Investor's Corner
Venture capitalist defends Tesla and Elon Musk, issues bold takedown on TSLA skeptics
There are a lot of reasons why Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) is fighting an uphill battle. The company is changing the status quo in both the auto industry and in the emerging autonomous driving market. Its CEO, Elon Musk, continues to be a polarizing figure for many. These, together with the mass numbers of short-sellers betting on the company’s failure, makes Tesla a dramatic stock in the market; and this became evident in the aftermath of the company’s first quarter financial results and earnings call.
Venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya, an early investor in Facebook who is estimated to be worth around $1.2 billion today, believes that many are missing the whole point about Tesla. In a segment with CNBC Halftime Report host Scott Wapner, Palihapitiya explained why he fully supports Tesla, its vehicles like the Model 3, and its CEO, Elon Musk. A video of the venture capitalist’s segment has been cut from CNBC’s uploads of the interview, though copies of the footage have been saved by some members of the Tesla community since it aired (credit to @TradrFloridaFIL for providing the video and transcription of the interview).
Palihapitiya starts by arguing that Elon Musk has already completed endeavors that will benefit humanity for a long time to come, citing the reusable rockets of SpaceX, which have brought the costs of spaceflight down significantly. The venture capitalist notes that Tesla is now maturing under all the demand for its vehicles, particularly the Model 3, which has brought the company closer than ever to the mass market. While Palihapitiya admits that Tesla is not best-suited for investors who are particular with quarter-over-quarter precision, he argues that the company has nonetheless impressed on the long term.
The venture capitalist also expressed his criticism of Tesla skeptics, mainly hedge funds, who are proficient at under-hyping and “sniping” the electric car maker. This is something that has weighed down the company over the past quarters, and has caused CEO Elon Musk to respond personally to critics online. “What it’s controlled by are a bunch of vulture-like venture and hedge funds, mostly hedge funds who like to prey on that company. If you look at for example the Twitter traffic or if you look at the forum traffic around Tesla the amount of hyping or under-hyping the amount of sniping is enormous. All of that signals to me that it is a market that is out of the control of the founders and the executives and firmly in the hands of financial manipulators,” Palihapitiya said.
While Palihapitiya admits that Elon Musk has a problem with his overly-aggressive timeframes, the venture capitalist candidly noted that the world might be better off if Elon Musk were just allowed to “do his job.” “If you take a five-year step back and say what is he promised in 2014 to what is he doing in 2019 you’d be ecstatic. Similarly, if you take a step back and say from 2019 to 2024 let the man do his job, will we be better or worse off as a planet, as a species, as humanity, as consumers? Will we be better off?” he said.
A particular point of criticism for Elon Musk lies in his behavior online. Musk’s Twitter account could be considered as one of Tesla’s greatest assets or liabilities, in the way that its contents have triggered both positive and negative swings for TSLA stock. Tesla critics currently view Musk’s Twitter antics as a critical part of their bear thesis, particularly since his actions are allegedly not reflective of a CEO that is professional and in control. This was brought up by the CNBC host during the venture capitalist’s interview, and Palihapitiya was quick to issue a rebuttal. According to the billionaire, people that are caught up in concerns about Musk’s Twitter are missing the whole point, even considering the CEO’s now-infamous “funding secured” tweet.
“Okay, maybe he stepped out of bounds. My point is you’re getting caught up in the window dressing. I’m focusing on the main course. The main course is on the table. The choice for you as a buyer or a seller of that stock is, do you want to eat it? If you get caught up in all of the stuff around the edges, maybe he may mistweet from time to time. My point is, who cares? Your job as a smart investor is to separate the facts and the news from the fiction and the noise. And all of that stuff doesn’t matter. It does not change the fact that tens of thousands of consumers are buying that car faster than they can get their hands on it. It doesn’t change that the minute you sit inside that car, your definition of what is expected is altered forever and you wonder why every other car around you that you ever step in that you may buy doesn’t have the same things that that car offers. So at the end of the day, whether you like his style or not, his substance is irrefutable,” he said.
In response to the CNBC host’s question about the upcoming competition from veteran auto, the venture capitalist notes that at this point, it is evident that Tesla will be the “clear winner” in the electric car industry. This comment is not just blind support for Tesla, as even premium electric cars being produced by legacy auto today still fall short of the specs and capabilities of the company’s vehicles. Vehicles like the Audi e-tron, for example, feature more luxurious interior finishes than a Tesla Model 3, but when it comes to efficiency and software, the vehicles are years behind. Palihapitiya argues that even if Tesla reaches a point where it will need to be bailed out, larger companies like Apple or Google will likely acquire the electric car maker.
