Investor's Corner
How Elon Musk’s biography led to a Tesla investor retiring at 43
In 2017, a Canadian accountant named Spencer was looking for something to watch on YouTube after cutting his cable, until he stumbled upon interviews with Tesla CEO Elon Musk.
Four years later, at the age of 43, he is retiring from his job because his investment in Tesla stock has solidified his finances for the future.
In what started as a routine evening on the couch, Spencer probably never could have imagined that stumbling across interviews on the world’s largest library of videos would lead to an exceptionally early retirement. Elon Musk’s mission always struck a chord with him, but that night, everything shifted.
“I have always been concerned with climate change,” Spencer said. “That night, I started watching YouTube and stumbled across Elon’s interviews. Then, I read the Ashlee Vance biography on Elon, and I watched other great Tesla related content creators. The rest is history.”
‘The Rest is History.”
Spencer is just one of many people who poured money into a small, relatively unknown electric car company called Tesla in 2017. It was a no-brainer. After doing his own personal research, he knew that it was the answer he had been looking for in terms of financial stability. “I began slowly building my position. The more I learned, the more I realized that Tesla was an extraordinary company and opportunity from an investment standpoint. It was something that could significantly change my life over the long term.”
And it has.
This morning I submitted my retirement notice to employer .. thx to @elonmusk and $TSLA I’m retiring at age 43 ..
— ?Tesla Army? (@TeslaArmy) January 4, 2021
At just 43 years old, Spencer decided to e-mail his colleagues who work alongside him at a Victoria, British Columbia accounting firm, tendering his resignation due to his gains from his Tesla holdings. It wasn’t a surprise to Spencer’s co-workers that he had made a substantial amount of money because of his Tesla investments. It was a surprise to see a 43-year old finishing up his professional career at such a young age; none of the fellow accountants or executives expected him to leave.
“Most of the coworkers close to me knew what was happening with my situation,” he told Teslarati. “However, others were caught off guard when I informed them I’m going to retire at the end of January 2021 by e-mail. I’ve provided context on how and why I’m retiring to my bosses over several phone calls.”
Spencer’s e-mail to his colleagues detailed the tumultuous year of 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. But while many around the world lost their jobs or were forced to retreat and call their place of residence their office, Spencer was thriving financially due to his investments. He was relatively unphased even though he never experienced a layoff because most mornings, his portfolio was going up in value.
“2020 was an extraordinary year thanks to C19, but it was also an extraordinary year for me financially from an investing standpoint to the point where I have spent that last month or so considering retirement. The end result is my plan is to retire at the end of this month – January 2021,” he wrote to co-workers.
Tesla’s Stock Surge
Tesla stock surged over 700% in 2020. At the beginning of the year, shares were valued at a shade over $86. On New Year’s Eve, Tesla closed at $705.21.
Some investors got in earlier than others. While some took advantage of the company’s $17 initial public offering in June 2010, some didn’t get in until a few years later when Tesla launched the Model 3. Regardless, if you got in before January 2020 and held on, you’re probably pretty happy with your earnings. Where it goes from here, well, that lies in the eye of the beholder.
Credit: Yahoo
Tesla is still among the most shorted companies on Wall Street, despite the surge in price in 2020, casting $38 billion in losses to those who have bet against it. Some bears have taken such a big hit that they have admitted defeat and lowered, or even sworn off, their short positions on the stock altogether. One of them is Kynikos Associates founder Jim Chanos, who stated that he had trimmed his short against the stock.
“It’s been painful, clearly, Chanos said in a recent interview with Bloomberg. “I’d say, ‘job well done so far,” Chanos said when confronted with the question on what he’d tell CEO Elon Musk.
Moving forward, Spencer plans to consider contract work with accounting firms, but most of his focus will lie on bettering himself physically and financially.
