Investor's Corner
Tesla’s Gigafactory 3 is starting to attract the interest of China’s workforce
Tesla’s upcoming Gigafactory 3 in Shanghai appears to be attracting a lot of interest among China’s workers, with a recent recruitment day for the facility attracting a larger-than-expected number of applicants. Videos taken of the job fair show long lines of interested candidates waiting their turn to submit their applications for the factory.
Local media reports noted that Tesla’s job fair, which was held at the Lingang Industrial Zone, was initially set to end at 3:30 p.m. local time. To accommodate the number of candidates applying for a post in Gigafactory 3, though, Tesla ended up extending its hiring hours. Several applicants interviewed by local media also pointed out that they took the effort of traveling to Shanghai to apply for a job in the upcoming Tesla facility.
Update (Video) about:
Tesla Shanghai Gigafactory held a job fair in the Lingang Industrial Zone. As you can see from the video provided by Chinese media https://t.co/CmnfB7Cj1u ，huge amount candidates are interested to join $TSLA for GF3 development.#Tesla #China #TeslaChina pic.twitter.com/mSZxyf5S5w
— vincent (@vincent13031925) November 30, 2018
The warm reception to Tesla’s recent job fair in Shanghai bodes well for Gigafactory 3’s development. Tesla, after all, announced in its third-quarter vehicle delivery and production report that it is expediting the construction of the factory, which is expected to be capable of producing both battery packs and electric vehicles. In its report, Tesla noted that it expects Gigafactory 3’s buildout to be quick and efficient, particularly as the company would be applying the lessons it learned during the Model 3 production ramp on the facility.
Tesla’s business in China has been challenged this year due to additional import tariffs placed by the government against vehicles imported abroad. Despite this, though, Tesla’s brand has remained strong in the country, partly due to its reputation as the manufacturer of some of the most desirable electric vehicles in the market. Amidst China’s aggressive plan of adopting electric cars in its key cities, Tesla’s place as one of the first movers in the EV industry appears to be valued by the country as well.
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The development and progress of Gigafactory 3 has been remarkable so far, thanks in part to the Chinese government’s support for the project. Over the past months, state media has run multiple segments about how the state fully supports the construction of the factory. This support became quite evident when China made the rare decision to allow Tesla to become the sole owner of Gigafactory 3. The electric car maker’s bid for the 864,885-square meter plot of land in Shanghai’s Lingang area went unchallenged by any rival bidders as well. Apart from these, low-interest loans from local banks were also secured quickly, with local news site Beijing Business Daily noting that around 30% of the facility’s funds have been ready since October.
China has agreed to reduce and remove tariffs on cars coming into China from the U.S. Currently the tariff is 40%.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 3, 2018
Apart from the apparent high interest among job applicants for Gigafactory 3, Tesla’s business would likely see a notable boost this quarter, thanks to changing headwinds in the ongoing US-China trade war. In a recent tweet, US President Donald Trump suggested that China has agreed to “reduce and remove” import tariffs on vehicles coming in from the United States. Considering that Tesla’s electric cars are weighed down by a 40% tariff, the reduction or removal of the duties would likely result in better Q4 figures.
Tesla has ambitious plans for Gigafactory 3, with the company aiming to produce up to 500,000 electric vehicles every year once construction is complete. Two of the company’s high-volume vehicles, the Model 3 sedan and the Model Y SUV, are expected to be produced in the upcoming facility, which would specifically cater to the Chinese market.
SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX) got an absolutely crazy price target rating from Raymond James after the company experienced a tough first few weeks following its Initial Public Offering (IPO).
Despite the tumultuous start, SpaceX has plenty of believers, and the company’s massively successful Starship launch last Friday, its 13th test flight of the massive rocket, went so smoothly that Raymond James analysts pushed its price target on the company to roughly 7 times its current trading level.
SpaceX Starship just nailed something it’s never done before
The firm officially put a “Strong Buy” rating and an $800 price target on the stock. It currently trades at around $113. Its all-time high is $225.64, reaching this trading level shortly after shares first went public.
Raymond James’ price target is tied to the firm’s confidence after Starship’s 13th test flight. Analysts at the firm said it was an incremental step that reduces engineering risks, citing the widely successful heat shield test that CEO Elon Musk recently detailed, the smooth deployment of Starlink V3 satellites, and a successful in-space engine relight.
SpaceX also managed to see Starship splash down safely in the Indian Ocean, while the Super Heavy Booster fell down to the Gulf of America with no incidents.
It is interesting to see these launches have such a tremendous impact on the stock and what investors think of it. After SpaceX initially delayed the Starship launch last week, shares fell tremendously. Most probably did not realize that the stand-down is a standard practice, especially if everything is not perfect.
