Investor's Corner
Lordstown Motors continues cash flow woes, sells Ohio plant to iPhone manufacturer Foxconn
Lordstown Motors, an electric vehicle startup based in Ohio, has announced that it has agreed in principle to work jointly on electric vehicle programs with iPhone manufacturer Hon Hai Technology Group, more commonly known as Foxconn.
Lordstown announced earlier this year that it was struggling with significant cash flow problems and that it would likely not sustain enough capital to keep its doors open through the end of June 2022. Lordstown said in a June 2021 filing with the SEC that its ability to stay open “is dependent on its ability to complete the development of its electric vehicles, obtain regulatory approval, begin commercial-scale production and launch the sale of such vehicles.” With cash issues, the automaker was likely forced to enter a joint partnership with a company that did not have financial worries. Foxconn appears to be Lordstown’s choice.
On Thursday, Lordstown confirmed the joint partnership with Foxconn:
Lordstown Motors Corp, a provider of electric light duty trucks focused on the commercial fleet market, today announced that the Company and Hon Hai Technology Group (“Foxconn”) have reached an agreement in principle to work jointly on electric vehicle programs in the Company’s assembly plant in Lordstown, Ohio. In connection with this announcement, the Company is today updating its production plan and financial outlook.”
Following the June 2021 filing that indicated Lordstown was set for closure within a year, the company made several changes in its boardroom. It relieved CEO Steven Burns and CFO Julio Rodriguez of their duties just days later. After appointing Becky Roof to Interim CFO and Angela Strand to Executive Chairwoman, the company then began to scramble to find financial support. However, Lordstown’s worries did not end there. Following a report from Hindenburg Research that claimed Lordstown was exaggerating its pre-order figures, especially after former CEO Burns stated that the company had accumulated 100,000 orders for its initial vehicle, the Endurance pickup.
The SEC decided to issue a post-effective amendment No. 2 to an S-1 registration statement, requesting more information and documentation that could prove Lordstown’s claimed pre-order counts. Lordstown obliged to the subpoenas. In late August, it announced that its new CEO would be Daniel Ninivaggi, a veteran of both Icahn Automotive Group LLC and Hertz Global Holdings, Inc. where he served as Director.
The new partnership with Foxconn helps Lordstown solidify its plans to manufacture the Endurance:
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The Lordstown Motors team continues to move forward with its plan to build a limited number of vehicles for testing, validation, verification and regulatory approvals during the balance of 2021 and the first part of 2022. In light of the Foxconn agreement, the Company will evaluate the potential impact of the parties’ contract manufacturing relationship on commercial production, supply chain opportunities with Foxconn and the appropriate integration and timing of the parties’ operations teams and will provide an update on its production plan during our upcoming Q3 2021 earnings call currently slated for mid-November.”
It also updated its financial outlook, which consists of revised figures from the Q2 2021 Earnings Call:
- Capital expenditures – unchanged in total from $375 to $400 million, including changes in timing of tooling and equipment purchases and the inclusion of forecasted soft tooling expense purchases previously included in R&D expense.
- SG&A expenditures – $105 to $120 million, up from $95 to $105 million, primarily due to higher legal and professional fees.
- R&D expenditures – $320 to $340 million, up from $310 to $320 million, largely due to increased prototyping and pre-production expenses, reduced by the impact of moving forecasted soft tooling expense to capital expenditures as mentioned above.
- Cash balance on September 30, 2021 – $210 to $240 million, down from $225 to $275 million, which includes approximately $20 million of proceeds from the issuance of common stock under the Company’s Equity Purchase Agreement in August and September but excludes proceeds from Foxconn’s purchase of $50 million of the Company’s common stock as announced today.
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Elon Musk
Tesla AI boss reveals how big Optimus is going to get
Tesla’s Optimus chief corrected himself on X, confirming a staggering 10 million robot production target.
![Tesla Optimus Gen 3 [Credit: Tesla]](https://www.teslarati.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/tesla-optimus-gen3-diner.jpg)
Tesla’s Optimus program has a new number attached to it, after Ashok Elluswamy, the executive who has run the humanoid robot program since June 2025, posted a three word correction on X Thursday, “Correction, 10 million robots.”
The line clarifies the long term annual capacity Tesla is building toward its planned second Optimus production line at Gigafactory Texas, a figure Musk has cited repeatedly since last year’s shareholder meeting.
The scale is worth noting, because ten million robots a year would mean Tesla building more units annually than most countries sell in new cars. Tesla has framed this as a second line, not the first. The buildout is happening in two phases: a roughly one million unit per year line inside Tesla’s Fremont factory, installed on the floor space vacated when Model S and Model X production ended earlier this year, and a much larger dedicated facility under construction at Giga Texas that broke ground on its first steel structure in May. That Texas facility is the one Elluswamy’s correction refers to, and is expected to reach volume production sometime in 2027.