“After my retirement, my plan is to focus on my mental and physical health, as well as developing a strategy for managing my investment portfolio to generate income. Both are near-term areas of focus. Long-term, I’m not sure what the plan is yet,” he said. His days will probably be filled with joyrides in the Model 3 he purchased in 2018.
When I asked Spencer what he would advise anyone reading this article to do about TSLA stock, his answer was simple.
“I’m not a financial advisor, and everyone’s circumstances are different. But, my view is TSLA stock will likely be the most profitable stock investment of all-time by a long shot when it’s held long-term.”
Spencer operates the @TeslaArmy Twitter feed. Be sure to give him a follow!
For years, there have been images and videos across social media platforms that have reminded me of when I was a 15-year-old kid teased by “Xbox 720” videos on YouTube. These videos are of the supposed “Tesla Phone” that Elon Musk was secretly developing in between leading Tesla with its electric cars and SpaceX with its reusable rockets.
Would you buy a Tesla phone ? pic.twitter.com/aaTwvvIJit
— Tesla Owners Silicon Valley (@teslaownersSV) October 6, 2023
Although Musk has put those rumors to bed several times, it was never completely out of the realm that he could get involved in cell phones in some capacity. Think outside the box and more macro-level, though. Instead of reinventing the computer, Musk reinvented connectivity by developing Starlink with SpaceX.
It could be something similar, TD Cowen analyst Gregory Williams said in a note last week, where he hinted SpaceX could be gathering some steam to acquire T-Mobile.
Williams said it would be the “clear choice” for SpaceX if it decided to go through with a network acquisition. He also suggested AT&T.
The move would be possible through selling more of its own stock, which would help SpaceX raise the money to purchase T-Mobile, which would cost roughly $300 billion. It could be one of the moves SpaceX makes post-IPO in terms of an acquisition: it already acquired Cursor AI for $60 billion.
Other analysts, like Dan Ives of Wedbush, believe SpaceX and Tesla will eventually merge into one anyway, and that conglomeration could come as soon as this year, some have said.
The implications of SpaceX purchasing T-Mobile are massive. A combined entity would create a truly ubiquitous network: T-Mobile’s terrestrial 5G towers and Starlink’s growing constellation of Direct-to-Cell satellites. This would essentially eliminate dead zones across the U.S. and potentially globally.
SpaceX would instantly become a full-scale facilities-based carrier with satellite differentiation; a huge advantage. This would pressure AT&T and Verizon heavily.
There are also concerns like a potential reduction in long-term competition, and of course, a deal of that size would face intense scrutiny from government agencies.
The strategic fit is compelling due to the existing Starlink–T-Mobile partnership and complementary technologies (space + terrestrial). It could create a dominant integrated communications player. However, the regulatory, financial, and execution hurdles are enormous — this remains highly speculative with no indication SpaceX is actively pursuing it right now.
Elon Musk
SpaceX’s newest Starmind will make earth data centers obsolete
Elon Musk confirmed Starmind as SpaceX’s AI satellite constellation name, targeting one million orbital compute nodes.
Elon Musk confirmed that Starmind will be the official name of SpaceX’s planned AI satellite constellation, following a trademark filing by xAI that surfaced earlier this week. Starmind is what’s being described to the FCC as a constellation of up to one million AI satellites
It’s worth noting that SpaceX’s Starlink communication satellite and Starmind are built on the same orbital infrastructure concept but serve entirely different purposes. Starlink is a connectivity network, with satellites receiving and relaying data between points on Earth, and functioning as a high-speed internet backbone in space. The satellites themselves do not process or think, and move information from one place to another, the same function a fiber cable performs underground.
SpaceX just forced Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile to team up for the first time in history
Starmind, on the other hand, is something completely different, and tather than moving data, its satellites would compute data through artificial intelligence and directly in orbit using onboard processors powered by large solar arrays. Where a Starlink satellite is essentially a very fast pipe, a Starmind satellite is a server. The practical implication is that Starmind would allow AI models to run inference, process queries, and generate outputs from space, then beam results down to users anywhere on Earth within milliseconds, and without the data ever needing to travel to a terrestrial data center.
