Investor's Corner
Oil Prices Sinking Tesla Motors Stock?
As I was watching a recent webinar on forward-looking trending tools for stocks, the moderator popped Tesla Motors stock chart on the screen to demonstrate the Fibonacci retracement and Ichimoku tools. Perfect timing, I’m a long investor in Tesla Motors stock and what about these downward oil prices?
Financial media sites are in a tizzy regarding oil prices plummeting—Saudis pulling the strings—and how this poses a big hurt for electric car industry sales and, of course, Tesla Motors stock price. Sine I cover the oil and gas industry for the Chicago-based Automation World magazine, the Saudis’ primary “displacement” target is U.S. shale.
Fracking shale plays are very expensive due to the fact that oil and gas drilling companies have to setup so many wells in order to find shale sweet spots. Plus, these small-to-medium sized drillers are financially over-leveraged and need barrel prices to be somewhere around $80 a barrel in order to be profitable. That’s not going to happen for some time, did I say “displacement.”
However, it does begs the question whether there is a decent correlation between high gas prices and electric car sales in the last four years, and will lower gas prices doom Tesla Motors’s stock price for the near-term or long-term?
Source: Energy Information Agency
As a Energy Information Agency chart shows above, there’s not a direct correlation between sales and increase gas prices. However, I believe some EV automakers will take a hit from really low gas prices in 2015–say $2.10-2.20– but not Tesla Motors.
Why? Tesla Motors owners are not obsessed with the price of power for their car, compared to a Volt or Leaf owner is my theory, and this car just won the award for the highest satisfaction from Consumer Reports, two years running.
Plus, Americans are buying more expensive cars, north of $50,000. TrueCar just this week released data on buying patterns and showed:
From January through November 931,064 vehicles were sold in the U.S. with average price above $50,000, a whopping 30.8 percent increase compared to the same period last year, according to TrueCar.
So with lower oil prices soon to be a non-issue or baked into Tesla’s current stock price, is it attractive at $210 or lower? How long will this downward, selling pressure last?
Ishimoku technicals (forward-looking indicators) point to new lows being tested in the near term, such as the $203 level. So Tesla shorting could continue and recent data shows 23% of Tesla stock owners were shorting in November.
According to John Del Vecchio and Tom Jacobs’ book What’s Behind the Numbers? (via a Nasdaq.com article), this is why you short a stock:
We recommend waiting until there is aggressive revenue recognition, weakening balance sheets, and deteriorating cash flow trends. It’s the flipside of value-with-catalyst, which is fundamental analysis of value combined with a catalyst for stock market buying to boost the price to realize that value.
As most Tesla Motors investors and followers know, the company’s cash flow is quite positive and revenue is on solid-footing with production capacity investments made in 2014, and the company’s estimate of 50,000 vehicles delivered in 2015. In 2014, Tesla will probably deliver just under 35,000 vehicles, a solid increase.
So there may be an opportunity to buy in the near-term for longs, as I feel the oil price “news” won’t really affect Tesla sales in 2015. One caveat, although, is to keep an eye on Model X news and possible struggles in hitting a 250 mile range for this coveted SUV. This could dampen the stock price if problems persist.
Elon Musk
SpaceX just filed for the IPO everyone was waiting for
SpaceX filed its public S-1, revealing $18.7 billion in revenue and billions in losses.
SpaceX publicly filed its S-1 registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission on May 20, 2026, making its financial details available to the public for the first time ahead of what could be the largest IPO in history.
An S-1 is the formal document a company must submit to the SEC before going public. It includes audited financials, risk factors, business descriptions, and how the company plans to use the money it raises. Companies are required to file one before selling shares to the public, and it must be published at least 15 days before the investor roadshow begins. SpaceX had already submitted a confidential draft to the SEC in April, which allowed regulators to review the filing privately before it went public.
The S-1 reveals that SpaceX generated $18.7 billion in consolidated revenue in 2025, driven largely by its Starlink satellite internet division, which posted $11.4 billion in revenue, growing nearly 50% year over year. Despite that growth, the company lost about $4.9 billion in 2025 and has burned through more than $37 billion since its founding.
SpaceX just forced Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile to team up for the first time in history
A significant portion of those losses trace back to xAI, Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company, which was recently merged into SpaceX. SpaceX directed roughly 60% of its capital spending in 2025 to its AI division, totaling around $20 billion, yet that division lost billions and grew revenue by only about 22%.
SpaceX plans to list its Class A common stock on Nasdaq under the ticker SPCX, with Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Bank of America leading the offering. The dual-class share structure means going public will not meaningfully reduce Musk’s control, as Class B shares he holds carry 10 votes per share compared to one vote for public Class A shares.
