Investor's Corner
Tesla Gigafactory 3 funding reportedly incites competition among Chinese banks: insider
Tesla has an aggressive timetable for Gigafactory 3. During the facility’s groundbreaking event, Elon Musk mentioned that he is hoping for Model 3 production to begin before the end of 2019. That’s a very ambitious goal, even for a company as daring as Tesla. For the project to move on as scheduled, after all, Tesla would have to acquire enough funding for the massive facility — a feat widely considered challenging by the company’s critics.
Last year, reports emerged from local Chinese media hinting that Tesla was receiving assistance in receiving low-interest loans from local Shanghai banks to fund part of Gigafactory 3’s construction. If a recent report is any indication, though, it appears that the upcoming battery and electric car factory is attracting the interest of quite a few financial institutions willing to loan money for the project. An insider, who asked to remain anonymous, reportedly revealed to Chinese news agency NBD that several financial firms are actually competing to give loans to the carmaker.
“I heard that many banks are fighting for this. There are local banks in Shanghai, state-owned banks, and foreign banks,” the insider said, according to Hexun News.
The insider further noted that Tesla would be allowed to use its property rights and patents as collateral for the facility’s funding. Apart from this, the insiders also mentioned that under normal circumstances, it usually takes 4-6 months for companies to iron out details about the financing of large-scale projects. In the case of the Silicon Valley-based carmaker, though, the local government has reportedly set up a special team to endorse Tesla’s financing loans after just two months.
These recent reports all but highlight the Chinese government’s favor for Tesla and its support for Elon Musk’s vision. While Elon Musk and Tesla continue to incite an equal amount of admiration and criticism in the United States, after all, the company and its CEO appear to be widely respected in China. After the groundbreaking ceremony at the Gigafactory 3 site in Shanghai, for example, Elon Musk met with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang in Beijing’s Tower of Violet Light — a place usually reserved for foreign dignitaries, not automotive CEOs.
During their meeting, Li proved supportive of Musk’s plans for Tesla’s expansion in the country, as well as his ideas for Gigafactory 3’s automation. Even when Elon Musk described his vision of a factory that behaves like a “living being,” Li was not dismissive. At one point in their conversation, Li even suggested that China can just issue a “Chinese Green Card” to the Tesla CEO, so that Musk can explore his ideas freely.
Chinese media reported that many banks are now striving to make loans for Tesla Shanghai Gigafactory, including local banks in Shanghai, state-owned banks, and foreign banks. $TSLA #Tesla #China #GF3 #TeslaChina https://t.co/BXu3ydQzLx pic.twitter.com/GjjeRnQlSy
— vincent (@vincent13031925) January 11, 2019
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Considering the treatment that Musk received in China during his visit, as well as the recent reports of banks competing to give funding for Gigafactory 3, it appears safe to state that Tesla is favored by the country’s government. And it’s not just Elon Musk’s treatment or support from financial institutions either. As revealed in previous reports, the government’s support for Tesla and Gigafactory 3 has been pretty evident for a while now.
Last year, the country all but changed its strict rules when it allowed Tesla to become the sole owner of the upcoming battery and electric car factory. The government’s hand also seemed evident when Tesla placed its bid for the 864,885-square meter plot of land in Shanghai’s Lingang Industrial Zone, as the electric car maker’s bid went completely unchallenged. Earlier this month, it was also revealed that the contractor for the construction of Gigafactory 3 is a subsidiary of China Construction, a firm owned by the government.
With such a notable level of support from the country’s officials and institutions, there is a very good chance that Gigafactory 3 would be completed well within Tesla’s projected timetable. What remains to be seen, though, is if the electric car maker can set up its production lines in Shanghai at the same pace. With things now in motion, the ball now appears to be in Tesla’s court.
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Cybertruck
Tesla Cybertruck production snaps back after ugly supplier fight
Cybertrucks are piling up again at Giga Texas after Tesla’s court win against a parts supplier.
Cybertruck production at Giga Texas is showing its first visible recovery since Tesla sued a supplier last month over withheld manufacturing tooling.
Aerial observer Joe Tegtmeyer flew over the Austin factory Wednesday morning and counted roughly 100 or more Cybertrucks filling the outbound lot, a sharp jump from the thin numbers seen in recent weeks. The flyover came a day after a judge granted Tesla a temporary restraining order against Angstrom Automotive Group, the parts supplier at the center of the dispute.
Tesla filed an emergency lawsuit in late July after Angstrom told the automaker it planned to close the Troy, Texas facility where Tesla’s die-cast tools, trim dies and other Cybertruck stamping equipment were housed. According to Tesla’s complaint, a shipment of 700 finished parts never left the building, and when Tesla sent representatives to retrieve its equipment, accompanied by law enforcement, they were turned away. Angstrom allegedly then asked for an extra $250,000 a week to keep operating, which Tesla’s filing described as holding its own property for ransom.
TESLA: U.S. District Judge Christopher R. Wolfe of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, Waco Division granted Tesla a Temporary Restraining Order and Writ of Replevin in its dispute with Angstrom Automotive (Case No. 6:26-cv-00477).
The order authorizes… https://t.co/E1DKcQSxMn pic.twitter.com/LR8aAiV2Og
— S.E. Robinson, Jr. (@SERobinsonJr) August 5, 2026
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The restraining order gives Tesla immediate right of entry to Angstrom’s facility to recover the tooling. It is temporary, with a fuller hearing still to come, but the speed of Wednesday’s rebound suggests the Angstrom shortage was indeed the main bottleneck limiting Cybertruck output. Outbound lot counts are an imperfect measure of actual production, since finished trucks can sit for days before shipping, but a lot that full after a lean stretch is a meaningful signal.
