Investor's Corner
OPINION: Analysts miss the mark on Tesla following Q3 Delivery Guidance
This is a preview from our weekly newsletter. Each week I go ‘Beyond the News’ and handcraft a special edition that includes my thoughts on the biggest stories, why it matters, and how it could impact the future.
Tesla is coming off its most successful quarter in company history. The Q3 delivery guidance saw Tesla deliver over 241,000 vehicles for the first time in company history, with production at a slightly lower rate than that. However, despite the bullish outlook for Tesla from a retail investor standpoint, analysts and media continue to miss the mark on the company, believing in their breakdowns that the automaker’s growth story will begin to stagnate. However, Tesla is averting several crises simultaneously, including parts shortages and opening new facilities.
The consistently baffling thing to me as a journalist and reporter that has covered the sector for over two years is that analysts continue to sit on a hill, ready to die on it. Just because they have been outspoken when writing notes regarding their negative outlooks on Tesla stock or deliveries, they are unwilling to admit their wrongs, for the most part. Tesla has continued a growth story that is one of the most impressive in perhaps the long and storied history of the automotive industry.
I’m not an analyst. I did work in finance before I ventured into writing for a career, but I am in no way an analyst or seasoned investor of any kind. However, I do recognize that there are obvious shortcomings in the descriptions of Tesla by some analysts, unwilling to give credit where credit is due. Tesla has been the only car company on Earth that has been able to avert the semiconductor shortage through in-house measures and efforts. Tesla’s software team absolutely killed it with the development and production of microcontrollers that would assist with the company’s efforts to avoid a production stoppage. Yet, despite all of this effort and hard work and dedication by Tesla’s highly talented team of engineers, there is relatively no credit given by analysts apart from Morgan Stanley’s Adam Jonas, who was baffled at the company’s ability to avoid the chip shortage.
Tesla delivers record 241,300 cars in Q3, handily beating consensus estimates
Meanwhile, other automakers like Ford, who have adopted EVs partially with their release of the Mustang Mach-E and eventual releases of the F-150 Lightning and E-Transit van, are experiencing drops in deliveries. Ford had a 23% drop in pickup truck deliveries, despite the F-150 being the most popular truck in the U.S. market. While SUV sales did rise 3.4% compared to Q2, the drop in pickup trucks is evidently a result of the chip shortage, as many manufactured but incomplete pickups sit in lots surrounding the company’s production facilities waiting for chips.
I don’t know this for a fact, but I feel as if mainstream media outlets would be singing the praises of companies like Ford, Chevy, GMC, or Honda if these companies were able to produce chips on their own and avoid the semiconductor issues. I do not necessarily like being accusatory of other media outlets, and I do not like going out of my way to believe that journalists have some kind of inside agenda. I believe all of us have a duty to remain fair and balanced and unbiased. But let’s be honest here, Tesla is not getting the attention or the credit it deserves. The semiconductor shortage is plaguing so many industries, and Tesla is averting it completely, somehow.
Companies are declining while Tesla has already reported eight consecutive profitable quarters, going for its ninth. We will find out if Tesla was profitable in Q3 next week during the Earnings Call on October 20th. However, the ability to conduct such consistent growth through deliveries in somewhat incredible, and I truly believe analysts are doing themselves and their clients a huge disservice by ignoring or avoiding such a tremendous growth story during such a trying time. Many of them will live to regret their decisions, whether it’s paid inside interests or a personal vendetta.
I think there is a reason many analysts with bullish Tesla outlooks are ranked so highly on TipRanks, while those who continue a bearish outlook are ranked tremendously low.
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I use this newsletter to share my thoughts on what is going on in the Tesla world. If you want to talk to me directly, you can email me or reach me on Twitter. I don’t bite, be sure to reach out!
-Joey
SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX) will report its first public earnings call today since its IPO earlier this year, and there are a few things we expect to hear about, as well as Wall Street analysts, who have already outlined their expectations for the call.
Wall Street analysts have a consensus of $12.72 billion in revenue and an earnings per share (EPS) of $0.13. These are broken down into three sectors: Space, Connectivity, and AI/SI, which are perceived in this way:
- Space: $1.41 billion
- Connectivity: $4.84 billion
- AI/SI: $6.47 billion
Other outlets cluster near $12.8 or $12.9 billion in revenue and $0.14 – $0.15 EPS. This implies a roughly 65 percent sequential growth from Q2’s $7.81 billion, driven mostly by AI/SI, with the first post-IPO positive EPS expected.
Here are the three things to watch for on the call:
AI Revenue Ramp and the $100B+ ARR target
AI is truly the swing factor for SpaceX, and analysts expect it to roughly double from Q2’s $2.56 billion and become about half of total revenue. Management previously guided to a $100 billion+ annualized run rate by December, including the Cursor acquisition, which was $60 billion, to close the quarter.
