Investor's Corner
Tesla’s long-term play on batteries gets praise from German auto executive
When Elon Musk proposed his idea of building a Gigafactory to manufacture batteries for Tesla’s electric cars, many were skeptical. The company’s skeptics were quick to jump on the opportunity to criticize the daring venture, and even the MIT Technology Review noted in an April 2014 article that the project might “mostly be a clever negotiating tactic,” since Tesla could not guarantee enough demand for its vehicles to justify the construction of the massive facility (Tesla was only selling around 23,000 cars per year then).
Fast forward to the present, and Tesla’s long-term play on Gigafactory 1 is starting to pay off. The Model 3, an incredibly successful electric sedan that sold over 145,000 units in the SUV and pickup truck-dominated North American market in 2018, is being prepared for an international ramp. Tesla also stands as the most notable electric car maker that produces its own battery cells. Behind these advantages and milestones are Gigafactory 1’s battery production capabilities, which achieved an annualized run rate of 20 GWh last year.
For BMW Deputy Chairman of the Supervisory Board Manfred Schoch, Tesla’s long-term play on electric car batteries was a strategic decision. In a recent interview with German publication Manager Magazin, the BMW executive remarked that Tesla’s high investments for Gigafactory 1 are well-spent. Schoch also praised Elon Musk’s decision to closely collaborate with Panasonic early on to produce batteries at a large scale.
“Tesla controls the entire value chain; they understood electromobility,” the BMW executive said.
Schoch, who also serves as the Chairman of the Munich Works Council and the European Works Council, has decades of experience in the auto industry. Joining BMW in 1980 as a trainee, he later became the automaker’s works council chairman in 1987, where he gained a reputation as a working time expert. During his tenure with BMW, he introduced a wide variety of working time models, even introducing initiatives to make working hours more flexible for the company’s workforce. As such, Schoch is quite familiar with large-scale projects that enhance efficiency in the long-term.
In his recent interview, Schoch ultimately called on BMW’s executives to explore the idea of producing the company’s own battery cells for its upcoming electric cars. Candidly addressing his concerns, Schoch stated that BMW’s board members would probably benefit from working with Elon Musk, especially since the auto industry has developed a tendency to declare some otherwise important ideas as impossible.
“Our board members should finally deal more intensively with this gentleman, who should have been bankrupt by now. In the (auto) industry, too much is complained, and too much is declared impossible,” the BMW executive said.
Schoch’s statements on Tesla comes amidst Germany’s best year for electric vehicle sales yet. During 2018, figures from the German Federal Motor Transport Authority indicated an increase of 43.9% in EV sales. That’s more than 1% of the country’s total new passenger car sales. This increase comes amidst a steep dive in the sale of diesel-powered vehicles in Germany, which saw a decline from 38.8% to 32.3%.
EU Model 3 heading into SF Pier 80. Passed at least 4 other trucks on HW101. #Tesla $TSLA pic.twitter.com/2uI64Lk1Vh
— YunLinSJ (@YunLinSJ) January 8, 2019
Tesla, for its part, is preparing Europe for the arrival of the Model 3. Local reports suggest that Tesla is looking to ship 3,000 Model 3 to the European region starting February. Members of the Tesla community have shared images featuring trucks loaded with the electric sedan heading towards San Francisco’s Pier 80 as well.
Tesla has also begun rolling out dual-charge CCS Superchargers for the European region. When the company announced that the Model 3 would be getting a CCS port, Tesla noted that it would be “retrofitting our existing Superchargers with dual charge cables to enable Model 3, which will come with a CCS Combo 2 charge port, to use the Tesla Supercharger network.” The installation of the new “Model 3 Priority” CCS Superchargers, as well as the retrofitting of the existing network, is expected to continue in the months ahead.
Elon Musk
Tesla and SpaceX merger talks hit a new stage, and one hurdle remains
Tesla and SpaceX merger talks are reportedly advancing, and a deal could arrive by December.
