Investor's Corner
Tesla Gigafactory 3’s rise shows that it’s too early to dismiss Elon Musk’s ‘sci-fi projects’
A drone flyover of Gigafactory 3 on Monday has revealed that the factory shell of Tesla’s China-based electric car production facility is all but complete. Only a few small sections of the massive general assembly building do not have roofing yet, and the same is true for Gigafactory 3’s walls. Around the facility’s grounds, workers continued their activities, and cement trucks were seen heading inside the massive factory, hinting at the work being started inside.
Other sections of Tesla’s Gigafactory 3 complex are coming to form as well, including what appears to be dormitories for employees and a possible open-air event staging area. Outside the factory, several large trucks are loaded with massive machinery, seemingly intended for use on the 24/7 construction site. Shanghai officials have noted that Gigafactory 3’s initial construction would be done by May. Considering the progress of the buildout as of Monday, this target appears more than feasible.
The pace of Gigafactory 3’s construction is unprecedented, and it is one that will likely make it to books in the future. China itself, which holds a solid reputation for quick, surgically-precise buildouts, will probably set records with the construction of Gigafactory 3. As Tesla’s electric car factory in Shanghai rises, it is pertinent to note that there was a time, not too long ago, when the idea of Gigafactory 3’s factory shell being completed in roughly five months was considered implausible.
Just over two months ago, Gigafactory 3 was comprised of leveled ground and one steel pillar. A few months before that, it was but a muddy field. Go back a few more months and one will find Elon Musk’s initial announcement for the project’s target timeframe, where the brazen CEO estimated that Tesla would start producing electric cars in the Shanghai facility within two years from construction. During that time, Musk’s two-year timeframe was considered in the United States as “not feasible.” Convention demands car factories to be built over years, after all.
Yet here it stands now, tangible, and ahead of Elon Musk’s own target schedule. After Gigafactory 3’s shell is completed this May, the facility is set to undergo ground hardening in June. These will be followed by pipeline communication, equipment stationing, equipment commissioning, and trial production runs, which could start as early as September barring any unexpected issues. This means that by the end of the year, Gigafactory 3 might already hit some of its stride in the production of Tesla’s midsize electric sedan.
Tesla is simply not a conventional company, and neither is its projects. It’s a disruptor that has reached a critical mass — no longer small enough to be ignored, but not yet large enough to warrant unquestionable respect. This, together with Elon Musk’s persona, both in real life and online, has brought a lot of attention to Tesla. Unfortunately, most of this attention today are predominantly negative, as could be seen in the overarching narrative surrounding the company. An example of this could be seen in a recent note published by Wedbush analyst Dan Ives, where he criticized Tesla and Elon Musk for pursuing “sci-fi” projects like Full Self-Driving, an in-house insurance service, and a Robotaxi network.
Elon Musk is an optimist, and this shows when he announced target timeframes for projects like the Model 3 ramp or the release of features such as Advanced Summon. Nevertheless, Elon Musk might tend to overpromise and deliver late; but his ideas, his visions, are not implausible. They might sound like ideas that are straight out of science fiction, but he, Tesla, SpaceX, and his other ventures are hard at work making that science fiction a reality. There was a time, after all, where people thought replacing the yellow pages, or managing their money through the internet, or landing rockets on a drone ship, was an insane idea. And yet here we are.
Here’s Tesla’s Gigafactory 3 site as of Monday, May 20, 2019.
And here’s the site back in late January.
Investor's Corner
Tesla’s flying Roadster just revealed something bigger than the car
Analysts say the Roadster demo puts a Tesla and SpaceX merger back on the table.
The Roadster unveiling near Waco ended Thursday night, and by Friday morning much of the investor reaction had less to do with the car than with who owns the rocket technology inside it.
Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said the event “puts the Tesla/SpaceX relationship on the table in a tangible way,” pointing to the propulsion, pressure vessel and control hardware sitting on a Tesla product. Gene Munster of Deepwater Asset Management called the demo “a ridiculous display of engineering” with “no commercial value” beyond embarrassing traditional automakers, though he said it showed Musk wants the two companies together.
The more specific forecast came a day earlier from Barclays. Analyst Dan Levy told clients a deal could be announced before Tesla’s annual meeting, which must happen by December 6, and that an announcement in late October or early November could make shareholder approval harder. Barclays expects SpaceX to be the buyer in an all stock deal, with Tesla holders receiving SpaceX shares at a premium, based on market values of roughly $2.1 trillion for SpaceX and $1.5 trillion for Tesla. If nothing lands around the meeting, the bank still sees an announcement within 6 to 12 months.
The Roadster demo just added more weight to merger speculations. Tesla’s demo used cold gas thrusters and pressure tanks of the kind SpaceX uses on Falcon 9, and Musk described the car as a collaboration between Tesla and SpaceX engineers, as we mentioned in our breakdown of the three Roadster configurations.
Musk has not publicly addressed a deal since the event, as far as we have seen. His most direct answer remains the one he gave at the All In Summit, when he said that with so much collaboration, “who can imagine what action one might take” without ruling anything out. Ives has held to a 2027 timeline since his March note, and Musk pushed back on the China piece of the speculation when ARK floated a year end announcement in August.
