Investor's Corner
Tesla will start being profitable by September, says Wall St veteran Gene Munster
Wall Street analyst Gene Munster from Loup Ventures has issued his expectations for Tesla’s (NASDAQ:TSLA) financial performance this coming quarter, stating that the Elon Musk-led company will start being profitable by September 2018.
In a statement to CNBC‘s Fast Money, Munster stated that Tesla would probably not be “wildly profitable” by September, but Elon Musk’s 6,000/week target for the Model 3 would move the company’s finances towards positive territories.
“This 5,000 production number was the first time in about nine months he’s gotten one right. I think it’s safe to always dial back what he’s saying, that’s why we think Tesla’s going to meet the production number by the end of the September quarter. If they hit that number, it’s going to equate to 48,000 model 3s produced in the September quarter. That should get them to profitability, slightly profitable. It’s not going to be wildly profitable in September; I just want to warn everyone, but it moves them in the right direction.”
Tesla’s production blitz at the final week of Q2 2018 resulted in the electric car and energy company reaching its all-elusive goal of producing 5,000 Model 3 in a single week. Despite accomplishing its Model 3 targets and exhibiting a 55% growth in production compared to Q2 2017, however, Tesla stock took a nosedive on Monday, ending the day down 2.30% and trading at $335.07.
Part of the reason behind the dip in the company’s stocks were negative reports from some Wall Street analysts including CFRA’s Efraim Levy, who downgraded his rating of Tesla stock from Hold to Sell. The CFRA analyst stated that the company would likely be unable to sustain its production rate for the Model 3. Levy also criticized Tesla’s long-implemented $2,500 deposit for the compact electric car as an “aggressive attempt to meet otherwise difficult targets of being cash flow positive in Q3.”
Other Wall Street analysts, however, had far different outlooks. Apart from Gene Munster, Guggenheim Securities analyst Rob Cihra released a favorable Q3 forecast for Tesla, reiterating his Buy rating for the company’s stocks. According to Cihra, Tesla’s story as it heads for the second half of 2018 is one of leverage, as the company starts absorbing more of its fixed cost of production and expanding its margins. The Guggenheim Securities analyst also noted stated that Tesla’s in-house development of the vehicles’ components would prove to be a difference-maker.
“Tesla reaffirmed its guide for positive GAAP net income and cash flow in Q3 and Q4, which is in line with our estimates, but we believe much more optimistic than many investors continue to assume. Yet while six months later than initially projected, we continue to estimate that with Tesla now hitting its 5K/week production bogey for Model 3, that sets up prospects for the company’s overall economic model to flip from sizeable cash-burn in 1H18E to profitability in 2H18E.
“With just small tweaks post Q2 deliveries, our EPS estimates continue to be >$10 in 2019E and >$18 in 2020E, remaining well above consensus. Because Tesla makes so much of its cars in-house, we believe its proportion of FIXED cost/vehicle are particularly high (driving losses and cash-burn today) but with the flip-side then being that as Model 3 volumes now ramp, their fixed-cost absorption should make Tesla’s LEVERAGE that much higher,” Cihra wrote, according to a Barron’s report.
Guggenheim Securities expects Tesla’s total vehicle production to hit 58,000 this coming quarter, followed by 67,000 in Q4 2018.
Tesla is currently attempting to achieve profitability by Q3 or Q4 2018. Responding to a report from The Economist alleging that Tesla would do a capital raise this year, Elon Musk declared that the company would start being profitable by the third or fourth quarter. Musk doubled down on profitability in the company’s Q1 2018 earnings call, when he stated that it was “high time” for Tesla to become profitable. In order to accomplish this, Tesla has adopted a series of strategies, including trimming 9% of its workforce and opening orders for the higher-priced variants of the Model 3.
Disclosure: I have no ownership in shares of TSLA and have no plans to initiate any positions within 72 hours.
In a pointed message on X, Elon Musk warned that firms maintaining significant short positions in SpaceX over time face “very low” survival probability.
The statement comes amid post-IPO volatility for the rocket company, now trading under the ticker $SPCX.
The survival probability of firms who maintain a significant short position in SpaceX over time is very low
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 17, 2026
Five weeks after what was described as the largest IPO in history, the stock had fallen roughly 30% from its peak above $2.6 trillion, briefly surpassing Microsoft and Amazon in market value. Short sellers celebrated gains of about $8.7 billion, but Musk’s reply underscores his long-term conviction.
The warning directly echoes a detailed bullish analysis arguing that Starship’s cost reductions could unlock a multi-trillion-dollar space economy. Projects ranging from solar power beamed from orbit and asteroid mining to orbital data centers and Mars terraforming were projected to create over $100 trillion in new market capitalization.
In this vision, SpaceX acts as the essential infrastructure provider, akin to AWS for cloud computing, capturing monopoly-like revenues from launches, crew transport, and data traffic across a rapidly expanding frontier.
This is far from the first time Musk has targeted short sellers. With Tesla, he has repeatedly framed persistent bears as destined for major losses. In July 2024, Musk declared that once Tesla achieves full autonomy and volume production of Optimus robots, “anyone still holding a short position will be obliterated. Even Gates,” referencing Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates’ reported short bets.
