Investor's Corner
Tesla’s mission is bearing fruit despite escalating attacks from critics
Elon Musk dubs Tesla as a company aiming to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable transportation and energy. Since the company started with the original Roadster, Tesla has courted as many dedicated critics as it does supporters. A “Tesla Death Watch” was even published by an online publication back in 2008 as the traditional auto industry waited on what appeared to be the inevitable fall of Tesla.
As history would show, such as thing never came to pass. The Model S was released, followed by the Model X, and now, the Model 3. While the rollout of each of these vehicles was all but problem-free, the electric cars eventually made it to market, and once they did, they were received very well by Tesla’s consumer base. Tesla has grown significantly since the days of the original Roadster and the first-generation Model S, with the company recently manufacturing 5,000 Model 3 in a week during the end of Q2 2018.
In an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek, Tesla CEO Elon Musk stated that the Model 3 ramp was a “bet-the-company” situation, where the failure of the car would have resulted in the electric car company’s crash. During the same interview, Musk also noted that he believes the Model 3 ramp, which has left him with permanent mental scar tissue, is close to leaving production hell. With signs that the company is now attempting to sustain its capability to manufacture 6,000 Model 3 per week, such as more than 19,000 new VIN registrations during the first two weeks of July, Musk’s statements appear to be accurate.
The Tesla Model 3 Performance. [Credit: Tesla]
Despite these, Tesla has been met with continued criticism at every turn. A look at the company’s stock performance in July is indicative of just how divisive the company continues to be. Elon Musk has spent the last few months calling out what he believes is a bias in mainstream media about negative coverage on Tesla’s electric cars. This culminated in a period last May when the CEO openly clashed with journalists on Twitter after Musk suggested that he would start a website evaluating the credibility of news reporters, similar to how Yelp works with businesses. The aftermath of these clashes is still felt today, as proven by a New York Post article published last July 21 dubbing Musk as a complete “fraud.”
In social media, Tesla remains as divisive. Twitter alone is a platform where Tesla’s bulls and bears collide pretty much on an everyday basis. Since the departure of noted Tesla short-seller Montana Skeptic after Elon Musk allegedly called his boss to complain, efforts to undermine the company’s progress have escalated. Today, there is a group keeping the Burbank Airport, a lot used by Tesla to store its vehicles before delivering them to customers across the United States, under 24/7 surveillance. Latrilife, the person conducting the surveillance, claimed on Twitter that he has 350 employees and he deploys 2-person teams to document activity inside the airport lot. Critics of the company are under the impression that lots filled with Model 3 — the Burbank Airport being one of them — were proof that demand for the vehicle was decreasing and that customers are refusing delivery. The misinformation surrounding Tesla in social media has been so prevalent recently that even Vertical Research Group analyst Gordon L. Johnson ended up publishing an inaccurate note to clients about Tesla.
Amidst all this noise and the sensational headlines that Elon Musk triggers on Twitter, Tesla as a company has been quietly making progress in its goal to push the world closer to sustainability. Tesla Energy, a branch of the company that rarely makes the news, was lauded recently by Samoa for helping the island state reach its eventual goal of being powered 100% by renewable energy. During the 2018 Annual Shareholder Meeting, Elon Musk mentioned that another 1 GWh energy project would be announced in the near future. CTO JB Straubel also reaffirmed Tesla’s stance on the residential solar market, stating that the company is in no way stepping back from the residential energy industry.
Tesla’s vehicles are also starting to change the very perception of what cars can do. Jared Ewy, whose video of his family reacting to a surprise Model 3 became near-viral and attracted a Like from Elon Musk, noted in a blog post that he is in no way a “car guy.” Ewy wrote, however, that once he experienced a Tesla Model S, he knew that it was something different. That was why when the Model 3 became available; he opted to order the vehicle immediately. Professional auto journalists are giving Tesla’s vehicles their due as well, with the Model 3 Performance getting rave reviews from seasoned professionals. Among these is the Wall Street Journal‘s Dan Neil, who wrote a glowing review of the high-performance electric car (Neil eventually shut down his Twitter account amidst badgering from short-sellers and Tesla critics).
Even abroad, Tesla’s brand is becoming synonymous with forward-thinking companies that care about the future. In China, Tesla recently released its “Eagle Plan,” a role-playing program designed for children aged 5-12 that would enable kids to be familiar with the company’s products and sustainable energy solutions as a whole. According to information shared by Tesla owner @vincent13031925 on Twitter, the children’s program aims to educate and foster understanding of the company’s corporate mission, as well as its environmental protection significance. In South Australia, a plan is now underway to provide free solar panels and Powerwall 2 batteries to 50,000 low-income housing units as part of a virtual power plant, which could lower electricity bills in the region while providing backup power to the grid.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk just confirmed the Tesla and SpaceX merger step everyone was waiting for
Tesla and SpaceX formed special committees to weigh a merger, and Elon Musk supports it.