The company is targeting a raise of around $75 billion at a valuation of roughly $1.75 trillion, which would make it the largest IPO ever. The investor roadshow is reportedly planned for June 5.
Elon Musk
Tesla ditches India after years of broken promises
Tesla has ditched its plans to build a factory in India after years of failed negotiations.
Tesla’s long-running effort to establish a manufacturing presence in India is officially over. India’s Minister of Heavy Industries H.D. Kumaraswamy confirmed on May 19, 2026 that Tesla has informed authorities it will not proceed with a manufacturing facility in the country.
Tesla first signaled serious interest in India around 2021, when it began hiring local staff and lobbying the Indian government for lower import tariffs. The ask was straightforward: reduce duties enough for Tesla to test the market with imported vehicles before committing capital to a local factory. India’s position was equally firm, with an ask of Tesla to commit to manufacturing first, then receive tariff relief. Neither side moved, and the talks quietly collapsed.
Tesla to open first India experience center in Mumbai on July 15
India had offered a policy that would reduce import duties from 110% down to 15% on EVs priced above $35,000, provided companies committed at least $500 million toward local manufacturing investment within three years. Tesla declined to participate. The tariff standoff was only part of the problem. Analysts pointed to significant gaps in India’s local supply chain, inadequate industrial infrastructure, and a mismatch between Tesla’s premium pricing and the purchasing power of India’s automotive market as additional factors that made the investment difficult to justify.
First signs of an unraveling relationship came in April 2024, when Musk abruptly cancelled a planned trip to India where he was set to meet Prime Minister Modi and announce Tesla’s market entry. By July 2024, Fortune reported that Tesla executives had stopped contacting Indian government officials entirely. The government at that point understood Tesla had capital constraints and no plans to invest.
The more fundamental issue is that Tesla’s existing factories are currently operating at approximately 60% capacity, making a commitment to building new manufacturing capacity in a new market difficult to defend to investors. Tesla will continue selling imported Model Y vehicles through its existing showrooms in Mumbai, Delhi, Gurugram, and Bengaluru, but local production is no longer part of the plan.
Elon Musk
SpaceX just forced Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile to team up for the first time in history
AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon just joined forces for one reason: Starlink is winning.
America’s three largest wireless carriers, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon, announced on On May 14, 2026 that they had agreed in principle to form a joint venture aimed at pooling their spectrum resources to expand satellite-based direct-to-device (D2D) connectivity across the United States in what can be seen as a direct response to SpaceX’s Starlink initiative. D2D, in plain terms, is technology that lets a standard smartphone connect directly to a satellite in orbit, the same way it connects to a cell tower, with no extra hardware required.
The alliance is widely seen as a means to slow Starlink’s rapid expansion in the satellite internet and mobile markets. SpaceX’s Starlink Mobile service launched commercially in July 2025 through a partnership with T-Mobile, starting with messaging before expanding to broadband data. SpaceX secured access to valuable wireless spectrum through its $17 billion deal with EchoStar, paving the way for significantly faster satellite-to-phone speeds.
SpaceX was not shy about its reaction. SpaceX president and COO Gwynne Shotwell responded on X: “Weeeelllll, I guess Starlink Mobile is doing something right! It’s David and Goliath (X3) all over again — I’m bettin’ on David.” SpaceX’s VP of Satellite Policy David Goldman went further, flagging potential antitrust concerns and asking whether the DOJ would even allow three dominant competitors to coordinate in a market where a new rival is actively entering.
Weeeelllll, I guess @Starlink Mobile is doing something right! It’s David and Goliath (X3) all over again — I’m bettin’ on David 🙂 https://t.co/5GzS752mxL
— Gwynne Shotwell (@Gwynne_Shotwell) May 14, 2026
Financial analysts at LightShed Partners were blunt, saying the announcement showed the three carriers are “nervous,” and pointed to the timing: “You announce an agreement in principle when the point is the announcement, not the deal. The timing, weeks ahead of the SpaceX roadshow, was the point.”
As Teslarati reported, SpaceX’s next generation Starlink V2 satellites will deliver up to 100 times the data density of the current system, with custom silicon and phased array antennas enabling around 20 times the throughput of the first generation. The carriers’ JV, which has no definitive agreement, no financial structure, and no deployment timeline yet, will need to move quickly to matter.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX is targeting a Nasdaq listing as early as June 12, aiming for what would be the largest IPO in history. With Starlink now serving over 9 million subscribers across 155 countries, holding 59 carrier partnerships globally, and now powering Air Force One, the carriers’ joint venture announcement landed at exactly the wrong time to look like anything other than a defensive move.
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