Investor's Corner
Tesla is “absorbing” part of import tariffs to lower Model S and X prices in China
In an effort to make its electric cars more affordable to customers in China, Tesla has announced that it is cutting the prices of the Model S and Model X by 12 to 26% despite the ongoing trade war between the United States and the Asian economic powerhouse. Apart from lowering the prices of its two flagship vehicles, Tesla also opted to adjust the price of the Model 3, which is currently open for orders in the country.
China is the world’s largest electric car market, and the segment is only bound to get more prominent in the coming years due to the country’s aggressive push towards renewable transportation. That said, China has opted to place steep import taxes for vehicles entering the country, resulting in Tesla’s electric cars, which are produced in the United States, being weighed down with a 40% tariff.
When the additional duties took effect last July, Tesla had no choice but to raise the prices of the Model S and X by 150,000 yuan ($22,647) to 250,000 yuan ($37,744), resulting in a fully loaded Model S P100D costing as much as 1.47 million yuan ($221,937) in China — significantly higher than the $147,000 price of the electric car in the United States.
2/ Tesla Zhejiang (China 🇨🇳) Members Club meeting photos$TSLA #Tesla #China #TeslaChina pic.twitter.com/iIn82BMw76
— vincent (@vincent13031925) November 19, 2018
In a statement to Reuters, Tesla noted that the company would be lowering the prices of its vehicles in the country by “absorbing” part of the 40% import tariffs placed on its electric cars.
“We are absorbing a significant part of the tariff to help make our cars more affordable for customers in China,” Tesla stated.
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Tesla further remarked that the Model 3, which is currently open for orders for Chinese reservation holders, is being given a price adjustment. When Tesla initially opened pre-orders for the vehicle, the Long Range Model 3 AWD started at 580,000 RMB (~$84,000) and the Model 3 Performance was listed with a starting price of 690,000 RMB (~$100,000). In the United States, the Long Range Model 3 AWD currently starts at $53,000 while the Model 3 Performance stars at $64,000.
With its recent price adjustments in place, Tesla noted to the publication that the Long Range Model 3 AWD would now start at 540,000 RMB (~$78,000), while the Model 3 Performance would start at 595,000 RMB (~$86,000). These prices, while still notably higher than the vehicle’s cost in the United States, offers a significant reduction from the Model 3’s initial price in China nonetheless.
Tesla Model 3 Performance ( China 🇨🇳 ) option pricing breakdown.
MP3: 689,000 RMB ($100K)
Red exterior (China addition):
26,900 RMB ($3.9K)White interior: 10,800 RMB ($1.5K)
19inch Wheel: Free
Advanced autopilot: 54,000 RMB
($7.8k)@TeslaPodcast $TSLA #Tesla #Model3 #China pic.twitter.com/XcKLjTTgvf-— vincent (@vincent13031925) November 16, 2018
Such adjustments could bode well for Tesla’s business in the country. Before the US and China’s trade war resulted in a 40% tariff for Tesla’s vehicles, after all, China’s Customs Tariff Commission under China’s cabinet announced that it would reduce car import duties from 20-25% to just 15%. The announcement was met with much enthusiasm by electric car buyers in the country, resulting in a Tesla gallery in Shanghai clearing out its entire Model X 75D inventory in 24 hours.
Tesla’s lowered prices for its vehicles in China is but the tip of the iceberg in the company’s plans for the country’s growing electric car market. Last month, reports emerged from local Chinese media that Tesla’s Gigafactory 3 in Shanghai — which would allow the company to produce vehicles locally, thereby avoiding import taxes — is getting funding from local banks. Tesla has also announced in its third quarter vehicle and production delivery report that it is accelerating the construction of Gigafactory 3, which is expected to produce both batteries as well as the Model 3 and Model Y.
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Cybertruck
Tesla Cybertruck production snaps back after ugly supplier fight
Cybertrucks are piling up again at Giga Texas after Tesla’s court win against a parts supplier.
Cybertruck production at Giga Texas is showing its first visible recovery since Tesla sued a supplier last month over withheld manufacturing tooling.
Aerial observer Joe Tegtmeyer flew over the Austin factory Wednesday morning and counted roughly 100 or more Cybertrucks filling the outbound lot, a sharp jump from the thin numbers seen in recent weeks. The flyover came a day after a judge granted Tesla a temporary restraining order against Angstrom Automotive Group, the parts supplier at the center of the dispute.
Tesla filed an emergency lawsuit in late July after Angstrom told the automaker it planned to close the Troy, Texas facility where Tesla’s die-cast tools, trim dies and other Cybertruck stamping equipment were housed. According to Tesla’s complaint, a shipment of 700 finished parts never left the building, and when Tesla sent representatives to retrieve its equipment, accompanied by law enforcement, they were turned away. Angstrom allegedly then asked for an extra $250,000 a week to keep operating, which Tesla’s filing described as holding its own property for ransom.
TESLA: U.S. District Judge Christopher R. Wolfe of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, Waco Division granted Tesla a Temporary Restraining Order and Writ of Replevin in its dispute with Angstrom Automotive (Case No. 6:26-cv-00477).
The order authorizes… https://t.co/E1DKcQSxMn pic.twitter.com/LR8aAiV2Og
— S.E. Robinson, Jr. (@SERobinsonJr) August 5, 2026
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The restraining order gives Tesla immediate right of entry to Angstrom’s facility to recover the tooling. It is temporary, with a fuller hearing still to come, but the speed of Wednesday’s rebound suggests the Angstrom shortage was indeed the main bottleneck limiting Cybertruck output. Outbound lot counts are an imperfect measure of actual production, since finished trucks can sit for days before shipping, but a lot that full after a lean stretch is a meaningful signal.
