Investor's Corner
Tesla board backs Elon Musk as he faces the ‘most painful’ year of his career
Elon Musk is known for managing multiple companies, but even those who have the gift of multitasking have a limit. Amidst the fallout of his tweets about having funding secured for Tesla’s possible privatization, Elon Musk is starting to feel a little burned out.
The Tesla and SpaceX CEO recently opened up in an interview with the New York Times. The publication noted that during the hourlong session, Musk acknowledged that he was getting exhausted, and that the past year had been incredibly difficult. Musk also admitted that the exhaustion, partly caused by 120-hour work weeks, was starting to take a toll on his physical health.
“This past year has been the most difficult and painful year of my career. It was excruciating. It’s not been great, actually. I’ve had friends come by who are really concerned. There were times when I didn’t leave the factory for three or four days — days when I didn’t go outside. This has really come at the expense of seeing my kids. And seeing friends,” he said.
Much like Tesla’s struggles with the Model 3 production ramp, a lot of the pressure Musk is currently feeling is caused by self-imposed goals. Elon Musk became Elon Musk due to his grit and determination, and he is never one to give up when faced with a seemingly insurmountable challenge. Musk’s relentless nature is one of the core reasons why SpaceX is currently working to conduct crewed demonstration flights of its Crew Dragon spacecraft as early as April 2019, and why the Model 3 is starting to make its presence known in the US auto market.
Jim Ambras, VP product development at Zip2, the first company that Elon and his brother, Kimbal, founded, recalls the insane amount of drive that fuels Musk. In a recent statement to WIRED, Ambras described how Musk would sleep on a bean bag close to his computer just to get work done. The former Zip2 executive also narrated that at one time, the Zip2 team invited Musk to go mountain biking. Unfortunately, the trail proved to be far more challenging than the team expected, even causing Elon’s athletic cousin Russ Rive to get sick when he reached the mountain’s top. Musk, who was not in any way conditioned to undertake such a physical task, was the last one to the summit. Musk finished the climb, but he pushed himself past his limits to do so.
“We’re all at the top waiting for him. We just assumed he turned around and went home. Then we see him coming up around the turn, and he was just completely red. Beet-red. He was riding his bike, he wasn’t walking his bike, and it was just clear that he was killing himself. He just looked like he was torturing himself,” Ambras said.
Well into 2018, Elon Musk is still doing much of the same thing. His hyper-aggressive targets for the Model 3, for one, ultimately caused delays in the vehicle’s production. Being a publicly-traded company, Tesla stock (NASDAQ:TSLA) felt these effects. Today, Tesla shares are known for their wild swings and overall volatility, as well as their penchant for attracting passionate short-sellers. Tesla is currently the most-shorted stock in the market, with more than 30 million shares being sold short. Musk has been affected by short-sellers’ activities, and in his recent interview with the NYT, he admitted that people betting against the company are giving him a lot of stress. Musk even noted that he expects the next few months to be even more difficult, as attacks against Tesla would likely increase.
“(I am) bracing for at least a few months of extreme torture from the short-sellers, who are desperately pushing a narrative that will possibly result in Tesla’s destruction. They’re not dumb guys, but they’re not supersmart. They’re O.K. They’re smartish,” Musk said.
True to Musk’s own predictions, the attacks against Tesla had only increased since talks about the company’s privatization emerged. Musk is currently facing an investigation from the SEC about his tweets, and reports from several media outlets suggest that Tesla’s board is trying to do damage control. In response to some of these reports, Tesla’s board issued a statement to the NYT expressing its full support for the embattled CEO.
“There have been many false and irresponsible rumors in the press about the discussions of the Tesla board. We would like to make clear that Elon’s commitment and dedication to Tesla is obvious. Over the past 15 years, Elon’s leadership of the Tesla team has caused Tesla to grow from a small start-up to having hundreds of thousands of cars on the road that customers love, employing tens of thousands of people around the world, and creating significant shareholder value in the process.”
For now, reports are emerging that Tesla is looking for a Chief Operating Officer that can support Elon Musk’s workload. SpaceX, after all, is pretty much working like a well-oiled machine, and a lot of it is due to the work and efforts of Gwynne Shotwell, the COO and President of the private space firm. Musk stated that to the best of his knowledge, there is no active search for a Tesla COO, though he did admit that a couple of years ago, the company approached Sheryl Sandberg, the second-highest executive of Facebook, about the position. Rounding out his recent interview, Elon Musk stated that he has no plans to let go of his position as Tesla’s CEO and Chairman, but he did state that if there is anyone that can “do a better job,” he is very much willing to hand over the reins of the company.
“If you have anyone who can do a better job, please let me know. They can have the job. Is there someone who can do the job better? They can have the reins right now,” Musk said.
Elon Musk
Nvidia’s board meets on Jensen Huang, and Elon Musk already has an answer
Elon Musk says it would be an honor to hire Jensen Huang amid Nvidia turmoil.
Elon Musk says he would welcome Jensen Huang at one of his companies if Nvidia’s board decides to push out its longtime chief executive.
On Wednesday evening, the financial account ZeroHedge posted “Elon please hire Jensen” on X. Musk replied roughly two hours later: “That would be an honor.” Neither Huang nor Nvidia had responded publicly as of Wednesday night.
Musk’s reply came as Nvidia’s board met to decide Huang’s future. The Wall Street Journal reported that directors were preparing to oust him following reports of two extramarital relationships. One involves Alice Huang, a Singapore-based businesswoman whom U.S. intelligence officials reportedly believe was working for China’s Ministry of State Security. The New York Times separately reported a relationship with Kimberly Powell, Nvidia’s vice president of health care. Huang acknowledged being unfaithful in a memo to employees on Sunday but gave no details.
@zerohedge That would be an honor
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 12, 2026
Under Nvidia’s bylaws, a majority of its 11 directors can remove the CEO with or without cause. Bloomberg reported that the board has been working with an outside firm on possible replacements and may name an interim chief, with CFO Colette Kress seen as the likely pick. Nvidia shares fell more than 8 percent in extended trading, according to CNBC, and the company is scheduled to report quarterly earnings on November 17.
Musk has more riding on Nvidia’s leadership than most tech executives. In August, he told investors on SpaceX’s first earnings call as a public company that it would build its AI infrastructure exclusively on Nvidia hardware, calling Vera Rubin “the best architecture.” SpaceX is also working with Nvidia on the compute payload for Starmind, its planned orbital AI constellation. In October, SpaceX said it had a binding commitment for a roughly $40 billion lease of Vera Rubin GPUs and related equipment, with the leases expected to begin in the first half of 2027.
The scale of that dependence is already enormous. On its Q3 call, SpaceX said it was bringing roughly 200,000 to 220,000 Nvidia GB300 GPUs online each month and expects 2.5 to 3 GW of nameplate compute by the end of the year. That buildout is now reaching new sites like the proposed $24 billion power plant and supercomputer campus at Starbase.
The relationship between the two executives also goes back nearly a decade. Huang has often told the story of personally delivering Nvidia’s first DGX-1 AI supercomputer to Musk in 2016, when no other customer wanted one. “Nobody wanted to be part of it, except for Elon,” Huang said on the Joe Rogan Experience last December.
Musk did not say what role Huang might fill, and his reply stops short of a formal offer. Huang co-founded Nvidia in 1993 and still owns about 3.6 percent of its stock, so any move to a Musk company would depend on whether, and how, he leaves the chipmaker he has run for more than three decades.
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.
Nvidia’s board meets on Jensen Huang, and Elon Musk already has an answer
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