Investor's Corner
Tesla’s veteran problem solver Jerome Guillen is Elon Musk’s most strategic appointment yet
Earlier this month, Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced a series of strategic promotions that are aimed at taking the company to reach new heights in the years to come. Among the promotions, Elon Musk’s appointment of veteran accomplisher Jerome Guillen as the company’s new President of Automotive stood out. As the end of the third quarter approaches, it is starting to look like Elon Musk’s promotion of the hands-on executive was the correct strategy.
Jerome Guillen joined Tesla back in 2010 as the director of the Model S program. Prior to his employment at Tesla, Jerome served as the project leader for Daimler’s Freightliner Cascadia program, and eventually as head of the company’s Business Innovation unit. By the time he left for Tesla, Daimler’s Business Innovation unit was profitable and self-funding.
When Jerome joined the electric car maker, Tesla was still a fledgling startup that only produced and delivered a small number of its two-door Roadster to a select group of customers. Being the first vehicle that the company designed from the ground up, a lot was riding on the Model S, particularly as critics of the company were quick to dismiss the electric car as “vaporware.” Guillen was a hands-on executive, and for some early customers of the Model S, he became the go-to person when issues arose.
And issues did arise. When Tesla started delivering the Model S to reservation holders, the company lacked sufficient sales and service centers. Tesla was delivering vehicles directly to people’s homes, and while this worked well for the first few hundred handovers in California, it became a big logistical headache for the company when customers from faraway states started ordering the electric car. Elon Musk, for his part, opted to have Jerome add sales, service, and deliveries to his portfolio. The hands-on executive handled the task well, even developing a reputation for being incredibly responsive to emails and concerns from regular customers.
Early Model S adopter Andrew Wolfe of Los Gatos, California noted in a statement to Bloomberg that he was among the customers who were in constant communication with the executive. Wolfe noted that Jerome was always open to suggestions, such as where Tesla should consider opening additional service centers, as well as the company’s points for improvement in terms of loaner vehicles.
Jerome’s work with the Model S program would ultimately help lay the groundwork for the company’s following vehicles, the Model X SUV and later, the Model 3. The executive briefly took a leave of absence from the company in 2015, but later returned to head the Tesla Semi program. Over the past months, sightings of the Semi across the United States would feature Jerome from time to time, accompanying the long-hauler’s hand-built alpha prototype on its road tests.
While he was heading the Tesla Semi program, Jerome’s out-of-the-box problem-solving skills would prove useful for the company’s overall operations. Back in June, Tesla made headlines when Elon Musk revealed that a new Model 3 assembly line had been set up inside a sprung structure on the grounds of the Fremont factory. The line, dubbed as GA4, was ultimately responsible for giving the company’s production the boost it needed to hit its target of producing 5,000 Model 3 a week before the end of the second quarter. Analysts from Evercore ISI who toured the Fremont factory later noted that GA4 “looked very much like general assembly at other auto plants which we have visited,” and that the “facility looks set to be permanent and in theory should be able to support much faster cycle times.” As Elon Musk would later reveal, GA4 was Jerome Guillen’s brainchild.
The appointment of an executive such as Jerome as the President of Automotive could prove to be Elon Musk’s most strategic move this third quarter. At this point in Tesla’s growth, with hundreds of thousands of reservations in line for the Model 3, the company is pretty much in a situation similar to the one it faced when it was struggling to deliver the Model S to customers across the US. From this perspective, at least, Jerome Guillen appears to be the right man for the job.
It remains to be seen what Jerome’s full responsibilities are now that he is serving as President of Automotive, but amidst Tesla’s end-of-quarter delivery push for the Model 3, the company has begun adopting some out-of-the-box solutions for its current logistical problems. In a recent tweet, for example, Elon Musk noted that Tesla is experiencing a bottleneck in the car carrier trailers transporting vehicles from the Fremont factory to its delivery centers. To help address this issue, Musk stated that Tesla has begun building its own car carriers to help foster quicker deliveries. This is speculation, but such an unorthodox solution carries some very Jerome Guillen-like undertones.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk breaks his silence on the Starlink impact to Ukraine drones
Musk says the US military and president set Starshield limits, not SpaceX, amid Ukraine complaints.
Elon Musk says the speed limit cutting out Ukraine’s military Starlink terminals is not SpaceX’s decision. In a post on X Wednesday, Musk wrote that “Starshield systems are owned and controlled by the US government. Any limits on speed or usage are decided by the US military and ultimately POTUS.” He added that Starlink is a commercial service limited to civilian or defensive activities and “cannot be used for offensive military action, as doing so would be inappropriate for a commercial company.”
He was replying to Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s former defense minister, who had thanked Musk for restoring connectivity at speeds up to 160 km/h and said removing the Starshield limit entirely is “now critical for Ukraine’s defense.”
Starshield systems are owned and controlled by the US government. Any limits on speed or usage are decided by the US military and ultimately POTUS.
Starlink is a commercial service owned and controlled by SpaceX. Usage of Starlink is limited to civilian or defensive activities and cannot be used for offensive military action, as doing so would be inappropriate for a commercial company.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 14, 2026
The complaint started Tuesday night, when Ukrainian officials said military terminals began losing service above roughly 100 mph. Presidential adviser Serhiy Beskrestnov said the defense forces got no warning and several missions were disrupted, as Teslarati reported earlier Wednesday. The 7th Rapid Reaction Corps told Reuters connections dropped for 10 to 20 seconds at speeds well below the limit, which made drones harder to control. Poland’s foreign minister, Radoslaw Sikorski, asked Musk on X whether he is “playing politics with your products again.”
