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Tesla Motors is no longer a startup, reassures shareholders

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tesla elon musk happy june 2012

Tesla-Model-S-Sunset-MarinaCovering the news with Tesla Motors is always an interesting exercise, to put it mildly. The electric lifestyle Californian startup releases a steady flow of news covering the automotive industry, making incursions in the energy world, ruffling feathers with automotive lobby groups, and showing weary companies the ways of things to come. The last shareholder meeting gives us a rundown on what is happening at Tesla.

A lot of electric miles

Congratulations to the Teslarati, you have driven more than 344 million miles with no fatalities. The accidents, which the press was more than willing to spin a negative twist on, were not Tesla’s direct fault. But more to the point, this moves the status of our beloved trendsetter from startup to a fully fledged established company. In many ways, Tesla Motors is giving us a glimpse of how future companies will operate. They will require strong and far-reaching visions, answer real needs, with a business model that goes beyond the simplistic bottom line philosophy we’ve endured until now.

More than one Gigafactory

The gigafactory story we wrote a few months ago was picked up by mainstream news and shed evidence that Tesla was always much more than a carmaker. If one gigafactory is good, many are even better. With the company’s current production capacity constraints, due to its low supply of lithium-ion battery cells, Elon Musk hinted at more than one Gigafactory. Can you see utilities fretting over this one? Not only will Tesla Motors worry battery makers worldwide, but will give utilities more gray hair than they anticipated with more battery factories tied to the grid with alternative energy.

As far as Panasonic’s jitters, Tesla still believes it can bring down the costs of its lithium-ion cells by 30-percent cost, which Musk said Panasonic agrees with. The target is still 500,000 electric vehicles (EV) by 2020.

Did anyone catch the real news? Elon Musk said Tesla would able to change anode and cathode material quickly in the Gigafactory, instead of continuing the same lithium-ion chemistry.

Model S price… decrease

Now don’t get your hopes too high, the price decrease won’t be much, about $5,000, but enough to bring the Model S below $100,000. Still, this warrant kudos from a company who has only been producing its first ever designed car from the grounds up for a few short years, outselling any other cars in its category.

Roadster gets an upgrade!

Tesla Roadster RedBy far my favorite news, my favorite car, the Roadster will get an upgrade this year. Unfortunately, its replacement is still uncertain, but would nonetheless be based on the next-generation III platform

Musk stays at the helm, for now

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We’ve always felt Elon Musk would stay a few more years at the helm of Tesla Motors before retiring as Chairman and focusing on SpaceX. It makes the most sense, as Tesla is now a well establish company, spanning many industries. The next challenge is Space X. He said he would continue as CEO for at least four or five more years, at least through a volume production of the third-generation car.

Model X, mid-2015, third generation following

As far as the company’s third car, the Model X will be available during the second quarter of 2015. The other good news is that the third generation is still targeted at around $35,000 with a 200-mile range. We can expect it to be available around the late 2016.

Toyota needs Tesla, not the other way around

One of the debates I’ve enjoyed over the years was whether Toyota needs Tesla or the other way around. Even though Tesla reached the end of its business venture with the Toyota RAV4 EV drivetrain, Musk revealed Toyota was coming back for more. Even though Toyota insists on hydrogen fuel cell technology, the company is still interested in using Tesla’s electric powertrain for a high volume deal . Don’t bet on this happening any time time soon. Tesla has a hard time keeping up with production . He did mention we should hear more in about two years, once production constraints had eased.

Model E?

So long Model E. Despite Ford’s public recognition, Tesla Motors feels the company would sue for using it. The company is looking at other names and Musk said: “I think we’ve got something that might be…good, might work out pretty well”.

We wanted to offer Model T, for the Teslarati, but we feel Ford again might not like this… So how about Model Cev for cool EV, or Model B, simply for Beautiful?

 

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Elon Musk

Elon Musk will give ‘every kid in America’ a SpaceX share in 2027

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Credit: Grok Imagine

Elon Musk said he is planning to give “every one of his SpaceX shares to every kid in America” in 2027, stating that “this will be the first of many.”

SpaceX went public earlier this year, and its stock price has been relatively stable since leveling off shortly after its IPO. Based on its current price, it’s a gift of just over $10 billion to children across the United States.

It appears to be closely related to President Donald Trump’s bank accounts for children, which were set up earlier this year as Trump Accounts.

Just hours earlier, Anthropic had announced the establishment of its Anthropic Public Benefit Fund, “a new wholly-owned entity dedicated entirely to public benefit.” Musk responded by stating he recommended “giving the shares directly to the public,” and that he would be doing it that way.

Just a little bit later, Musk said children across the U.S. would be getting a share from him:

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There are roughly 70 million children, meaning someone under the age of 18, in the United States, according to the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics. Musk’s ownership of SpaceX stock shows he has around 849 million Class A shares of SpaceX stock, according to filings with the SEC.

