Tesla could relaunch its defunct Referral Program, which promised free Supercharging miles and free Roadsters to owners who encouraged others to buy company products. According to coding found in the mobile app update, Tesla could bring the program back, but for what reason?
Tesla formerly operated a Referral Program that gave product owners a code to share with friends, family and others. The more the code was used, the more rewards that owner would gain. It was especially good for those who had a strong presence on social media, as it basically eliminated the need to ever pay for Supercharging.
However, the Referral Program offered more astronomical prizes, like free 202? next-gen Roadsters, races in the Tesla Semi, and driving the Boring Company machine. This program was ultimately eliminated by Tesla in September 2021, for vehicles at least. Tesla still maintains a Referral Program for Solar Roof or Solar Panel purchases.
“Friends and family who order through your referral link can earn $300 for Solar Roof or Solar Panels upon permission to operate, while also reducing reliance on the grid and producing clean solar energy. You will earn $300 for each Solar Roof or Solar Panels referral,” the company’s website says. The reward was previously $500.
TeslaScope recognized new coding in the Tesla mobile app, which indicated the Referral Program might be on its way back:
Tesla’s referral program might be making a comeback very, very soon!
The latest mobile app update has some new text strings referring to redeeming referrals for Supercharging miles and even official merchandise and vehicle accessories.
— Teslascope (@teslascope) October 19, 2022
The initial program was perhaps stopped due to excessive demand. The Referral Program absolutely helped Tesla accelerate its sales and transition more households to sustainable energy, but it got to the point that the automaker may have been sacrificing additional revenue streams due to the incredible success of the referrals. The tasty incentives that eliminated Supercharging payments, letting people drive for free, along with some owners grasping the more lofty prizes, may have been more than Tesla could handle at the time.
Now, there are questions surrounding Tesla’s demand after a miss on quarterly deliveries in Q3, and a decrease in overall deliveries in Q2 from Q1. The Q3 miss was Tesla’s second consecutive delivery miss. The company had not previously missed a delivery target since coming up short of 2020 Full Year expectations, where it came just shy of its 500,000 vehicle goal.
Additionally, the decrease in deliveries from Q2 to Q1 is slightly misleading. Although Tesla’s deliveries were lower in Q2 than in Q1, ending a two-year-long streak, the company was upgrading production lines in Shanghai to increase manufacturing capacity.
Speculation begins to rise that Tesla is considering the Referral Program once again to help supplement demand, which could, in reality, be slowing down due to more competition. This is almost laughable considering Tesla held over 60 percent of the United States EV market share in Q3. However, CEO Elon Musk solidified during the Q3 2022 Earnings Call on Thursday that Tesla’s is not experiencing any issues with demand.
“Let’s see with respect to demand. We’ve got a lot of questions about demand in recent weeks,” Musk said. “I can’t emphasize enough, we have excellent demand for Q4, and we expect to sell every car that we make for as far in the future as we can see.”
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Quotes provided by The Motley Fool.
Tesla stock (NASDAQ: TSLA) endured one of its sharpest single-day declines in years on July 23, tumbling approximately 14.5 percent and closing near $320 after opening the session around $374. The drop erased more than $140 billion in market value amid heavy trading volume and left the shares at multi-week lows.
The sell-off followed the company’s second-quarter 2026 results, released the previous evening. Tesla reported record revenue of $28.2 billion, up 26 percent year over year, driven by a Q2-record 480,126 vehicle deliveries. Energy storage deployments also rose strongly.
Tesla (TSLA) Q2 2026 earnings results: miss on EPS, beat on revenue
Yet profitability disappointed sharply. Operating income fell 57 percent to $398 million, compressing the operating margin to just 1.4 percent. Non-GAAP earnings per share came in at $0.33, well below the roughly $0.53 analysts had expected. Free cash flow turned negative by $1.1 billion as capital expenditures surged 142 percent to $5.8 billion, largely tied to accelerated spending on artificial intelligence, robotics, and autonomous systems.
The losses on capex were expected, as Tesla said it would be spending heavily in 2026.
Investors also reacted to lingering uncertainty surrounding key product timelines. During the Earnings Call, management reiterated ambitions for Robotaxi deployment and the Optimus humanoid robot, but offered limited new concrete milestones, renewing questions about execution pace that have long accompanied Tesla’s ambitious roadmap.
The magnitude of the decline places it among Tesla’s more severe one-day percentage losses since its 2010 initial public offering. Historically, the two largest single-day drops (split-adjusted) remain September 8, 2020, when shares fell 21.1 percent amid broader market volatility and valuation concerns, and January 13, 2012, with a 19.3 percent plunge during the company’s early growth struggles.