Cybertruck output at Giga Texas has fluctuated all year as Tesla worked through supply issues and introduced new trims, including a cheaper Dual Motor AWD version that drew strong early demand.
Venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya has cautioned investors shorting SpaceX shares, drawing a direct parallel to the intense short-selling pressure Tesla faced in its early public years.
Responding to reports of elevated short interest in the newly public rocket, satellite, and AI company, Palihapitiya noted that similar dynamics played out with Tesla, where aggressive short sellers ultimately “went broke.”
SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX) went public on June 12, 2026, in the largest IPO on record, pricing at $135 per share. Shares quickly surged to an all-time high of $225.64 just days later, briefly implying a valuation exceeding $2 trillion. The stock has since retreated sharply amid valuation concerns, lockup expiration fears, and broader market dynamics.
By early August, it traded near $108–$125, representing a roughly 50 percent decline from the peak and bringing the market capitalization closer to the $1.5–1.7 trillion range. On August 4, shares closed up more than 9 percent at $125.33 ahead of earnings before facing pressure in after-hours and premarket trading.
Short interest has climbed dramatically. According to S3 Partners data widely cited in market reports, short positions reached approximately 219.3 million shares by late July, about 34 percent of the limited public float of roughly 640 million shares, and represented a notional value of around $24.6 billion.
Utilization of shares available to borrow hit 95 percent, with borrow fees rising. This level of shorting exceeded the dollar value of short bets against Tesla at the time and built rapidly ahead of two catalysts: the company’s first post-IPO earnings and an August 6 lockup expiration that could free up to 911.5 million additional shares.
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CEO Elon Musk has issued warnings of his own. In mid-July, as short interest approached one-third of the float, he posted that “the survival probability of firms who maintain a significant short position in SpaceX over time is very low,” reiterating his view that the company could ultimately be worth more than Earth if it achieves its goals.
On August 4, just before earnings, Musk responded to the latest short-interest data by saying, “I try to warn them, but they just double down.”
SpaceX delivered its first quarterly results as a public company after the close on August 4. Second-quarter revenue rose 92 percent year-over-year to $7.8 billion, beating consensus estimates near $6.8–6.9 billion.
The net loss narrowed to $541 million, or 9 cents per share, better than the roughly 23–24 cent loss expected. Starlink/connectivity contributed about $4.3 billion (up 66 percent), while the AI business generated $2.6 billion (up roughly 250 percent). Capital expenditures were heavy at $18.4 billion, largely tied to AI infrastructure. Management projected a $100 billion annualized revenue run rate by year-end 2026 and outlined a path toward $1 trillion in annual revenue by 2030.
The combination of Chamath’s historical reminder, Musk’s repeated alerts, and the company’s ambitious growth targets underscores the high-stakes debate surrounding SPCX. Short sellers are positioned for near-term supply pressure from the lockup, while long-term bulls point to Starlink scale, Starship progress, and AI compute expansion as reasons the bears may ultimately face the same fate as many early Tesla skeptics.
Investor's Corner
SpaceX and Nvidia team up on Musk’s orbital AI bet
SpaceX revealed a new Nvidia satellite partnership, then Musk pledged an exclusive Nvidia hardware commitment.
SpaceX and Nvidia are now working together on the hardware that will power Musk’s orbital data center ambitions. SpaceX announced on X on Tuesday that it is partnering with Nvidia to design the compute payload for Starmind AI1, the first satellite in a planned constellation built to run AI workloads directly in orbit. Each Starmind satellite will carry Nvidia’s Rubin GPUs and Vera CPUs, according to the post, which included renderings of the payload design.
The announcement landed hours before SpaceX’s first earnings call as a public company, where Musk went further, saying the company has committed to building its AI infrastructure exclusively on Nvidia hardware. “We think the Vera Rubin architecture is the best architecture. We think it’s the best AI computer, and we greatly value our close cooperation and partnership on many levels with Nvidia,” Musk told investors on the call,. “So we’re exclusive to Nvidia.”
Musk said SpaceX plans to deploy Nvidia’s Vera Rubin NVL72 rackscale system, codenamed Kyber, both on the ground and in space. He set a target of 2 gigawatts of compute capacity online by the end of this year, scaling to roughly 10 gigawatts by the end of 2027.
SpaceX’s newest Starmind will make earth data centers obsolete
Starmind has been in development since Musk confirmed the name in June, following an xAI trademark filing that tipped off the project before SpaceX made it official. The idea is massive in scope and instead of moving data down to ground based servers, satellites equipped with onboard processors and large solar arrays would compute AI workloads in orbit and beam results back to Earth. SpaceX has already filed with the FCC for a constellation of up to one million satellites to support the effort, citing constant solar power and the absence of zoning restrictions as advantages over terrestrial data centers.
The Nvidia exclusivity marks a shift in tone from just two weeks ago, when Musk was busy knocking down a report that SpaceX had ordered $52 billion worth of Nvidia GPUs through Foxconn, calling it fake news at the time. The dollar figure in that rumor may have been wrong, but the underlying direction seems correct. SpaceX’s AI division already leases Colossus compute capacity to Anthropic and Google, and Tuesday’s earnings report showed AI revenue climbing sharply as those deals ramp up.
Nvidia shares rose roughly 3% in Tuesday trading on the news, while SpaceX stock climbed nearly 9% during the day before giving back gains after hours as investors digested the earnings report’s capital spending figures.
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