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Elon Musk

Tesla CEO Elon Musk reminds everyone about Roadster’s true meaning

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Elon Musk addresses the crowd next to the new Tesla Roadster, which Tesla offers in Performance, Thrust and Rocket versions. (Image: Tesla/X)
Elon Musk addresses the crowd next to the new Tesla Roadster, which Tesla offers in Performance, Thrust and Rocket versions. (Image: Tesla/X)

Tesla CEO Elon Musk took to his social media platform X on Sunday to remind everyone that the Roadster’s true meaning is not about company growth or adding dollars to shareholders’ pockets. Sometimes, you just do things because you can.

Following the Roadster’s epic unveiling event last Thursday, skeptics and critics of the company or the project itself came out to say that the vehicle is a pointless project because it is not geared toward growing the company, delivering supreme margins for profitability, nor does it contribute to the big picture of Artificial/Super Intelligence.

But that’s just the thing: Roadster is not meant to be some shareholder dream; it’s meant to be a vehicle that people buy just because it is something awesome, unique, and the first of its kind.

Tesla Roadster: Three configs, one can fly, 0-60 in 0.8 seconds

Musk had to remind those who are skeptical about the Roadster’s importance to the company mission that while it is not a major contributor to Tesla’s long-term goals, it is something that is being built just because it can be:

“Optimus and Cybercab will be the vast majority of Tesla’s value. The only things that will scale to incredible size (K2 and beyond) economically are super intelligence, robots, solar power, and mass to space. And, of course, if you have the first two, the rest will follow. But Roadster is super cool, so we’re doing it anyway.”

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Musk has said on many occasions that Optimus would be the project that would make up the vast majority of Tesla’s value in the coming years.

Robotics will be a major focus of Tesla over the coming years, especially as Musk believes Optimus will enable work to be optional for humans and will enable what he calls “High Universal Income.”

Cybercab will be a passive income opportunity for owners, Musk and Tesla have said for a very long time, as a fleet of self-driving vehicles will operate within a ride-hailing Robotaxi service that won’t require a human driver to be present.

Tesla investors are more than enthusiastic about the company’s future projects, at least from a general consensus perspective. However, it is important to note that the Roadster is a fun and cool project that pushes the boundaries of what people thought was possible for an automobile.

What we saw last week was the first true example of a flying car, and despite the backlash about how it might not contribute to Tesla’s grand ambitions, it’s okay to have fun sometimes, too.

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Investor's Corner

SpaceX’s biggest earnings test yet lands Tuesday, and Tesla shareholders should be watching

SpaceX reports earnings Tuesday as Wall Street watches AI spending, Starlink growth and Tesla merger

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SpaceX reports third quarter results after the market closes Tuesday, with a webcast at 4:30 p.m. ET streamed on X, and Tesla follows a day later. Bloomberg consensus, cited by Pepperstone, calls for revenue of $12.89 billion, adjusted EBITDA of $6.62 billion and adjusted EPS near $0.15. That would be about 65% growth from the second quarter and SpaceX’s first profitable quarter since its IPO. Analysts expect roughly $6.4 billion from AI and $4.9 billion from Starlink, which is projected to reach 14.3 million consumer subscribers. Capital spending is forecast at $19.6 billion, leaving free cash flow near negative $11.6 billion.

The numbers matter because SpaceX has spent months trying to win over a skeptical market. It priced its record IPO at $135, spiked to $225.64, then sank near $105 in early August. Friday’s close of $146.03 sits about 28% below the June high. The Q2 report beat on revenue at $7.8 billion and put Starlink at 12 million subscribers, but $18.4 billion of capex hurt the stock. Since then SpaceX reached orbit on Starship Flight 14 with 26 Starlink V3 satellites, agreed to buy 800 MHz spectrum for about $8 billion as part of its Starlink Mobile push, and signed a fourth compute hosting deal in four months worth roughly $13 billion a year from December. Management is targeting more than 2 gigawatts of compute by year end and a $100 billion annualized revenue run rate. Evercore ISI, which raised its target to $275, said the quarter may be judged more on those targets than the reported figures

All of this sits under the Tesla merger question. Barclays analyst Dan Levy expects an all stock deal in which SpaceX buys Tesla at a premium, using reference values of $2.1 trillion and $1.5 trillion, and said an announcement would need to come by late October or early November to be voted on at Tesla’s December 6 annual meeting. Barclays estimates Musk would hold about 37% of the combined company and 56% of the votes. Musk said in July that combining companies cannot be discussed on an earnings call, but an investor question asking when SpaceX will merge with Tesla is sitting on SpaceX’s Q&A platform, and Teslarati has tracked how the Roadster demo revived the talk.

If a deal happens, Tuesday’s result would effectively set the price Tesla holders would receive. Their shares would convert into SpaceX stock, along with exposure to a company with a heavy investment on AI, while Tesla itself expects 2026 capex above $25 billion. A strong quarter and calmer spending would make that exchange easier to sell. Another round of heavy capex and a falling stock would make it harder.

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