The next test is Tesla’s third quarter earnings call on October 21. However, we recall in July that Musk told analysts, “we can’t talk about combining companies and that kind of thing on an earnings call,” so a clear answer wouldn’t be expected.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk breaks his silence on the Starlink impact to Ukraine drones
Musk says the US military and president set Starshield limits, not SpaceX, amid Ukraine complaints.
Elon Musk says the speed limit cutting out Ukraine’s military Starlink terminals is not SpaceX’s decision. In a post on X Wednesday, Musk wrote that “Starshield systems are owned and controlled by the US government. Any limits on speed or usage are decided by the US military and ultimately POTUS.” He added that Starlink is a commercial service limited to civilian or defensive activities and “cannot be used for offensive military action, as doing so would be inappropriate for a commercial company.”
He was replying to Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s former defense minister, who had thanked Musk for restoring connectivity at speeds up to 160 km/h and said removing the Starshield limit entirely is “now critical for Ukraine’s defense.”
Starshield systems are owned and controlled by the US government. Any limits on speed or usage are decided by the US military and ultimately POTUS.
Starlink is a commercial service owned and controlled by SpaceX. Usage of Starlink is limited to civilian or defensive activities and cannot be used for offensive military action, as doing so would be inappropriate for a commercial company.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 14, 2026
The complaint started Tuesday night, when Ukrainian officials said military terminals began losing service above roughly 100 mph. Presidential adviser Serhiy Beskrestnov said the defense forces got no warning and several missions were disrupted, as Teslarati reported earlier Wednesday. The 7th Rapid Reaction Corps told Reuters connections dropped for 10 to 20 seconds at speeds well below the limit, which made drones harder to control. Poland’s foreign minister, Radoslaw Sikorski, asked Musk on X whether he is “playing politics with your products again.”
That is why the Starlink and Starshield distinction matters. SpaceX introduced Starshield in 2022 as the government version of Starlink, with an initial focus on Earth observation, communications and hosted payloads. It won a Space Force contract in 2023 with a $70 million ceiling. In December 2024, the Pentagon moved Ukraine’s terminals onto Starshield, covering about 3,000 units across two contracts. Ukraine’s military connections therefore run through a service that Musk now says sits under Washington’s control.
While Musk’s post describes who holds authority, it does not infer that anyone ordered the limit, and neither SpaceX nor the US government has confirmed who set it. Ukrainian officials have pointed to the timing, which follows President Trump’s push for an energy ceasefire and Musk’s Saturday post that “Zelensky has gone too far.” The BBC noted Trump denied threatening to restrict intelligence sharing with Kyiv, and no evidence has been presented that Washington requested the cap.
The episode also revives a promise from 2025. After Poland accused him of threatening Ukraine’s access, Musk said Starlink “will never turn off its terminals” and would not be used as a bargaining chip. Poland has since supplied more than 29,000 terminals to Ukraine. Teslarati also covered Kyiv’s search for Starlink alternatives in 2025, and the latest dispute gives that search new urgency.
Investor's Corner
Tesla opens the Q&A for its biggest earnings call yet
Tesla opens its Q3 earnings Q&A, and Cybercab, Robotaxi, Optimus and regulators loom over October 21.
Tesla has opened its shareholder question portal for the Q3 2026 earnings call, with the Say Q&A page already listing questions. Investors have until 4:00 p.m. EDT on October 20 to submit and vote on what management should answer.
The call is set for Wednesday, October 21. Tesla will post results after the market closes, with a live webcast at 4:30 p.m. CT, or 5:30 p.m. ET, through its investor relations site.
Say ranks questions by the number of shares behind the votes, which gives institutional holders extra weight over the retail crowd.
Ahead of Q2, retail investors asked why Robotaxi growth had stalled, when Cybercab would start customer rides, and where the Optimus Gen 3 ramp stood, while an institutional holder asked how Tesla and SpaceX would split Terafab duties. Cybercab has since answered one of those. Tesla said last week it has 300 plus Cybercabs serving Austin, up eightfold in 30 days, with Dallas named as the next city. The questions now are likely to move from when to how fast.
There is also a regulatory question hanging over the call. NHTSA has demanded sworn answers on how the pedal free Cybercab was certified against federal safety standards, with responses due October 30, nine days after the call. Whether an analyst raises it live is unknown, but it is the kind of exposure that tends to find its way into a Q&A.
The numbers will not be the main draw. Tesla already reported 486,532 deliveries and 13.7 GWh of storage for the quarter. Consensus sits around 43 to 45 cents per share on roughly $27.8 billion in revenue, according to Zacks, after a Q2 report that missed on EPS. Goldman Sachs, which holds a Neutral rating and a $360 target, argues the outlook for Robotaxi, FSD and Optimus will matter more to the stock than the quarter itself.
The call also lands six days after the rescheduled Roadster event, which Tesla will stream on X on Thursday, October 15, at 7:55 p.m. CT. If the Roadster shows up with a production date or a SpaceX thruster package, expect it to climb the voting list before the deadline.
Tesla’s flying Roadster just revealed something bigger than the car
How Tesla’s Roadster fan system and thrusters are built to dominate the corners
Tesla Roadster: Three configs, one can fly, 0-60 in 0.8 seconds
SpaceX reveals how its 1 Million AI satellite network will work and prevent space collisions
Elon Musk’s Boring Company lands a new Middle East deal, and Nashville is about to get faster
