Investor's Corner
Tesla celebrates its 10-year IPO anniversary: A look back at TSLA’s storied decade
Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) recently celebrated its 10th year anniversary at the stock market. Since the company held its initial public offering, TSLA stock has been on a massive bull run, earning its investors about 45% a year on average. That’s quite impressive, especially for a company that entered one of the most competitive industries in the market using vehicles that were once thought of as nothing but glorified golf carts.
Tesla held its IPO on June 29, 2010. During the time, Tesla was in need of funding, and its entrance into the stock market provided the company with a much needed boost to get its rhythm going. Tesla’s IPO was priced at $17, which valued the company at about $1.7 billion. Since then, TSLA stock has aggressively risen, with the company breaching the $1,000 per share barrier this month.
Overall, steep swings due to its trademark volatility aside, Tesla stock has earned investors 5,677% over the past decade. That’s an average of about 45% per year, quite an achievement for a company that is ranked among the world’s automakers.
Today, Tesla is valued only second to Toyota in the car industry. Of course, Toyota far outsells the much smaller Tesla, with the Japanese auto giant selling about 9 million vehicles each year with sales of about $234 billion. Tesla, on the other hand, sold over 360,000 vehicles last year with about $26 billion in sales. But these numbers alone miss the big picture.
A look at Tesla’s pace of growth over the decade shows a company that is expanding fast. Back in 2010, Tesla sales came in at less than $120 million and it was built on the back of the original Roadster, a small sports car that was priced beyond $100,000 per unit. Over the past ten years, these sales numbers are up by a factor of more than 200, as per Barron’s. Toyota, on the other round, has grown too, but nowhere near as much, with the Japanese automaker’s sales coming in at about $200 billion in 2010.
This is not to say that Tesla has not met challenges over the past decade, of course. Electric cars are a hard sell to begin with, and the negative sentiments surrounding the vehicles themselves were prominent, from the long tailpipe myth to range anxiety. Tesla was able to address these largely with the Model S, its first vehicle that was designed from the ground up. The Model S was well-reviewed, at one point even being dubbed as the 2013 MotorTrend Car of the Year.
If there is something that Tesla has shown, it would be foresight. Even if it only had the Model S, the company already began setting up a Supercharger Network that would allow its vehicles to charge their batteries quickly and conveniently. This allowed Tesla owners to conduct long trips without much issue, something that was rarely possible with previous electric cars.
The company also established a Gigafactory in Nevada in anticipation of the arrival of the Model 3, its first mass market car. The idea of a mammoth factory that only produces electric car batteries and powertrains seemed like a questionable idea then, and it was met by critics’ vocal opposition, but it ultimately paid off as the Model 3 hit its stride in the United States and in other countries.
Tesla today is at a very different place compared to where it was when it debuted in the stock market. Today, Tesla stands as the gold standard of EVs, and its always-connected, tech-driven vehicles are now being emulated by the world’s largest automakers such as Volkswagen. Elon Musk has always stated that Tesla’s goal is to accelerate the advent of sustainable energy, and so far, the company appears to be doing just that. Ultimately, Tesla has done the near impossible: it was able to disrupt the auto market.
Tesla shares are up more than 130% year to date as of the company’s 10-year IPO anniversary yesterday, surpassing comparable returns of the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
As of writing, Tesla stock is up 1.43% at $1,023.77 per share.
Disclosure: I have no ownership in shares of TSLA and have no plans to initiate any positions within 72 hours.
Elon Musk
SpaceX’s Anthropic deal has a catch, and Elon Musk just addressed it
Elon Musk says SpaceX’s Anthropic compute deal cuts both ways after Chamath floats higher prices.
Elon Musk pushed back on Sunday against the idea that SpaceX’s compute contract with Anthropic is a one way bet, after venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya argued the company could use a termination clause to charge the AI lab far more.
“It works both ways, of course. If compute becomes plentiful and cheap, SpaceX revenue will drop. No crying in the casino for either party,” Musk wrote on X Sunday evening, replying to a clip of Palihapitiya’s comments shared by AI commentator Rohan Paul.