Elon Musk confirmed Tuesday that Tesla and SpaceX have each formed special committees of independent directors to study a possible merger, the first formal step toward combining the two companies after months of speculation.
Musk made the disclosure during SpaceX’s third quarter earnings call. “Both SpaceX and Tesla have formed special committees to discuss this idea at the request of shareholders,” he said. “Because I’m a conflicted party, I can’t actually be in the discussions of the special committees.” He described the setup as “an odd kabuki dance where two groups of people are talking and I can’t be in the conversation.”
Musk did not hide where he stands. “Do I think it would be a good idea? Yes,” he said, pointing to shared work on super intelligence software, chip design, the Terafab facility in Austin, robotics, mass to orbit and connectivity. “I do think there’s a lot of merit to combining the companies as we are pretty much in the super intelligence singularity.”
He also tried to cool expectations. The committees have not agreed on terms for any transaction, and Musk said assuming a merger is a certainty “would be overstating it.” Any deal would go to shareholders, and on the Tesla side it would need approval from 50 percent of all outstanding shares, not just the shares that are voted. Musk called that “quite a high hurdle.”
That bar has tripped Tesla up before. The company’s 2025 attempt to declassify its board won support from only 39.4 percent of outstanding shares and failed. Musk’s own voting stake sits near 20 percent after he exercised his 2018 options in June, so a deal would need broad backing from institutions and a retail base that often leaves votes uncast.
Timing is another open question. Tesla filed its proxy statement Monday for its December 3 annual meeting, and the ballot has only three items: director elections for Musk, Robyn Denholm and JB Straubel, a say on pay vote and auditor ratification. Barclays analyst Dan Levy had argued that an announcement would need to land by late October or early November to make the annual meeting, as Teslarati noted in its SpaceX earnings preview. With no terms agreed, any vote would likely require its own special meeting.
Elon Musk gives his most telling Tesla-SpaceX merger conversation yet
Musk has been edging toward this for weeks. At the All-In Summit in September, he asked “who can imagine what action one might take when there’s so much close collaboration,” Teslarati reported. Last week’s Roadster unveil, built around SpaceX derived cold gas thrusters, pushed the talk further. The two companies already share the Terafab chip project, and Tesla holds a small SpaceX stake that came from its earlier investment in xAI.
SpaceX brought strong numbers to the conversation. It reported Q3 revenue of $14.58 billion, up 161 percent year over year, with its Super Intelligence segment now its largest at $7.56 billion. A higher SpaceX valuation would shape any exchange ratio Tesla holders are offered.
Tesla reports its own third quarter results after the close on Wednesday, October 21. Investors had already ranked merger timing among the top retail questions for SpaceX’s call, and the committees will almost certainly come up again on Tesla’s.
SpaceX reported its third-quarter 2026 financial results on October 20, posting the company’s first solidly profitable quarter since going public earlier in the year under the ticker $SPCX.
Revenue reached $14.58 billion, up 161 percent year-over-year from $5.6 billion, and well ahead of consensus estimates in the $12.7 to $12.9 billion range. The results highlight a rapid shift in SpaceX’s center of gravity toward artificial intelligence/super intelligence, while Starlink and traditional space operations continue to show robust progress.
Here are the key financial results for the quarter:
- Revenue of $14.58 billion (+161% YoY)
- Adjusted EBITDA of $8.8 billion (+306% YoY)
- GAAP net income of $4.4 billion (versus a $1.1 billion net loss in the prior-year quarter)
- Adjusted EPS of approximately $0.35 (versus roughly $0.13–0.16 expected)
- Income from operations of $2.8 billion
The AI/SI segment generated $7.56 billion in revenue, an 830 percent year-over-year increase, making it the company’s largest segment for the first time. Growth was primarily driven by the activation of major cloud services agreements, the integration of Cursor (acquired earlier in 2026), and rising usage of Grok models and the newly introduced Grok Bot personal agent.
🚨 SpaceX just reported earnings! Here are some highlights:
Financial:
Revenue $14.58B (+161% YoY) vs. consensus ~$12.7–12.9B
Adjusted EBITDA $8.8B (+306% YoY)
GAAP net income $4.4B (vs. prior-year loss; first solidly profitable quarter post-IPO)
Adjusted EPS ~$0.35 vs. ~$0.13–0.16 expectedSegments:
Super Intelligence (SI, formerly AI): $7.56B (+830% YoY) — now the largest segment, driven by cloud contracts, Cursor, and Grok.
Connectivity (Starlink): $5.25B (+69% YoY).
Space: $1.77B.Other highlights:
Starlink subscribers: 13.6M (+89% YoY).