Other notable declines include an 18.6 percent drop on March 16, 2020, at the onset of pandemic-related market turmoil. Thursday’s move ranks roughly ninth on the all-time list but stands out as the steepest in more than a year.
Despite the short-term pain, Tesla’s long-term trajectory has repeatedly recovered from such volatility. The latest results underscore both the strength of its core automotive and energy businesses and the near-term costs of heavy investment in next-generation technologies.
Elon Musk clapped back at France’s decision to withhold the approval for Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) Supervised system, projecting a clear and blunt message to French Transport Minister Phillippe Tabarot, after he publicly rejected the technology in its current form.
Tabarot outlines several concerns with Tesla Full Self-Driving in a detailed video statement, where he said, “The safety trade-offs are not yet sufficient to authorize it as it currently stands,” he said. He emphasized that FSD is not a true self-driving system and that the driver remains fully responsible.
Key issues Tabarot also brought up included allowing speeding when surrounding traffic exceeds limits and what he believes are insufficient guarantees of driver attention during complex urban maneuvers such as lane changes, intersections, and roundabouts.
Delaying the approval of FSD in France will cost lives
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 22, 2026
While acknowledging technological progress and France’s support for autonomous innovation, Tabarot stressed that deployment must prioritize road safety. He noted ongoing technical discussions with Tesla, the Netherlands, and other European partners, with further ecosystem meetings planned for the fall.
Musk’s rebuke highlights the human cost of regulatory caution. Tesla’s latest safety reports provide compelling data supporting accelerated adoption. In the most recent 12-month period, vehicles using FSD (Supervised) recorded one major collision per approximately 5.1 million miles driven, dramatically better than the U.S. national average of one crash per 698,000 miles.
Even Tesla vehicles driven manually with active safety features outperform the average by a wide margin. These figures come from billions of real-world miles of telemetry, showing FSD vehicles involved in far fewer incidents than both manual Teslas and the broader U.S. fleet.
Critics argue Tesla’s comparisons require careful scrutiny regarding reporting thresholds and fleet demographics, yet the data consistently positions FSD as a potential lifesaver. With road fatalities remaining a leading cause of death worldwide, Musk contends that proven safer technology should not face prolonged bureaucratic hurdles.
France’s measured approach reflects the broader European regulatory caution, which many, especially Musk, have been critical of in the past. However, as autonomous systems from Tesla and competitors like Waymo demonstrate superior safety in independent studies, pressure is mounting for harmonized approvals.
Musk’s warning carries the belief that every month of delay may equate to avoidable tragedies on European roads.
In a striking revelation that underscores the lucrative crossover between Big Tech and space exploration, Alphabet Inc., Google’s parent company, disclosed a massive $94.1 billion equity stake in SpaceX following the rocket company’s blockbuster initial public offering earlier this year.
The disclosure came in Alphabet’s quarterly filing, marking the first time the long-held private investment has been publicly valued at market prices. Google was an early backer, investing alongside Fidelity in 2015 with roughly $500-900 million at a time when SpaceX was valued around $12 billion.
That bet has delivered extraordinary returns, roughly a hundredfold, transforming a strategic play on satellite internet and launch capabilities into one of Alphabet’s largest assets.
Google, $GOOGL, has said they hold $94 billion in SpaceX, $SPCX, shares after IPO.
— unusual_whales (@unusual_whales) July 23, 2026
Of the total holding, approximately $80 billion remains subject to short-term post-IPO lockup restrictions, preventing near-term sales. An additional $14.1 billion faces longer-term restrictions, extending into the third quarter of 2027. This structure limits immediate liquidity but protects against market volatility as SpaceX transitions into public trading.
The SpaceX position contributed significantly to gains in Alphabet’s broader investment portfolio, which also includes a major stake in AI leader Anthropic. Combined, these holdings helped drive nearly $100 billion in investment gains during the second quarter, providing a substantial boost to net income amid ongoing AI spending pressures.
Analysts view the disclosure as validation of Alphabet’s venture strategy beyond its core search and cloud businesses. The investment aligns with deeper ties, including reported multi-billion-dollar deals for AI computing capacity on SpaceX infrastructure. As SpaceX advances Starship flights, Starlink expansion, and ambitious Mars goals under Elon Musk, Google’s stake positions it to benefit from the commercialization of space.
For Alphabet, the windfall highlights how patient, forward-looking bets in transformative sectors can yield outsized rewards. While lockups temper short-term impact, the holding cements SpaceX as a cornerstone of Alphabet’s diversified portfolio in an era where aerospace, AI, and connectivity increasingly intersect. Investors will watch closely as restrictions lift and SpaceX’s public performance unfolds.
Tesla stock tumbles after earnings, one of its sharpest single-day declines
Elon Musk is not happy about this Tesla Full Self-Driving approval delay
