Investor's Corner
Tesla’s Elon Musk receives snappy retort from Ford after “morgue” comment
Tesla CEO Elon Musk recently found himself on the receiving end of a snappy retort from Detroit, after describing Ford’s energy as similar to a “morgue.” In a response on Twitter, Mark Truby, Ford’s Vice President of Communications, fired back at Musk, throwing some shade at the electric car maker’s recently-built sprung structure and touting the efficiency of its own assembly line.
No doubt the vibe is funky in that “makeshift tent,” but it’s not bad either across the street at the #FordRouge plant where a high quality, high-tech F-150 rolls off the line every 53 seconds like clockwork. Come check it out @elonmusk #BuiltFordTough https://t.co/1KoEZIyf0D
— Mark Truby (@mtruby) June 28, 2018
Musk’s statements about Ford were related to the Wall Street Journal, which was recently given access to the Fremont factory. In a statement to the publication, Musk admitted that while Tesla has made mistakes with regards to the production of the Model 3, such as the over-automation of its manufacturing system, he remains optimistic about the company’s chances.
“I’m feeling good about things. I think there’s a good vibe—I think the energy is good; go to Ford, it looks like a morgue,” he said.
Ford’s retort echoes a lot of Tesla’s production shortcomings over the past year. The electric car and energy company, after all, has mostly struggled to scale the production of its most disruptive vehicle to date — the Model 3. When the first 30 of the vehicles were handed over to their owners in July 2017, Musk stated that the company was aiming to produce 5,000 Model 3 per week by the end of the year. Tesla produced 2,425 during the quarter.
Tesla eventually moved its 5,000/week production target for the Model 3 to the end of Q2 2018, while setting a more conservative 2,500/week goal for the first quarter. Tesla also missed its goal for Q1 2018, with the company producing a little over 2,000 vehicles per week by the end of March. During Tesla’s 2018 Annual Shareholder Meeting earlier this month, however, Elon Musk noted that Tesla is on pace to hit its 5,000/week target for the Model 3 by the end of June.
Being a legacy automaker founded by the man who introduced the assembly line, Ford is the complete antithesis of Tesla. Ford’s F-150 line, for one, is famed for its capability to roll off vehicles in less than a minute. The company has also taken a rather conservative stance on electric cars, with offerings such as the Ford Focus Electric being mostly a niche vehicle. Despite its long tenure in the auto industry, and regardless of the fact that it is the lone American automaker apart from Tesla that has not filed for bankruptcy to date, the company has also been beset by its own set of challenges. This year alone, Ford announced that it is stopping the production of all its cars, except for the Mustang and the upcoming Focus Active Crossover, which is expected for a 2019 release.
With the end of the second quarter at hand, Tesla has a very real opportunity to shoot down criticisms such as Ford’s. With another assembly line built in an expansive sprung structure augmenting the company’s production numbers, Tesla might just have the numbers to silence a significant number of its staunchest critics.
Investor's Corner
Tesla gets its latest short from Michael Burry: ‘Happy it jumped back to this level’
Tesla short seller Michael Burry, the subject of the film “The Big Short,” where he was portrayed by Steve Carell, has revealed he has opened a new bet against the stock.
In a new update to his Substack newsletter in a post titled “Trading Post June 30, 2026,” Burry revealed a new set of bets against Tesla, Caterpillar, NVIDIA, Applied Materials Inc., and the iShares Semiconductor ETF.
In regard to Tesla, Burry wrote:
“And finally I shorted Tesla at 416.22. Happy it jumped back to this level.”
This means Burry likely opened his new short position after the company’s recent rally on Wall Street, which saw Tesla shares sink in mid-May, only to recover to well over the $400 mark. Currently, shares trade at around $427.
The company saw a big Tuesday as shares climbed considerably, over 10 percent. The size of the Tesla short was not provided, nor did Burry give any information on the position’s structure, the number of shares, dollar value, or whether options were used in the short.
The Tesla and SpaceX merger everyone is talking about is quietly building
Over the years, Burry has been one of the more vocal critics of Tesla, calling its share price “media inflated,” and saying it was “ridiculously overvalued” as recently as December.
The company has largely transitioned away from being known as an automotive company and instead is much more widely regarded as an AI play, mostly due to its Full Self-Driving efforts, Optimus robot development, and data collection related to both.
This has not pulled those skeptics away from being vocal about their distaste for how Tesla is valued, but there’s no denying that the company is a global force in many things, including sustainable energy, automotive, and AI.
Investor's Corner
SpaceX gets initial stock coverage from Tesla’s biggest bull
Wedbush Securities is initiating stock coverage on SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX), marking the first comments on the company since it went public several weeks ago. Wedbush and its analyst handling coverage, Dan Ives, are widely bullish on fellow Musk company Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA).
Ives wrote his first note initiating coverage of SpaceX shares on Wednesday with a $190 price target and an ‘Outperform’ rating. The firm believes the company is well positioned off of its IPO because of its wide array of projects, including AI compute power and infrastructure, connectivity projects, and launches.
“We view SpaceX as one of the most differentiated assets within the tech market with a strong footprint across its three core markets, with Starlink driving success with connectivity,” Ives wrote, “Starship launches leading to a demand flywheel and increasing deal flow for its Colossus clusters.”
Elon Musk called it Epic: The full story of SpaceX’s Starship Flight 12
Wedbush leans heavily on Starlink, which they say is the “profitability driver given the strength of its recurring revenue base of ~12 million subscribers as of June 5th.” Ives believes Starlink is still in the “early innings” of penetrating the global telecommunications and broadband market, as it only holds less than a 1 percent share. However, this number is sure to increase over time.
It also highlights the importance of Starship, which it says is an “essential layer” of SpaceX’s overall success. SpaceX developing and displaying the ability to reuse rockets is a major cost and reliability advantage “as it reduces the necessary hardware launch costs while generating a feedback loop for future flights to improve their launch flight rate without accelerating capex spend.”
Finally, SpaceX’s recent AI/Compute projects are also very elementary, Ives writes. It is worth mentioning Wedbush said its $190 price target is derived from a valuation forecast that sees the company yielding roughly $2.48 trillion of implied enterprise value.
There are also some factors that Wedbush did not take into account with its initial coverage. The firm wrote in the note:
“We note that there is optional value coming from Starship’s accelerating scale towards sub-$200/kg unit economics, orbital data centers, and enterprise AI monetization as these factors could drive meaningful upside but these face major hurdles, so we do not take that into account with our valuation.”
SpaceX shares are down just over 2 percent today, trading at around $167 at the time of publication.
Elon Musk
Tesla Phone? Not quite, but close: analyst
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.