Tesla and SpaceX are moving closer to a combination, with a deal announcement possible as soon as December, Bloomberg reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter. The companies have also discussed a scenario in which the announcement slips into early 2027.
Boards and advisers on both sides are now working through the terms of the deal and the governance structure of the combined company, according to the report. One open item is how many SpaceX shares Tesla investors would receive. Bloomberg had previously reported that the two companies were aiming to announce a deal in the first half of next year and close it before the end of President Donald Trump’s term, so a December announcement would pull that schedule forward by months.
Tesla shares rose as much as 1.9% to $398.35 after the report, while SpaceX gained 0.6% to $140.63. SpaceX carries a market value of about $1.9 trillion following its June IPO, and Tesla is valued at about $1.55 trillion, which would make a combination the largest corporate deal on record. Neither company responded to requests for comment.
The talks became official on October 20, when Elon Musk said on SpaceX’s third quarter earnings call that both companies had formed special committees of independent directors to study a merger, as Teslarati reported. Musk said he could not take part because he is “a conflicted party” and called the process “an odd kabuki dance.” He also noted that Tesla would need approval from 50 percent of all outstanding shares, a bar the company missed in 2025 when a board declassification proposal won support from only 39.4 percent.
China remains the biggest structural problem. Bloomberg’s sources said the companies still need to work out how to isolate Tesla’s large and profitable manufacturing business in China from SpaceX’s U.S. government and defense contracts. JPMorgan analyst Rajat Gupta described those two factors last month as “key dynamics that are at odds with each other” for regulatory and shareholder approval. Musk has repeatedly said Tesla has no plans to separate its China business, a position he restated in August after ARK Invest predicted a merger announcement before the end of the year.
Washington adds another layer. Democrats took control of Congress in this month’s midterms and have pledged to investigate Musk’s business and political activities, which could bring added scrutiny to a deal involving one of the Pentagon’s most important launch and satellite contractors.
The report also lands three weeks before Tesla’s December 3 annual meeting at Giga Texas. That ballot has only three items, led by the re-election of Musk, board chair Robyn Denholm and JB Straubel, and includes no merger proposal. Any deal announced in December would likely require a separate special meeting for Tesla shareholders to vote on it.
The two companies already share a growing list of projects, including the Terafab semiconductor plant in Texas. Tesla’s next generation Roadster, which uses cold gas thrusters built on SpaceX hardware, turned up on display at SpaceX headquarters last month and has become one of the clearest public examples of that overlap.
Elon Musk
Nvidia’s board meets on Jensen Huang, and Elon Musk already has an answer
Elon Musk says it would be an honor to hire Jensen Huang amid Nvidia turmoil.
Elon Musk says he would welcome Jensen Huang at one of his companies if Nvidia’s board decides to push out its longtime chief executive.
On Wednesday evening, the financial account ZeroHedge posted “Elon please hire Jensen” on X. Musk replied roughly two hours later: “That would be an honor.” Neither Huang nor Nvidia had responded publicly as of Wednesday night.
Musk’s reply came as Nvidia’s board met to decide Huang’s future. The Wall Street Journal reported that directors were preparing to oust him following reports of two extramarital relationships. One involves Alice Huang, a Singapore-based businesswoman whom U.S. intelligence officials reportedly believe was working for China’s Ministry of State Security. The New York Times separately reported a relationship with Kimberly Powell, Nvidia’s vice president of health care. Huang acknowledged being unfaithful in a memo to employees on Sunday but gave no details.
@zerohedge That would be an honor
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 12, 2026
Under Nvidia’s bylaws, a majority of its 11 directors can remove the CEO with or without cause. Bloomberg reported that the board has been working with an outside firm on possible replacements and may name an interim chief, with CFO Colette Kress seen as the likely pick. Nvidia shares fell more than 8 percent in extended trading, according to CNBC, and the company is scheduled to report quarterly earnings on November 17.