Elon Musk reveals what Tesla stock surge could do to Bill Gates
Earlier, in 2018, he taunted shorts that they had “about three weeks before their short position explodes,” a remark followed by sharp stock gains. Musk has also called short selling “value destroying” and once suggested it “should be illegal,” viewing it as betting against innovation and progress.
Critics often dismiss Musk’s optimism as hype, especially when near-term metrics like quarterly deliveries or stock fluctuations disappoint.
Yet his pattern remains consistent: framing short positions against his companies as fundamentally misjudging exponential technological leaps. For SpaceX shorts, the message is clear: betting against multi-planetary ambitions and the infrastructure monopoly they enable carries existential risk for the firms involved.
As Musk and supporters see it, the space economy’s upside dwarfs Earth-bound valuation models, making today’s dips temporary in a decades-long ascent.
Elon Musk
SpaceX Starship Flight 13 aborted at Zero and Musk just told us what broke
Four Raptor engines failed to ignite at T-zero, forcing SpaceX to scrub Starship Flight 13 Thursday.
SpaceX scrubbed the Starship Flight 13 launch attempt Thursday evening at the last possible moment, after four of the Super Heavy booster’s 33 Raptor 3 engines failed to ignite during the startup sequence. The 90-minute window had opened at 6:45 p.m. EDT from Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas, and the countdown had proceeded without issue all day, with more than 11.5 million pounds of liquid methane and liquid oxygen being fully loaded into the rocket before the automated abort triggered. SpaceX’s launch directors posted on X, “Standing down from today’s flight test attempt,” and shut down the livestream shortly after.
Musk confirmed the root cause within hours. “Some of the engines didn’t start, triggering an automatic launch abort,” he wrote on X. “To be confident of a good flight, 2 Raptors will be removed and replaced. Most probable launch timing is early next week.” SpaceX engineers began draining propellant tanks immediately and Booster 20 was rolled back to its hangar for inspection.
The timing adds a layer of significance that did not exist during any of the previous 12 Starship flights. This is the first time SpaceX has attempted to launch Starship since the company made its stock market debut in June, listing under ticker SPCX at $135 per share. Public investors are now watching every Starship outcome in real time, and a last-second abort carries more visibility than it would have six months ago.
Flight 13 was designed to be one of the most consequential tests in the program’s history. It was set to carry 20 Starlink V3 satellites, the first operational payload Starship has ever attempted to deploy. Six of those satellites carried external cameras to photograph Starship’s heat shield from the outside during flight, which would act as a self-inspection approach SpaceX has never attempted before. The mission also needed to complete a Raptor engine relight in space, a step SpaceX skipped on Flight 12 in May after losing an engine during ascent. That Flight 12 booster also flipped 90 degrees off course during its boostback burn when five engines failed to reignite.
SpaceX has not announced an official next launch date. Musk’s “early next week” window points to July 21 or 22 at the earliest, pending the engine swap and a return to the pad.
Lucid CEO Silvio Napoli responded to rumors of an imminent bankruptcy that was reportedly being mulled after a report stated the automaker was working with the firm AlixPartners to iron out its next steps.
The company felt a massive loss on Wall Street yesterday, as the report essentially pushed the stock down as much as 55 percent on Tuesday.
The report, published initially by Eletric-Vehicles.com, claimed Lucid was essentially in dire straits and was told by AlixPartners, a commonly used restructuring advisor, to either take shares private or file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
Lucid’s head of Communications, Nick Twork, immediately challenged the report and stated the company “has sufficient liquidity to carry its operations well into next year.”
Now, the company’s CEO is chiming in as well, stating that the report is “so far from the facts that they require a direct response.”
Napoli said:
“Lucid is not considering bankruptcy or a transaction to take the company private. Those reports are false. The Board did not explore either scenario. Period.
As disclosed in our most recent quarterly filing, Lucid has sufficient liquidity to fund its operations well into next year.
We work with outside advisors to improve operational performance and execution. They are not advising Lucid on a take-private transaction or bankruptcy, and any suggestion that they have recommended either course of action to management or the Board is false.
My priority is clear: turn this company around. That is where the leadership team and I are focused.
I look forward to providing a full update during our quarterly earnings call on August 4th.”
🚨 Lucid CEO Silvio Napoli calls rumors of financial issues “so far from the facts that they require a direct response.”
Read his full remarks here: https://t.co/t3Pg1NHvzy pic.twitter.com/LvHUPhO4Qf
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) July 15, 2026
It seems pretty clear that Lucid is confident things will be okay, and, to be honest, they should not have much to worry about, especially considering the company has been backed by the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF) for years. It has solid financial backing, and its sales, while weak, are pretty much right on par with a company of this age.
Lucid also sent a Cease & Desist letter to the publication for their report.
Lucid shares have rebounded nicely and are up nearly 21 percent at the time of publication. As soon as the company dispelled the rumors of bankruptcy yesterday, the stock began to climb back toward more reasonable levels.
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