Starship will be able to carry 30 to 50 AI1 satellites per launch, delivering the equivalent of dozens of server racks per flight, with no land acquisition, no power grid approval, and no cooling infrastructure required on the ground.
SpaceX is pursuing this new technology as terrestrial data centers are running into hard limits such as lack of physical space, community opposition, and power and water consumption at a scale that is increasingly difficult to permit. Space has unlimited solar power, natural vacuum cooling, and no zoning boards. Musk said in a June 8 video presentation that he expects space to become the lowest-cost location to deploy AI compute within two to three years. Two AI1 prototypes are scheduled to launch in early 2027, with volume production targeted for the end of that year at a new facility called Gigasat.
The real world applications Starmind enables extend well beyond powering Grok. A constellation of orbiting AI processors could run inference workloads for any paying customer, anywhere on Earth, with latency measured in milliseconds rather than the seconds associated with ground-based cloud routing across continents. Starmind, if it scales as described, would make SpaceX the landlord of AI compute the same way Starlink made it the landlord of satellite internet.
SpaceX announced today that it commenced its first-ever public bond offering, marking a significant step in the newly public company’s capital markets strategy.
The company announced an offering of senior unsecured notes expected to raise at least $20 billion.
The move comes just a short time after SpaceX completed one of the largest initial public offerings in history. In mid-June, the company priced shares at $135 and raised more than $85 billion, propelling founder Elon Musk’s net worth past the trillion-dollar mark and giving the firm substantial liquidity.
🚨 SpaceX has announced its inaugural offering of senior unsecured notes.
The net proceeds will be used to repay outstanding loans under its bridge loan facility in full.
This inaugural debt offering represents a financing milestone for SpaceX, which previously depended… pic.twitter.com/pcOZuVbTRv
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) June 22, 2026
According to the company’s SEC filing, the net proceeds from the notes will be used primarily to repay in full the outstanding borrowings under its existing bridge loan facility, cover related fees and expenses, and fund general corporate purposes. The offering is being conducted under Rule 144A, as well as Regulation S, targeting qualified institutional buyers and non-U.S. investors. Notes will be unsecured obligations ranking equally with other unsubordinated debt.
The $20 billion bridge loan was used to refinance approximately $17.5 billion in higher-cost “junk” debt tied to X and xAI. SpaceX had merged with xAI in February 2026 in an all-stock deal. The bridge facility, which matures in September 2027, had represented the bulk of SpaceX’s long-term debt.
SpaceX officially acquires xAI, merging rockets with AI expertise
In connection with the bond launch, SpaceX disclosed it held approximately $100.8 billion in cash and cash equivalents as of June 19. Investor calls began on the announcement date, with pricing and launch expected shortly thereafter. Rating agencies have assigned investment-grade ratings to the proposed bonds, reflecting confidence in SpaceX’s dominant position in commercial launches and the growth trajectory of its Starlink internet offering.
The debt raise also allows SpaceX to optimize its balance sheet by replacing short-term, higher-cost bridge financing with longer-date, lower-cost fixed-income securities. This provides greater financial flexibility to support capital-intensive initiatives, including the development of Starship, the expansion of the Starlink constellation, and the integration of AI capabilities following the xAI combination.
SpaceX shares (NASDAQ: SPCX) fell sharply on the news, dropping over 16 percent overall on the market on Monday. The stock had surged initially after debuting but pulled back amid profit-taking and broader market dynamics.
Overall, the bond offering underscores SpaceX’s transition to a mature public company with access to diverse funding sources. It positions the firm to pursue its long-term vision of multiplanetary expansion and AI infrastructure, while maintaining a disciplined approach to its capital structure in a high-growth but capital-heavy industry.
Tesla Phone? Not quite, but close: analyst
Tesla reveals huge Cybercab detail in new guide for First Responders