On the All-In podcast released Sunday, Palihapitiya said either side can walk away from the agreement on 90 days’ notice. If data center supply tightens, he argued, SpaceX could exercise that option and bring the contract back at two to three times the current price, and Anthropic would have little choice but to accept. He called it “the kingmaking move,” according to BigGo Finance.
The clause itself is not new. SpaceX disclosed in its IPO filings in May that Anthropic would pay $1.25 billion per month for dedicated capacity at its Colossus clusters through May 2029, nearly $45 billion in total, with both companies able to terminate on 90 days’ notice, as Teslarati reported at the time. SpaceX’s later compute deals with Google and Reflection AI carry similar exit terms.
What has changed is the political backdrop. Palihapitiya’s thesis rests on incoming Democratic governors pulling tax incentives for data centers and slowing new construction. In Texas, Gov.-elect Gina Hinojosa campaigned on a moratorium on new data center approvals, and Deutsche Bank analysts warned last week that SpaceX’s Texas compute capacity could face delays. SpaceX and Tesla shares both fell after the midterm results.
A slowdown would favor companies that already own capacity. SpaceX acquired xAI in February and has been renting data centers to outside AI labs before the space is needed for Grok. At the Baron Investment Conference on Friday, Musk said SpaceX was “getting 50 billion a year for 35 billion dollar investments” and that it can bring a data center online in eight or nine months, compared to two and a half years for competitors. He also said SpaceX is tracking toward an annualized revenue rate above $100 billion in December, with a “best guess” of $500 billion by December 2027.
Musk’s reply points to the other side of the clause. Anthropic has signed large compute agreements with Amazon, Google and Microsoft, and if that capacity comes online faster than new construction slows, the AI lab would have its own leverage to renegotiate or leave. Musk has called Anthropic “obviously currently the leader in AI,” and it remains one of SpaceX’s largest compute customers.
SpaceX shares rose more than 2 percent in overnight trading late Sunday after closing Friday at $134.27, according to Stocktwits.
Tesla and SpaceX shares fell on Wednesday after Democrats swept both chambers of Congress. The decline stood out as broader market securities recovered and turned positive, while both of Musk’s publicly traded companies lagged.
CEO Elon Musk already joked about the unsuccessful campaigning for the Republicans, but now the new party will make pretty drastic changes to how it handles Tesla and SpaceX, and those companies will adjust their outlook.
Let’s take a deeper look.
Tesla ($TSLA)
Tesla shares traded lower during the regular session after Democrats secured both the House and Senate. The stock was down 2.32 percent at around 1:45 p.m. on the East Coast, trading at around $389.30.
The pressure is tied to more than the raw scale of Musk’s political spending, estimated at $450–474 million this cycle with roughly $224 million directed at Texas. In that state, Tesla now faces a Democratic governor and a Democratic senator after Gina Hinojosa unseated Greg Abbott and James Talarico defeated Ken Paxton.
The Austin Gigafactory, Robotaxi pilot programs in multiple Texas cities, and any related AI compute expansion sit under a new state executive who campaigned against certain corporate subsidies and floated a moratorium on new data-center construction.
Federally, Democratic control of key committees opens the door to deeper examination of Tesla’s autonomous-driving safety record, federal energy-storage and manufacturing incentives, and the national-security implications of any combination with SpaceX.
Investors are also weighing whether the company’s historically close alignment with the prior Republican leadership will invite slower permitting, additional hearings, or tighter rules on Full Self-Driving deployment.
For Tesla, the political shift adds near-term friction around state permitting and federal regulatory approvals for autonomy and energy storage. A potential merger with SpaceX may face slower review even if it proceeds.
Core growth drivers such as vehicle deliveries, energy deployments, and robotaxi rollout remain intact, yet the stock now carries a higher political-risk premium that could weigh on valuation until the company demonstrates workable relationships with the new Texas leadership and congressional majorities.