That is why the Starlink and Starshield distinction matters. SpaceX introduced Starshield in 2022 as the government version of Starlink, with an initial focus on Earth observation, communications and hosted payloads. It won a Space Force contract in 2023 with a $70 million ceiling. In December 2024, the Pentagon moved Ukraine’s terminals onto Starshield, covering about 3,000 units across two contracts. Ukraine’s military connections therefore run through a service that Musk now says sits under Washington’s control.
While Musk’s post describes who holds authority, it does not infer that anyone ordered the limit, and neither SpaceX nor the US government has confirmed who set it. Ukrainian officials have pointed to the timing, which follows President Trump’s push for an energy ceasefire and Musk’s Saturday post that “Zelensky has gone too far.” The BBC noted Trump denied threatening to restrict intelligence sharing with Kyiv, and no evidence has been presented that Washington requested the cap.
The episode also revives a promise from 2025. After Poland accused him of threatening Ukraine’s access, Musk said Starlink “will never turn off its terminals” and would not be used as a bargaining chip. Poland has since supplied more than 29,000 terminals to Ukraine. Teslarati also covered Kyiv’s search for Starlink alternatives in 2025, and the latest dispute gives that search new urgency.
Investor's Corner
Tesla opens the Q&A for its biggest earnings call yet
Tesla opens its Q3 earnings Q&A, and Cybercab, Robotaxi, Optimus and regulators loom over October 21.
Tesla has opened its shareholder question portal for the Q3 2026 earnings call, with the Say Q&A page already listing questions. Investors have until 4:00 p.m. EDT on October 20 to submit and vote on what management should answer.
The call is set for Wednesday, October 21. Tesla will post results after the market closes, with a live webcast at 4:30 p.m. CT, or 5:30 p.m. ET, through its investor relations site.
Say ranks questions by the number of shares behind the votes, which gives institutional holders extra weight over the retail crowd.
Ahead of Q2, retail investors asked why Robotaxi growth had stalled, when Cybercab would start customer rides, and where the Optimus Gen 3 ramp stood, while an institutional holder asked how Tesla and SpaceX would split Terafab duties. Cybercab has since answered one of those. Tesla said last week it has 300 plus Cybercabs serving Austin, up eightfold in 30 days, with Dallas named as the next city. The questions now are likely to move from when to how fast.
There is also a regulatory question hanging over the call. NHTSA has demanded sworn answers on how the pedal free Cybercab was certified against federal safety standards, with responses due October 30, nine days after the call. Whether an analyst raises it live is unknown, but it is the kind of exposure that tends to find its way into a Q&A.
The numbers will not be the main draw. Tesla already reported 486,532 deliveries and 13.7 GWh of storage for the quarter. Consensus sits around 43 to 45 cents per share on roughly $27.8 billion in revenue, according to Zacks, after a Q2 report that missed on EPS. Goldman Sachs, which holds a Neutral rating and a $360 target, argues the outlook for Robotaxi, FSD and Optimus will matter more to the stock than the quarter itself.
The call also lands six days after the rescheduled Roadster event, which Tesla will stream on X on Thursday, October 15, at 7:55 p.m. CT. If the Roadster shows up with a production date or a SpaceX thruster package, expect it to climb the voting list before the deadline.
Elon Musk
FAA kicks off review of SpaceX’s bid to fly Starship nearly every day
FAA is reviewing SpaceX’s plan for 456 Starship launches a year, up from 25 today.
The FAA said Tuesday that it will prepare an environmental impact statement on SpaceX’s proposal to run as many as 456 Starship launches and 912 landings a year from Starbase, Texas. SpaceX is currently authorized for 25 launches and 50 landings annually, which makes the request roughly 18 times the existing ceiling. The notice of intent is set to publish in the Federal Register on Wednesday.
The plan comes in two phases. Phase 1 would allow up to 100 launches and 200 landings a year, on any day and at any hour. Phase 2, which the FAA says could arrive within several years, would raise the limit to the full 456 launches, still at any hour but only on weekdays. The agency noted that 912 landings is the upper limit for the Texas facility no matter where a given mission begins, and that Starship and Super Heavy could come down at the launch site or in the Gulf and open ocean.
A draft statement will be released for public comment at a later date, and the FAA has not said when. According to the Federal Registar, written comments are due November 30 on regulations.gov under docket FAA-2026-12808, with in person scoping meetings on November 17 in Brownsville and November 19 in Port Isabel, plus a virtual session on November 18. The review will weigh air quality, wildlife, coastal resources, water, noise, and aviation, and the FAA said any increase beyond this proposal would need its own separate review.
The numbers look large next to what Starbase has actually done. Starship has flown three times from Texas this year, including Flight 14 on September 28, the first orbital flight, which deployed 26 Starlink V3 satellites. Bloomberg reported that Starbase has never launched more than five times in a calendar year. The current cap of 25 comes from an FAA approval in May 2025. In February, the agency also approved up to 44 Starship launches a year from Launch Complex 39A in Florida, so Phase 1 in Texas alone would more than double that allowance.
Musk has said Starship could eventually fly more than once per hour within less than a decade, per Bloomberg. The nearer term target is Flight 15. Musk said on October 10 that it is hopefully four to six weeks away and will try to catch the ship with the tower, as Teslarati covered. That flight still runs under the existing 25 launch limit, and so would every Starbase launch for as long as the new review takes.
As of mid morning Pacific time on Tuesday, SpaceX had not posted about the filing on its own account.
Elon Musk breaks his silence on the Starlink impact to Ukraine drones
Tesla opens the Q&A for its biggest earnings call yet
Ukraine says Starlink is cutting out its military drones as Poland calls out Elon Musk
The Pentagon taps Elon Musk to design the battlefield of the future
SpaceX reveals how its 1 Million AI satellite network will work and prevent space collisions