Listen for updates on SpaceX’s compute capacity, especially pertaining to its contracts with Google, Anthropic, and others, revenue per watt, any new deals, and Cursor’s early contribution.
Starlink/Connectivity Metrics and Mobile Expansion
Connectivity remains a main profit engine for SpaceX. Subscriber additions will be something to pay attention to, as Q2 ended at 12 million and previews are looking at 14 million for this quarter. Additionally, ARPU trends, enterprise and government growth, and any commentary on Starlink Mobile will be something to pay attention to, especially following the recent low-band spectrum deal and FCC-related constellation approvals.
Capex Trajectory, Cash Burn/FCF, and Starship/Operational Updates
Q2 capex of roughly $18.4 billion weighed on the stock. Investors will look to scrutinize Q3 spending levels, any guidance on the pace into Q4/2027, free cash flow, backlog, and liquidity. Operational color on Starship (Flight 14 milestones and Flight 15 timing/reusability progress), Falcon cadence, and government/NASA contracts are also in focus.
Of course, there will also be some speculation on the potential Tesla-SpaceX merger, but there was nothing mentioned in the company’s proxy it sent earlier this week.
SpaceX will report earnings after market close today and will stream the call on X.
Watch live as SpaceX discusses our Q3 2026 earnings at 3:30pm CT today → https://t.co/Qrb0qeVG15
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) October 20, 2026
Elon Musk said he is planning to give “every one of his SpaceX shares to every kid in America” in 2027, stating that “this will be the first of many.”
SpaceX went public earlier this year, and its stock price has been relatively stable since leveling off shortly after its IPO. Based on its current price, it’s a gift of just over $10 billion to children across the United States.
It appears to be closely related to President Donald Trump’s bank accounts for children, which were set up earlier this year as Trump Accounts.
Just hours earlier, Anthropic had announced the establishment of its Anthropic Public Benefit Fund, “a new wholly-owned entity dedicated entirely to public benefit.” Musk responded by stating he recommended “giving the shares directly to the public,” and that he would be doing it that way.
Just a little bit later, Musk said children across the U.S. would be getting a share from him:
Next year, I will give one of my SpaceX shares to every kid in America.
This will be the first of many.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 19, 2026
There are roughly 70 million children, meaning someone under the age of 18, in the United States, according to the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics. Musk’s ownership of SpaceX stock shows he has around 849 million Class A shares of SpaceX stock, according to filings with the SEC.
Investor's Corner
SpaceX’s biggest earnings test yet lands Tuesday, and Tesla shareholders should be watching
SpaceX reports earnings Tuesday as Wall Street watches AI spending, Starlink growth and Tesla merger
SpaceX reports third quarter results after the market closes Tuesday, with a webcast at 4:30 p.m. ET streamed on X, and Tesla follows a day later. Bloomberg consensus, cited by Pepperstone, calls for revenue of $12.89 billion, adjusted EBITDA of $6.62 billion and adjusted EPS near $0.15. That would be about 65% growth from the second quarter and SpaceX’s first profitable quarter since its IPO. Analysts expect roughly $6.4 billion from AI and $4.9 billion from Starlink, which is projected to reach 14.3 million consumer subscribers. Capital spending is forecast at $19.6 billion, leaving free cash flow near negative $11.6 billion.
The numbers matter because SpaceX has spent months trying to win over a skeptical market. It priced its record IPO at $135, spiked to $225.64, then sank near $105 in early August. Friday’s close of $146.03 sits about 28% below the June high. The Q2 report beat on revenue at $7.8 billion and put Starlink at 12 million subscribers, but $18.4 billion of capex hurt the stock. Since then SpaceX reached orbit on Starship Flight 14 with 26 Starlink V3 satellites, agreed to buy 800 MHz spectrum for about $8 billion as part of its Starlink Mobile push, and signed a fourth compute hosting deal in four months worth roughly $13 billion a year from December. Management is targeting more than 2 gigawatts of compute by year end and a $100 billion annualized revenue run rate. Evercore ISI, which raised its target to $275, said the quarter may be judged more on those targets than the reported figures
All of this sits under the Tesla merger question. Barclays analyst Dan Levy expects an all stock deal in which SpaceX buys Tesla at a premium, using reference values of $2.1 trillion and $1.5 trillion, and said an announcement would need to come by late October or early November to be voted on at Tesla’s December 6 annual meeting. Barclays estimates Musk would hold about 37% of the combined company and 56% of the votes. Musk said in July that combining companies cannot be discussed on an earnings call, but an investor question asking when SpaceX will merge with Tesla is sitting on SpaceX’s Q&A platform, and Teslarati has tracked how the Roadster demo revived the talk.
If a deal happens, Tuesday’s result would effectively set the price Tesla holders would receive. Their shares would convert into SpaceX stock, along with exposure to a company with a heavy investment on AI, while Tesla itself expects 2026 capex above $25 billion. A strong quarter and calmer spending would make that exchange easier to sell. Another round of heavy capex and a falling stock would make it harder.
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