SpaceX ($SPCX)
SpaceX shares also declined in live trading on November 4 following the Democratic midterm sweep. The stock traded at $134.97, down 4.49 percent. The drop occurred even as broader indexes stabilized, highlighting a company-specific reaction to the election outcome.
Musk’s large contributions, concentrated in Texas races that both companies lost, place SpaceX’s Starbase launch facility and headquarters under a new Democratic governor.
At the federal level, Democratic control of Congress enables greater scrutiny of NASA, the Department of Defense, and other contracts that support a meaningful share of revenue, along with reviews of Starlink national-security uses and any Tesla merger. Analysts have noted that empowered committees can hold hearings and request documents on these relationships.
For SpaceX, the results raise the risk of delayed contract awards, higher compliance costs, and tighter constraints on AI and satellite infrastructure expansion, particularly in Texas where a data-center moratorium has been discussed.
A merger with Tesla could encounter political friction that slows integration of launch, connectivity, and autonomy capabilities.
While Starlink growth and launch cadence continue as primary drivers, the company faces a more contested path for federal funding and state-level operations, requiring management to rebuild ties with the new congressional majorities and Texas leadership to limit the overhang.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk calls Earth’s data centers “peanuts” next to what SpaceX is planning in orbit
Elon Musk says SpaceX capex efficiency is underestimated as orbital data centers loom by 2028.
Elon Musk is pushing back on one of the biggest worries hanging over SpaceX stock. In a reply on X on Sunday, Musk said the company’s capital expenditure efficiency is severely underestimated. He was responding to a Milk Road Stocks post citing analyst Kyle Reidhead, who estimates SpaceX will need to spend roughly $470 billion over the next five quarters.
Reidhead built that figure around the target SpaceX set on its third quarter earnings call: 13 gigawatts or more of compute by the end of 2027. In his breakdown, Nvidia captures 83 to 89 percent of the spending. SpaceX ended the quarter with 1.7 GW of nameplate compute and guided to $35 billion to $40 billion in fourth quarter capex, as Teslarati reported.
Musk did not attach a number to his claim, but the earnings call shows the argument. CFO Bret Johnsen said new compute currently pays for itself in under a year at today’s pricing, and Musk said that window could shrink to six months next year. Using that pace, Reidhead argues about $230 billion of the $470 billion could come from operating cash flow and about $60 billion from SpaceX’s roughly $90 billion cash pile, leaving around $180 billion to borrow. Musk confirmed last week that SpaceX had already closed a new $40 billion debt raise to buy GPUs.
The ground buildout is not the end goal. It is what is meant to pay for the move to orbit. Replying on Friday to charts built from Sequoia partner Shaun Maguire’s SpaceX model, Musk wrote that “Terrestrial compute will be peanuts compared to orbital compute,” adding that orbital compute deployed per month “probably exceeds terrestrial around the end of 2028 and then far exceeds it in 2029.”
Maguire’s model shows how steep that path is. It has capex climbing from $88 billion this year to $290 billion in 2027 and $369 billion in 2028, with SpaceX burning $77.8 billion in cash this year and $122.6 billion next year before turning $114.9 billion cash positive in 2028. Musk’s response to the model was, “I think we can do better.”
The orbital half runs through Starmind. SpaceX plans to operate up to 1 million AI satellites flying in clusters of about 10, linked by roughly 10 terabits of bandwidth, with deployment of thousands of units starting as soon as late 2027 out of its Gigasat factory in Bastrop, Texas, according to SpaceX’s space safety page. Musk has said each Starmind spacecraft will carry more than 250 kW of solar power.
Getting there depends on launch volume. Maguire’s model assumes 250 Starship flights in 2028, up from two this year and 38 next year. The nearer test is financial: SpaceX guided to $33 billion to $37 billion in first quarter 2027 revenue, more than double the $14.58 billion it booked in Q3, and Musk reposted that guidance again on Sunday morning.
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SpaceX’s Anthropic deal has a catch, and Elon Musk just addressed it