Correction, 10 million robots https://t.co/0z4nyQNTzp
— Ashok Elluswamy (@aelluswamy) July 30, 2026
Tesla Optimus project fires up as Musk sees production line progress
Elluswamy took over Optimus from Milan Kovac last summer and has spent the months since talking up the program’s trajectory. Elon Musk has also floated the ten million figure at Tesla’s 2025 shareholder meeting.
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Ending Model S and Model X production to make room for the first Optimus line was one of the more consequential manufacturing decisions in the company’s recent history, retiring two flagship vehicles in favor of a robot that has yet to enter mass production. Musk has previously estimated per unit production costs at $20,000 to $25,000 once Tesla reaches a million units a year, though he hasn’t said what that cost looks like at ten times the volume.
SpaceX just picked up another $1.6 billion from the Pentagon, with the U.S. Space Force awarding two task orders worth $1.6 billion to fly 18 Falcon 9 missions from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California through the end of 2027. The launches will carry satellites for the Space Based Sensing and Targeting portfolio, a set of programs meant to help the military detect and track airborne threats and relay that information across forces in near real time.
The award falls under National Security Space Launch Phase 3 Lane 1, the Space Force’s faster, commercial style procurement track for missions that do not require the military’s most demanding certification process. It is also the largest single order publicly disclosed under that program so far, and the first task order issued since the Space Force nearly tripled Lane 1’s contract ceiling from $5.6 billion to $17 billion on July 17.
SpaceX to become America’s Military data backbone for missiles, drones, and warfighters
Eric Zarybnisky, the Space Force’s acting portfolio acquisition executive for space access, said the entire process, from identifying the requirement to signing the contract, took about two months, including a month set aside for companies to prepare proposals.
SpaceX is not just launching these satellites. It already holds the contracts to build two of the programs within the same portfolio, $4.16 billion for the Space Based Airborne Moving Target Indicator system and $2.29 billion for the Space Data Network Backbone, which Teslarati covered in May. That means SpaceX is now responsible for both building key pieces of the military’s next generation sensing network and getting them into orbit.
With this latest award, SpaceX’s Pentagon contract total for 2026 alone tops $8 billion, adding to a defense portfolio that already includes the Golden Dome missile defense software group SpaceX joined in April and a string of GPS launches it inherited after ULA’s Vulcan rocket ran into a booster anomaly, which we detailed in March.
Lane 1’s vendor pool technically includes seven companies: SpaceX, ULA, Blue Origin, Rocket Lab, Stoke Space, Impulse Space, and Relativity Space. In practice, SpaceX remains the only provider with the combination of launch cadence, flight proven Falcon 9 hardware, and West Coast infrastructure to support a campaign requiring roughly one Vandenberg launch a month for the next year and a half.
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Some lawmakers have flagged the growing concentration of national security launches with one company as a risk worth watching. For now, the Space Force keeps backing SpaceX, with it being the company that shows up ready to launch.
SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX) got an absolutely crazy price target rating from Raymond James after the company experienced a tough first few weeks following its Initial Public Offering (IPO).
Despite the tumultuous start, SpaceX has plenty of believers, and the company’s massively successful Starship launch last Friday, its 13th test flight of the massive rocket, went so smoothly that Raymond James analysts pushed its price target on the company to roughly 7 times its current trading level.
SpaceX Starship just nailed something it’s never done before
The firm officially put a “Strong Buy” rating and an $800 price target on the stock. It currently trades at around $113. Its all-time high is $225.64, reaching this trading level shortly after shares first went public.
Raymond James’ price target is tied to the firm’s confidence after Starship’s 13th test flight. Analysts at the firm said it was an incremental step that reduces engineering risks, citing the widely successful heat shield test that CEO Elon Musk recently detailed, the smooth deployment of Starlink V3 satellites, and a successful in-space engine relight.
SpaceX also managed to see Starship splash down safely in the Indian Ocean, while the Super Heavy Booster fell down to the Gulf of America with no incidents.
It is interesting to see these launches have such a tremendous impact on the stock and what investors think of it. After SpaceX initially delayed the Starship launch last week, shares fell tremendously. Most probably did not realize that the stand-down is a standard practice, especially if everything is not perfect.
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The mission was initially aborted due to an issue with Raptor engines. This was resolved, and Starship launched last Friday after another delay on Thursday, which was caused by weather.
Now that analysts have seen what SpaceX launches are capable of and how impressive the feat is, firms are adjusting their price targets accordingly, making it known that they have high expectations for the space exploration company.
Tesla Model Y L’s new features flexed at unveiling event at Diner
Tesla CEO Elon Musk denies ridiculous Gigafactory Shanghai rumor
![Tesla Optimus Gen 3 [Credit: Tesla]](https://www.teslarati.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/tesla-optimus-gen3-diner-80x80.jpg)