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The mission was initially aborted due to an issue with Raptor engines. This was resolved, and Starship launched last Friday after another delay on Thursday, which was caused by weather.
Now that analysts have seen what SpaceX launches are capable of and how impressive the feat is, firms are adjusting their price targets accordingly, making it known that they have high expectations for the space exploration company.
Elon Musk
SpaceX Starship just nailed something it’s never done before
SpaceX’s Starship flew successfully Friday, landing both stages and deploying its first Starlink V3 satellites.
Starship’s thirteenth test flight delivered exactly what SpaceX needed with a clean liftoff, two successful stage recoveries, and the first real payload the vehicle has ever carried to space. Booster 20 and Ship 40 lifted off at 5:51 p.m. CT from Starbase, and by the time the mission wrapped roughly an hour later, both halves of the rocket had done exactly what they were supposed to do.
Booster 20 separated from Ship 40 a few minutes into the flight and stuck a controlled splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico about six minutes after liftoff. That is a meaningful turnaround from Flight 12 in May, when the booster lost several engines during its boostback burn before a hard water landing attempt.
Starship as seen from Starlink satellites pic.twitter.com/e2hvfmnewh
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 25, 2026
Starship 40’s performance was arguably the bigger win. The vehicle deployed the first 20 operational Starlink V3 satellites Starship has ever carried, then flew a suborbital arc to a landing in the Indian Ocean that SpaceX commentator Dan Huot called the company’s softest splashdown yet. “This is a dream scenario for this team that’s trying to get this heat shield data,” Huot said on the live broadcast, according to Space.com’s live coverage. “I’m a little over the moon right now. Wow. Lucky number 13.”
Unlike the mass simulators SpaceX flew on Flight 12, these were production Starlink V3 satellites, meant to extend solar arrays and antennas and attempt to link with the broader constellation before reentering minutes later. Getting real hardware through a full deploy sequence on only the second flight of the V3 generation keeps Starship on schedule for the payload work NASA is counting on for future Artemis lunar landings.
What an awesome launch, really seems like everything went super well and it was all incredibly smooth.
SpaceX is awesome. Very interested to see how the market will respond on Monday pic.twitter.com/KSHmyBfV55
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) July 25, 2026
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— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) July 25, 2026
The flight also arrives at a moment when SpaceX needed a win. SPCX has traded below its $135 IPO price since mid-July, as Teslarati reported when the mission slipped to Friday, and short interest has climbed to roughly a third of the tradable float. A clean flight will not fix a balance sheet, but it does answer the one question SpaceX absolutely needed answered this week: whether the fixes made after the July 16 abort would hold up under real flight conditions. They did, on both stages, on the first try after the redesign.
SpaceX has not set a target date for Flight 14, though the company has said it wants to push toward an orbital attempt on the next mission. After Friday, that goal looks a lot more within reach.
Tesla short sellers won big following the company’s massive fall on Wall Street after it reported subpar Earnings on Wednesday.
Tesla short sellers collected about $4.12 billion in single-day profits on Thursday, according to Bloomberg. Shares fell as much as 15 percent during Thursday’s session. It closed as one of the worst days for Tesla on Wall Street in the past three years.
Investors sold off the stock after Tesla said it would aggressively direct its spending toward AI and its Optimus robot project. The company had record revenues, which were driven by one of the strongest quarters in terms of vehicle deliveries in company history.
However, it missed EPS estimates by reporting just $0.33, a far cry from the $0.53 analysts expected.
S3 Partners reported that about 3 percent of Tesla’s outstanding stock is sold short. Managing Director at S3, Ihor Dusaniwsky, provided the short seller’s potential profit, as well as another figure: shorts have likely had paper gains of $8.92 billion this year, as Tesla shares are down 30 percent in 2026.
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Tesla (TSLA) Q2 2026 earnings results: miss on EPS, beat on revenue
Tesla has burned short sellers many times in the past, but the company’s latest Earnings Call was a chance for those skeptics to taste some payback. Although the company gave some very transparent information regarding future projects, the rollout of Robotaxi, Optimus, and Semi, many investors took their profits on Thursday.
Notable short sellers like Michael Burry have been transparent about their skepticism around Tesla shares. Burry just revealed three weeks ago that he had opened up a new short on the stock, stating he shorted Tesla shares at $416.22. “Happy it jumped back to this level,” he said in a blog post.
At the time of publication, Tesla shares were down about 3 percent and the stock was trading at $309.92.
SpaceX gets an absolutely crazy price target after rough IPO
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