reviewed by outlets including Simple Flying show the 767 touched down around 170 knots, well above the 135 to 140 knot range typical for the aircraft, though investigators have not determined a cause. Amazon said it is working with authorities and that its priority is the safety of everyone affected.
Whether any Cybercabs were damaged, and what Tesla plans for the fleet parked near one of the country’s busiest airports, remain open questions.
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