Investor's Corner
Tesla manufacturing prowess, stock split plans indicate ‘massive position of strength:’ Wedbush
Tesla’s (NASDAQ: TSLA) second stock split in as many years and its manufacturing capacity, which has already grown considerably with new factory openings in 2022, indicate a “massive position of strength” for the electric automaker, according to Wedbush analyst Dan Ives. Ives, who has held a bullish position on Tesla for years, sees parallels in Tesla’s move for another stock split with Amazon, Google, and Apple’s strategies.
“Tesla right now is in a massive position of strength in terms of where they’re heading from a manufacturing perspective, in terms of Berlin, as well as Austin and overall demand,” Ives said to Yahoo! Finance in an interview. “They have that high-class problem of a four-digit stock. And I think it’s something where you could always have the debate, but a stock split is a smart strategic move for Tesla, just like it was for Amazon, just like it was for Google, as well as for Apple.”
Tesla’s last stock split, which took place in August 2020, gave young and retail investors the opportunity to get in on the stock as it rose to astronomical levels. Shares were trading at three times the value compared to the beginning of the year, and when Tesla announced the split on August 11, shares were trading at around $1,450.00. Shares exploded to $2,000 when the stock split at the end of August 2020. The price reset at around $460 per share.
Tesla stock has bumped in value considerably over the past month, up over 25 percent since February 28. The automaker’s opening of the Gigafactory Berlin facility in Germany earlier this month was a bullish move as Tesla has been waiting for approval on the factory for about six months. Additionally, Tesla will open its new Gigafactory Texas plant in Austin soon, as it is still awaiting approval on a final version of the Model Y crossover, according to EPA documents.
The stock split is Ives’ biggest focus, especially as Tesla just announced it would let shareholders vote on the proposal during the annual meeting this Summer. After shares dipped earlier this month due to “inflation pressure” that surged vehicle prices upward, the stock has performed a major turnaround and worked its way toward a potential split.
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“You don’t buy it because of a stock split,” Ives added to his commentary during the interview. “You buy it because fundamentally where you think it’s gonna go, but the stock split is gonna be something that is a catalyst.” Ives went on to mention the stock split has been a major discussion amongst investors for several months. “I think it was smart to get out there,” Ives said.
The frequency of Tesla stock splits is a major indicator of strength in Ives’ eyes. A “company that’s gonna do their second split in two years is not doing it because they’re in a position of weakness. I think it shows a position of strength,” Ives said.
Last week, Ives told Teslarati “Musk is flexing his muscles with the Berlin and Austin build-outs, and within the EV landscape, at this point, it’s Tesla’s world and everyone else is paying rent.”
Ives holds a $1,400 price target on Tesla stock and is ranked #86 out of 7,918 analysts on TipRanks.
Disclosure: Joey Klender is a TSLA Shareholder.
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Elon Musk
Tesla AI boss reveals how big Optimus is going to get
Tesla’s Optimus chief corrected himself on X, confirming a staggering 10 million robot production target.
![Tesla Optimus Gen 3 [Credit: Tesla]](https://www.teslarati.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/tesla-optimus-gen3-diner.jpg)
Tesla’s Optimus program has a new number attached to it, after Ashok Elluswamy, the executive who has run the humanoid robot program since June 2025, posted a three word correction on X Thursday, “Correction, 10 million robots.”
The line clarifies the long term annual capacity Tesla is building toward its planned second Optimus production line at Gigafactory Texas, a figure Musk has cited repeatedly since last year’s shareholder meeting.
The scale is worth noting, because ten million robots a year would mean Tesla building more units annually than most countries sell in new cars. Tesla has framed this as a second line, not the first. The buildout is happening in two phases: a roughly one million unit per year line inside Tesla’s Fremont factory, installed on the floor space vacated when Model S and Model X production ended earlier this year, and a much larger dedicated facility under construction at Giga Texas that broke ground on its first steel structure in May. That Texas facility is the one Elluswamy’s correction refers to, and is expected to reach volume production sometime in 2027.
Correction, 10 million robots https://t.co/0z4nyQNTzp
— Ashok Elluswamy (@aelluswamy) July 30, 2026
Tesla Optimus project fires up as Musk sees production line progress
Elluswamy took over Optimus from Milan Kovac last summer and has spent the months since talking up the program’s trajectory. Elon Musk has also floated the ten million figure at Tesla’s 2025 shareholder meeting.
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Ending Model S and Model X production to make room for the first Optimus line was one of the more consequential manufacturing decisions in the company’s recent history, retiring two flagship vehicles in favor of a robot that has yet to enter mass production. Musk has previously estimated per unit production costs at $20,000 to $25,000 once Tesla reaches a million units a year, though he hasn’t said what that cost looks like at ten times the volume.
SpaceX just picked up another $1.6 billion from the Pentagon, with the U.S. Space Force awarding two task orders worth $1.6 billion to fly 18 Falcon 9 missions from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California through the end of 2027. The launches will carry satellites for the Space Based Sensing and Targeting portfolio, a set of programs meant to help the military detect and track airborne threats and relay that information across forces in near real time.
The award falls under National Security Space Launch Phase 3 Lane 1, the Space Force’s faster, commercial style procurement track for missions that do not require the military’s most demanding certification process. It is also the largest single order publicly disclosed under that program so far, and the first task order issued since the Space Force nearly tripled Lane 1’s contract ceiling from $5.6 billion to $17 billion on July 17.
SpaceX to become America’s Military data backbone for missiles, drones, and warfighters
Eric Zarybnisky, the Space Force’s acting portfolio acquisition executive for space access, said the entire process, from identifying the requirement to signing the contract, took about two months, including a month set aside for companies to prepare proposals.
SpaceX is not just launching these satellites. It already holds the contracts to build two of the programs within the same portfolio, $4.16 billion for the Space Based Airborne Moving Target Indicator system and $2.29 billion for the Space Data Network Backbone, which Teslarati covered in May. That means SpaceX is now responsible for both building key pieces of the military’s next generation sensing network and getting them into orbit.
With this latest award, SpaceX’s Pentagon contract total for 2026 alone tops $8 billion, adding to a defense portfolio that already includes the Golden Dome missile defense software group SpaceX joined in April and a string of GPS launches it inherited after ULA’s Vulcan rocket ran into a booster anomaly, which we detailed in March.
Lane 1’s vendor pool technically includes seven companies: SpaceX, ULA, Blue Origin, Rocket Lab, Stoke Space, Impulse Space, and Relativity Space. In practice, SpaceX remains the only provider with the combination of launch cadence, flight proven Falcon 9 hardware, and West Coast infrastructure to support a campaign requiring roughly one Vandenberg launch a month for the next year and a half.
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Some lawmakers have flagged the growing concentration of national security launches with one company as a risk worth watching. For now, the Space Force keeps backing SpaceX, with it being the company that shows up ready to launch.
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.
![Tesla Optimus Gen 3 [Credit: Tesla]](https://www.teslarati.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/tesla-optimus-gen3-diner-80x80.jpg)
Tesla AI boss reveals how big Optimus is going to get
Autonomous vehicle red tape gets slashed by Trump Administration