“You’re right because I remember all the Zune media players I bought after Apple released the iPod. I also remember the enormous number of amazing smartphones I bought when the iPhone was like… It’s not what people do. You know it tends to be the case that when you redefine expectations and you have a category leader, and you have an indelible brand and a mark that people recognize, the easiest decision. Let me be a little pejorative; the lazy decision is to pick the winner and go with it. And in this case there is a clear winner in electrification, it is done. That die has been cast. And so now the question is can he build the infrastructure to deliver the demand? And if given time and if given patience I believe he will and I vote with my money that he can do that.
“And everybody that bets against him can do that as well but at what stake really, because it’s not as if there’s no downside protection for the stock. The people who short this company are so short-sighted because the number of companies that would come out of the woodwork… You don’t think that Apple with 200 billion dollars of cash backstops this company and has a chance to enter a trillion dollar market overnight by buying that business if it gets imperiled in any way? Google which already tried to buy it wouldn’t try to buy it again? So what are we betting against? We’re betting against the cleaner earth because we don’t like that? We like to suck in the carbon monoxide and the fumes from all these cars? We’re betting against beautiful flat screens, beautiful ways in which to manage your experience inside the car because we don’t like that?” he said.
Ultimately, Palihapitiya argues that the bets against Tesla are usually bets against Elon Musk’s style. When the CNBC host brought up noted short-seller Jim Chanos and his stance against the electric car maker, the venture capitalist did not mince his words. “Jim Chanos makes money once a decade. And while the market rips up the guy just bleeds money, and he’s never on CNBC and every time something works he’s there for five minutes. Great for Jim Chanos, fantastic as a hedge in a portfolio where you have 1% in a short fund but the reality is being long equities makes sense. Being long innovation makes sense. Betting against entrepreneurs that are changing the world has never been a profitable endeavor. Why start now?” he said, adding that he will be happy to post his returns against Chanos’ fund any time when challenged once more by the CNBC host.
Watch Chamath Palihapitiya’s segment on CNBC’s Halftime Report in the video below.
Investor's Corner
New drone video shows Tesla’s Optimus Factory reaching a turning point
New drone footage shows Tesla’s dedicated Optimus factory steel frame nearing completion at Giga Texas.
Tesla’s dedicated Optimus factory at Gigafactory Texas is closing in on a finished steel frame, according to drone footage posted Thursday afternoon by longtime site observer Joe Tegtmeyer. In the video, Tegtmeyer said structural steel assembly is now about five column grids away from reaching the building’s north perimeter beam, putting the primary skeleton in its final stretch roughly six months after Tesla broke ground on the North Campus site in late March.
The Giga Texas Optimus Factory latest update … construction keeps moving fast!
Steel assembly is now only about 5 column grids from the north perimeter beam. Concrete is going in on the three upper floors, rebar is still being laid for more pours, and footing / grade-beam work… pic.twitter.com/qvFPvwnYzW
— Joe Tegtmeyer 🚀 🤠🛸😎 (@JoeTegtmeyer) September 17, 2026
Tegtmeyer’s footage shows concrete already going in on three upper floors while crews continue laying rebar and pouring grade beam footings at ground level. That kind of parallel work, steel rising at one end of the site while concrete sets at the other, is a scheduling approach Tesla used at the original Giga Texas building and appears to be repeating here to save time before the plant’s targeted 2027 production start.
Teslarati has tracked the building’s progress since Tesla confirmed construction was officially underway in May, when the first steel structure went up on what was then bare, reclaimed land. The facility is part of a more than 5.2 million square foot expansion of Giga Texas’s North Campus that Tesla has said will eventually run nearly the length of the existing vehicle factory, over 4,000 feet, while sitting somewhat narrower. Musk has pegged the long term output target at 10 million Optimus units a year once the line is running at full capacity, a volume that would dwarf the one million unit pilot line Tesla is standing up separately at its Fremont, California factory.
Tesla Giga Texas to feature massive Optimus V4 production line
The Texas facility sits alongside another major buildout on the same campus. Terafab, the joint Tesla and SpaceX chip fabrication plant that will eventually supply the silicon running Optimus units in the field. Housing robot assembly and chip production on the same grounds is a deliberate supply chain decision, cutting down on the shipping and lead time that would otherwise sit between the two.
Tesla has not given an updated timeline beyond its previously stated goal of bringing high volume Optimus production online at the site in the summer of 2027. Fremont’s smaller pilot line began mass producing the current Gen 3 robot in January, with that plant expected to build tens of thousands of units this year primarily to generate the real world data Tesla needs to refine the robot’s software before Giga Texas ramps up. Six months of visible construction progress, tracked almost entirely through Tegtmeyer’s recurring drone flights, gives the clearest outside look yet at how seriously Tesla is treating that 2027 deadline.
Investor's Corner
Tesla and SpaceX take “Terafab” Trademark fight to Federal Court
Tesla and SpaceX sue a small Illinois firm after cease and desist letters over Terafab.
Tesla and SpaceX are asking a federal judge to rule that their planned Terafab chip factory does not infringe a small Illinois company’s trademark, a request that arrives only after months of quiet negotiation broke down this summer.