Musk has more riding on Nvidia’s leadership than most tech executives. In August, he told investors on SpaceX’s first earnings call as a public company that it would build its AI infrastructure exclusively on Nvidia hardware, calling Vera Rubin “the best architecture.” SpaceX is also working with Nvidia on the compute payload for Starmind, its planned orbital AI constellation. In October, SpaceX said it had a binding commitment for a roughly $40 billion lease of Vera Rubin GPUs and related equipment, with the leases expected to begin in the first half of 2027.
The scale of that dependence is already enormous. On its Q3 call, SpaceX said it was bringing roughly 200,000 to 220,000 Nvidia GB300 GPUs online each month and expects 2.5 to 3 GW of nameplate compute by the end of the year. That buildout is now reaching new sites like the proposed $24 billion power plant and supercomputer campus at Starbase.
The relationship between the two executives also goes back nearly a decade. Huang has often told the story of personally delivering Nvidia’s first DGX-1 AI supercomputer to Musk in 2016, when no other customer wanted one. “Nobody wanted to be part of it, except for Elon,” Huang said on the Joe Rogan Experience last December.
Musk did not say what role Huang might fill, and his reply stops short of a formal offer. Huang co-founded Nvidia in 1993 and still owns about 3.6 percent of its stock, so any move to a Musk company would depend on whether, and how, he leaves the chipmaker he has run for more than three decades.
Elon Musk
SpaceX’s Anthropic deal has a catch, and Elon Musk just addressed it
Elon Musk says SpaceX’s Anthropic compute deal cuts both ways after Chamath floats higher prices.
Elon Musk pushed back on Sunday against the idea that SpaceX’s compute contract with Anthropic is a one way bet, after venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya argued the company could use a termination clause to charge the AI lab far more.
“It works both ways, of course. If compute becomes plentiful and cheap, SpaceX revenue will drop. No crying in the casino for either party,” Musk wrote on X Sunday evening, replying to a clip of Palihapitiya’s comments shared by AI commentator Rohan Paul.
On the All-In podcast released Sunday, Palihapitiya said either side can walk away from the agreement on 90 days’ notice. If data center supply tightens, he argued, SpaceX could exercise that option and bring the contract back at two to three times the current price, and Anthropic would have little choice but to accept. He called it “the kingmaking move,” according to BigGo Finance.
The clause itself is not new. SpaceX disclosed in its IPO filings in May that Anthropic would pay $1.25 billion per month for dedicated capacity at its Colossus clusters through May 2029, nearly $45 billion in total, with both companies able to terminate on 90 days’ notice, as Teslarati reported at the time. SpaceX’s later compute deals with Google and Reflection AI carry similar exit terms.
What has changed is the political backdrop. Palihapitiya’s thesis rests on incoming Democratic governors pulling tax incentives for data centers and slowing new construction. In Texas, Gov.-elect Gina Hinojosa campaigned on a moratorium on new data center approvals, and Deutsche Bank analysts warned last week that SpaceX’s Texas compute capacity could face delays. SpaceX and Tesla shares both fell after the midterm results.
A slowdown would favor companies that already own capacity. SpaceX acquired xAI in February and has been renting data centers to outside AI labs before the space is needed for Grok. At the Baron Investment Conference on Friday, Musk said SpaceX was “getting 50 billion a year for 35 billion dollar investments” and that it can bring a data center online in eight or nine months, compared to two and a half years for competitors. He also said SpaceX is tracking toward an annualized revenue rate above $100 billion in December, with a “best guess” of $500 billion by December 2027.
Musk’s reply points to the other side of the clause. Anthropic has signed large compute agreements with Amazon, Google and Microsoft, and if that capacity comes online faster than new construction slows, the AI lab would have its own leverage to renegotiate or leave. Musk has called Anthropic “obviously currently the leader in AI,” and it remains one of SpaceX’s largest compute customers.
SpaceX shares rose more than 2 percent in overnight trading late Sunday after closing Friday at $134.27, according to Stocktwits.
Tesla Cybercab arrives with steep ownership fine print
Tesla Cybercab goes on sale for $29,990, slated for December deliveries
