Investor's Corner
Tesla delivers a whopping 24,500 vehicles in Q3, sets quarterly record
Tesla reported its production and deliveries for Q3 2016. According to the report, “Tesla delivered approximately 24,500 vehicles in Q3, of which 15,800 were Model S and 8,700 were Model X. This was an increase of just over 70% from last quarter’s deliveries of 14,402. Our Q3 delivery count should be viewed as slightly conservative, as we only count a car as delivered if it is transferred to the customer and all paperwork is correct.”
“In addition to Q3 deliveries, about 5,500 vehicles were in transit to customers at the end of the quarter. These will not be counted as deliveries until Q4. Production rose to 25,185 vehicles in Q3. This was an increase of 37% from Q2 production of 18,345″
One number that will looked at by Wall Street traders and investors on Monday was going to be “guidance” for the rest of the year. Guidance was good. Tesla stated in the press release that “we expect Q4 deliveries and production to be at or slightly above Q3, despite Q4 being a shorter quarter and the challenge of delivering vehicles in winter weather over holidays. Guidance of 50,000 vehicles for the second half of 2016 is maintained.” This number will make a lot of traders happy.
Elon must be happy, as he immediately retweeted an article from VentureBeat, positive on the reported numbers.
Source: Twitter
VentureBeat noted that “to encourage orders for its electric vehicles, Tesla has pulled out practically all the stops to encourage ordering, including offering a 2-year lease on Model S and X vehicles and even producing a new Model S sedan with a larger battery and faster acceleration. This is certainly good news for Tesla, perhaps showing that customers aren’t dissuaded by recent reports of accidents involving Tesla and its self-driving capabilities. ”
Another positive note came out from Bloomberg that noted in an article titled “Tesla Shipments Top Analysts’ Estimates as Musk Urges Sales Push”, that “the quarter was Tesla’s last chance to show that it can be profitable before it raises money to ramp up production of the new Model 3. The third-quarter deliveries were positive and beat most estimates, said Jeffrey Osborne, an analyst at Cowen & Co., who rates the stock underperform. “We were looking for 20,500 this quarter with an acceleration in 4Q to get to 50,000 for the second half,” Osborne said by e-mail. “We believe bullish investors were in the 22,000 to 23,000 range.”
With 24,500 vehicles delivered, Tesla beat even the expectations of the most bullish investors.
The Wall Street Journal’s MarketWatch was rather positive as well in a note titled “Tesla reports its best-ever quarterly vehicle sales”. The reporter noted that “the results suggest the revelation on June 30 that a Model S was involved in an earlier fatal crash in Florida involving the car’s Autopilot hasn’t affected sales. Federal regulators are investigating the crash, which the company said was the first known fatality involving the company’s semiautonomous feature that can take control of the car in certain driving conditions. Tesla has since begun rolling out software updates to Autopilot that Mr. Musk say would have prevented the crash.”
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Trading Action
The stock has languished during the last 10 trading sessions, in what traders call “compression.” It will be interesting to see Monday’s opening as it will be highly influenced by the just reported results, and it may fuel back a positive rally on the stock.
Stock Market Update
As I predicted, TSLA stock is rallying at the opening on Monday. While the Dow is down over 70 points, TSLA was up was much as $10 or 5%. If the gain is staying into the close, it will be one of the best trading days of the year for TSLA.
Source: Wall Street I/O (wall street.io)
SpaceX stock did the opposite of what most of Wall Street expected this week, when the day designed to be its most dangerous turned into a rally, and the rally kept going.
Thursday marked the first major lockup expiration since SpaceX’s June IPO, making roughly 911.5 million insider held shares eligible to trade for the first time, more than doubling the company’s public float. Analysts and short sellers had spent weeks bracing for a flood of selling, especially after the stock fell 13 percent following its first earnings report as a public company on Tuesday. Instead, shares rose 6.1 percent Thursday to close at $114.92, and by Friday they were trading near $129, up more than another 12 percent on the day.
SpaceX shorts get warned by Musk ally, echoing Tesla’s early struggles
The setup made the outcome notable. Short interest had climbed to roughly 34 percent of the float heading into earnings, among the highest of any large cap stock, with about 95 percent of available shares to borrow already on loan. CEO Elon Musk warned short sellers twice in the weeks before the lockup, writing on X that “the survival probability of firms who maintain a significant short position in SpaceX over time is very low,” then following up on the morning of earnings with “I try to warn them, but they just double down.”
When the newly unlocked shares hit the market and the selloff never showed up, some of that short position appears to have started unwinding. TipRanks reported that options activity shifted toward bullish strategies like put selling and risk reversals following the rally, with roughly $600 million in options premium trading Thursday alone. Retail buyers also stepped in during the earnings dip, according to Vanda Research.
The fundamentals behind the stock have not changed much in a week. SpaceX’s revenue nearly doubled year over year to $7.8 billion, with Starlink subscribers doubling to 12 million and the company’s AI segment growing 247 percent. What spooked investors on Tuesday was the spending side. Capital expenditures jumped to more than $18 billion for the quarter, up from $2.8 billion a year earlier, with AI investment alone rising from $749 million to $15.8 billion. Wall Street remains split on whether that spending is building infrastructure SpaceX needs or outrunning what the business can currently support, a debate Teslarati has tracked since shares first came under pressure.
None of that resolves the bigger question hanging over the stock. Thursday’s release was only the first of nine staggered lockup tranches, with roughly $800 billion worth of additional shares scheduled to become eligible through October, and Musk’s own stake stays locked until next June. If this week is any indication, the market is treating that supply as something it can absorb rather than something to fear, at least for now.
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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.
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