The dispute traces to May 18, when Tesla filed three U.S. trademark applications for “Terafab” and “Tesla Terafab,” covering semiconductor chips and related chip making services. TERA-print LLC, a nanotechnology company that has held a federal trademark for “Tera-Fab” since 2021, responded five days later with a cease and desist letter. According to the lawsuit, first reported by Reuters, TERA-print argued that Tesla and SpaceX’s use of “Terafab” would confuse consumers familiar with its own trademark, which covers a desktop photolithography printer sold to researchers for sensor and bioengineering work.
What stands out in the filing is the timing of TERA-print’s own paperwork. One day before sending that cease and desist letter, on May 22, TERA-print applied to expand its existing registration to cover semiconductor materials, silicon chips, nanoelectronic devices and AI design services, categories it had not previously claimed. Tesla and SpaceX call that filing opportunistic in their complaint, noting it arrived two months after Tesla’s public Terafab announcement and just days after Tesla’s own trademark applications went in.
Elon Musk launches TERAFAB: The $25B Tesla-SpaceXAI chip factory that will rewire the AI industry
By June 10, TERA-print was threatening to sue for federal trademark infringement, false designation of origin and unfair competition, the complaint states. Rather than wait to be sued, Tesla, SpaceX and SpaceXAI met with TERA-print six separate times between June and August trying to resolve the dispute directly. Those talks collapsed, and the companies filed for declaratory judgment this week in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, asking a judge to find that “Terafab” does not infringe TERA-print’s mark before TERA-print can file a claim of its own.
TERA-print isn’t backing down. The company told PCMag it discussed a settlement with Tesla as recently as September 2 and feels misled by what it called Tesla’s professed interest in settling. Its CTO, Andrey Ivankin, said TERA-print holds a Defense Department contract to fabricate semiconductors and partially owns Mattiq Inc., an AI company built on TERA-print’s products, and that the company will vigorously defend its rights.
Tesla and SpaceX argue the overlap is superficial. Terafab is planned as a $16.8 billion complex spanning roughly 100 million square feet at the Grimes County site SpaceX confirmed last month, built to produce chips for Optimus robots, Tesla’s AI computing needs and SpaceX’s orbital data center ambitions, a scale and purpose the companies say no reasonable consumer would confuse with a tabletop lab printer. TERA-print’s product line has stayed focused on lithography tools for biological and sensor research since it registered its mark in 2021.
The trademark fight is the second legal dispute tied to the Terafab project in the past week, following a separate SpaceX suit aimed at keeping company records about the facility out of public view, as KBTX reported. Whether construction proceeds under the Terafab name now depends on a federal judge in Austin.
In a new interview on Wednesday, Tesla uber bull Ron Baron said that anyone looking to buy the company’s stock should do so as soon as they can.
Baron, founder and CEO of Baron Capital and one of Tesla’s most persistent institutional bulls, used a CNBC Squawk Box appearance on Wednesday to deliver a familiar message with fresh urgency: In his opinion, Tesla stock is a buy:
“The time to buy the stock is now. FSD is catching on, and it’s going to be bigger and bigger. 55% of new buyers are buying it (Teslas) with FSD. It’s going to be everywhere. It’s safer.”
The Baron Capital frontman’s case is built around Full Self-Driving. Tesla reported 1.48 million active FSD subscriptions in the second quarter, up 56 percent year over year, and company officials have said roughly 55 percent of new North American deliveries left with a subscription enabled.
Baron framed that attach rate as proof the product is moving from enthusiast extra to default expectation, and as a reason software, not just vehicle volume, should drive the next phase of value.
His conviction on Tesla shares is not theoretical, as Baron Capital made its first Tesla investment in 2014, after years of meetings that began around the 2010 IPO roadshow. The firm later built a large SpaceX position starting in 2017.
Ron Baron today in new interview on Tesla:
“The time to buy the stock is now. FSD is catching on, and it’s going to be bigger and bigger. 55% of new buyers are buying it (Teslas) with FSD. It’s going to be everywhere. It’s safer.” pic.twitter.com/Rv5PB0bVZ2
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) September 16, 2026
Baron said those Musk-led bets have generated about $30 billion of the $71 billion in profits Baron Capital has produced for clients. He put the firm’s current exposure at roughly $25 billion in SpaceX and $5 billion in Tesla. Personally, he described SpaceX as his largest holding, at about $5 billion, with about $1.5 billion in Tesla and additional Tesla exposure through the firm’s funds.
That concentration is also a statement of loyalty. Asked about talk of a SpaceX-Tesla combination, Baron said he had already walked Elon Musk through arguments for and against a deal, then declined to repeat them on air. His public position was simpler: “Whatever you decide is better is what I’m going to support,” he said to Musk.
Baron also said that he picked up the farewell edition of the Model S after Tesla decided to sunset the vehicle earlier this year, calling it his favorite car he’s ever driven.
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