Nameplate compute: 1.7 GW.
Capex: $19.6B (majority AI infrastructure).
Cash & marketable securities: ~$90B.
First revenue-generating Starship mission (26 V3 Starlink satellites, ~10× Falcon 9 downlink capacity per launch).— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) October 20, 2026
SI adjusted EBITDA reached $5 billion, and nameplate compute capacity stood at 1.7 GW at quarter-end, up from 1.4 GW in June and 0.6 GW a year earlier. Capital expenditures totaled $19.6 billion, with the majority allocated to AI infrastructure, including continued expansion of the Colossus facilities.
The Connectivity segment, which primarily surrounds Starlink, produced $5.25 billion in revenue, a 69 percent year-over-year and 22 percent sequentially. These are pleasant results to see and expected, considering how many airlines have adopted Starlink over the past year.
Starlink consumer subscribers reached 13.6 million, an 89 percent increase from the prior year, and a sequential gain of 1.6 million. Consumer average revenue per user improved to $69. Meanwhile, Enterprise and Government revenue also grew strongly, and Starlink is now installed on more than 3,800 aircraft, making internet more accessible and better performing than previous options.
The Space segment also performed well and contributed $1.77 billion in revenue, up 6 percent year-over-year and 84 percent sequentially. A major milestone was the successful first revenue-generating Starship mission (Flight 14), which deployed 26 V3 Starlink satellites. Those satellites added roughly 10 times the downlink capacity of a typical Falcon 9 Starlink launch.
SpaceX completed 12 customer launches during the quarter, including NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope mission, and continued to grow its backlog of crewed, national security, and commercial flights.
CFO commentary noted that the combination of launch leadership, recurring Starlink revenue, and rapid SI expansion is producing meaningful operating leverage.
The company ended the quarter with roughly $90 billion in cash and marketable securities, providing substantial resources for ongoing investment while targeting an investment-grade balance sheet. Sequential revenue nearly doubled from the $7.81 billion reported in the second quarter, illustrating the pace of the AI-driven acceleration. Things are looking strong for SpaceX.
What’s incredibly striking is the fact that SI has grown to be larger than the rest of the company in such a short amount of time. CEO Elon Musk said on the earnings call that Grok Bot is the “fastest-growing product I’ve ever seen,” so it seems that it could be a true keystone of SpaceXSI over the next few years.
SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX) will report its second public earnings call today since its IPO earlier this year, and there are a few things we expect to hear about, as well as Wall Street analysts, who have already outlined their expectations for the call.
Wall Street analysts have a consensus of $12.72 billion in revenue and an earnings per share (EPS) of $0.13. These are broken down into three sectors: Space, Connectivity, and AI/SI, which are perceived in this way:
- Space: $1.41 billion
- Connectivity: $4.84 billion
- AI/SI: $6.47 billion
Other outlets cluster near $12.8 or $12.9 billion in revenue and $0.14 – $0.15 EPS. This implies a roughly 65 percent sequential growth from Q2’s $7.81 billion, driven mostly by AI/SI, with the first post-IPO positive EPS expected.
Here are the three things to watch for on the call:
AI Revenue Ramp and the $100B+ ARR target
AI is truly the swing factor for SpaceX, and analysts expect it to roughly double from Q2’s $2.56 billion and become about half of total revenue. Management previously guided to a $100 billion+ annualized run rate by December, including the Cursor acquisition, which was $60 billion, to close the quarter.
Listen for updates on SpaceX’s compute capacity, especially pertaining to its contracts with Google, Anthropic, and others, revenue per watt, any new deals, and Cursor’s early contribution.
Starlink/Connectivity Metrics and Mobile Expansion
Connectivity remains a main profit engine for SpaceX. Subscriber additions will be something to pay attention to, as Q2 ended at 12 million and previews are looking at 14 million for this quarter. Additionally, ARPU trends, enterprise and government growth, and any commentary on Starlink Mobile will be something to pay attention to, especially following the recent low-band spectrum deal and FCC-related constellation approvals.
Capex Trajectory, Cash Burn/FCF, and Starship/Operational Updates
Q2 capex of roughly $18.4 billion weighed on the stock. Investors will look to scrutinize Q3 spending levels, any guidance on the pace into Q4/2027, free cash flow, backlog, and liquidity. Operational color on Starship (Flight 14 milestones and Flight 15 timing/reusability progress), Falcon cadence, and government/NASA contracts are also in focus.
Of course, there will also be some speculation on the potential Tesla-SpaceX merger, but there was nothing mentioned in the company’s proxy it sent earlier this week.
SpaceX will report earnings after market close today and will stream the call on X.
Watch live as SpaceX discusses our Q3 2026 earnings at 3:30pm CT today → https://t.co/Qrb0qeVG15
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) October 20, 2026
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