Cybertruck output at Giga Texas has fluctuated all year as Tesla worked through supply issues and introduced new trims, including a cheaper Dual Motor AWD version that drew strong early demand.
Venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya has cautioned investors shorting SpaceX shares, drawing a direct parallel to the intense short-selling pressure Tesla faced in its early public years.
Responding to reports of elevated short interest in the newly public rocket, satellite, and AI company, Palihapitiya noted that similar dynamics played out with Tesla, where aggressive short sellers ultimately “went broke.”
SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX) went public on June 12, 2026, in the largest IPO on record, pricing at $135 per share. Shares quickly surged to an all-time high of $225.64 just days later, briefly implying a valuation exceeding $2 trillion. The stock has since retreated sharply amid valuation concerns, lockup expiration fears, and broader market dynamics.
By early August, it traded near $108–$125, representing a roughly 50 percent decline from the peak and bringing the market capitalization closer to the $1.5–1.7 trillion range. On August 4, shares closed up more than 9 percent at $125.33 ahead of earnings before facing pressure in after-hours and premarket trading.
Short interest has climbed dramatically. According to S3 Partners data widely cited in market reports, short positions reached approximately 219.3 million shares by late July, about 34 percent of the limited public float of roughly 640 million shares, and represented a notional value of around $24.6 billion.
Utilization of shares available to borrow hit 95 percent, with borrow fees rising. This level of shorting exceeded the dollar value of short bets against Tesla at the time and built rapidly ahead of two catalysts: the company’s first post-IPO earnings and an August 6 lockup expiration that could free up to 911.5 million additional shares.
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CEO Elon Musk has issued warnings of his own. In mid-July, as short interest approached one-third of the float, he posted that “the survival probability of firms who maintain a significant short position in SpaceX over time is very low,” reiterating his view that the company could ultimately be worth more than Earth if it achieves its goals.
On August 4, just before earnings, Musk responded to the latest short-interest data by saying, “I try to warn them, but they just double down.”
SpaceX delivered its first quarterly results as a public company after the close on August 4. Second-quarter revenue rose 92 percent year-over-year to $7.8 billion, beating consensus estimates near $6.8–6.9 billion.
The net loss narrowed to $541 million, or 9 cents per share, better than the roughly 23–24 cent loss expected. Starlink/connectivity contributed about $4.3 billion (up 66 percent), while the AI business generated $2.6 billion (up roughly 250 percent). Capital expenditures were heavy at $18.4 billion, largely tied to AI infrastructure. Management projected a $100 billion annualized revenue run rate by year-end 2026 and outlined a path toward $1 trillion in annual revenue by 2030.
The combination of Chamath’s historical reminder, Musk’s repeated alerts, and the company’s ambitious growth targets underscores the high-stakes debate surrounding SPCX. Short sellers are positioned for near-term supply pressure from the lockup, while long-term bulls point to Starlink scale, Starship progress, and AI compute expansion as reasons the bears may ultimately face the same fate as many early Tesla skeptics.
Investor's Corner
SpaceX and Nvidia team up on Musk’s orbital AI bet
SpaceX revealed a new Nvidia satellite partnership, then Musk pledged an exclusive Nvidia hardware commitment.
SpaceX and Nvidia are now working together on the hardware that will power Musk’s orbital data center ambitions. SpaceX announced on X on Tuesday that it is partnering with Nvidia to design the compute payload for Starmind AI1, the first satellite in a planned constellation built to run AI workloads directly in orbit. Each Starmind satellite will carry Nvidia’s Rubin GPUs and Vera CPUs, according to the post, which included renderings of the payload design.
The announcement landed hours before SpaceX’s first earnings call as a public company, where Musk went further, saying the company has committed to building its AI infrastructure exclusively on Nvidia hardware. “We think the Vera Rubin architecture is the best architecture. We think it’s the best AI computer, and we greatly value our close cooperation and partnership on many levels with Nvidia,” Musk told investors on the call,. “So we’re exclusive to Nvidia.”
Musk said SpaceX plans to deploy Nvidia’s Vera Rubin NVL72 rackscale system, codenamed Kyber, both on the ground and in space. He set a target of 2 gigawatts of compute capacity online by the end of this year, scaling to roughly 10 gigawatts by the end of 2027.
SpaceX’s newest Starmind will make earth data centers obsolete
Starmind has been in development since Musk confirmed the name in June, following an xAI trademark filing that tipped off the project before SpaceX made it official. The idea is massive in scope and instead of moving data down to ground based servers, satellites equipped with onboard processors and large solar arrays would compute AI workloads in orbit and beam results back to Earth. SpaceX has already filed with the FCC for a constellation of up to one million satellites to support the effort, citing constant solar power and the absence of zoning restrictions as advantages over terrestrial data centers.
The Nvidia exclusivity marks a shift in tone from just two weeks ago, when Musk was busy knocking down a report that SpaceX had ordered $52 billion worth of Nvidia GPUs through Foxconn, calling it fake news at the time. The dollar figure in that rumor may have been wrong, but the underlying direction seems correct. SpaceX’s AI division already leases Colossus compute capacity to Anthropic and Google, and Tuesday’s earnings report showed AI revenue climbing sharply as those deals ramp up.
Nvidia shares rose roughly 3% in Tuesday trading on the news, while SpaceX stock climbed nearly 9% during the day before giving back gains after hours as investors digested the earnings report’s capital spending figures.
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