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.
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“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.
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Cybertruck
Tesla Cybertruck production snaps back after ugly supplier fight
Cybertrucks are piling up again at Giga Texas after Tesla’s court win against a parts supplier.
Cybertruck production at Giga Texas is showing its first visible recovery since Tesla sued a supplier last month over withheld manufacturing tooling.
Aerial observer Joe Tegtmeyer flew over the Austin factory Wednesday morning and counted roughly 100 or more Cybertrucks filling the outbound lot, a sharp jump from the thin numbers seen in recent weeks. The flyover came a day after a judge granted Tesla a temporary restraining order against Angstrom Automotive Group, the parts supplier at the center of the dispute.
Tesla filed an emergency lawsuit in late July after Angstrom told the automaker it planned to close the Troy, Texas facility where Tesla’s die-cast tools, trim dies and other Cybertruck stamping equipment were housed. According to Tesla’s complaint, a shipment of 700 finished parts never left the building, and when Tesla sent representatives to retrieve its equipment, accompanied by law enforcement, they were turned away. Angstrom allegedly then asked for an extra $250,000 a week to keep operating, which Tesla’s filing described as holding its own property for ransom.
TESLA: U.S. District Judge Christopher R. Wolfe of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, Waco Division granted Tesla a Temporary Restraining Order and Writ of Replevin in its dispute with Angstrom Automotive (Case No. 6:26-cv-00477).
The order authorizes… https://t.co/E1DKcQSxMn pic.twitter.com/LR8aAiV2Og
— S.E. Robinson, Jr. (@SERobinsonJr) August 5, 2026
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The restraining order gives Tesla immediate right of entry to Angstrom’s facility to recover the tooling. It is temporary, with a fuller hearing still to come, but the speed of Wednesday’s rebound suggests the Angstrom shortage was indeed the main bottleneck limiting Cybertruck output. Outbound lot counts are an imperfect measure of actual production, since finished trucks can sit for days before shipping, but a lot that full after a lean stretch is a meaningful signal.
Cybertruck output at Giga Texas has fluctuated all year as Tesla worked through supply issues and introduced new trims, including a cheaper Dual Motor AWD version that drew strong early demand.
Venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya has cautioned investors shorting SpaceX shares, drawing a direct parallel to the intense short-selling pressure Tesla faced in its early public years.
Responding to reports of elevated short interest in the newly public rocket, satellite, and AI company, Palihapitiya noted that similar dynamics played out with Tesla, where aggressive short sellers ultimately “went broke.”
SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX) went public on June 12, 2026, in the largest IPO on record, pricing at $135 per share. Shares quickly surged to an all-time high of $225.64 just days later, briefly implying a valuation exceeding $2 trillion. The stock has since retreated sharply amid valuation concerns, lockup expiration fears, and broader market dynamics.
By early August, it traded near $108–$125, representing a roughly 50 percent decline from the peak and bringing the market capitalization closer to the $1.5–1.7 trillion range. On August 4, shares closed up more than 9 percent at $125.33 ahead of earnings before facing pressure in after-hours and premarket trading.
Short interest has climbed dramatically. According to S3 Partners data widely cited in market reports, short positions reached approximately 219.3 million shares by late July, about 34 percent of the limited public float of roughly 640 million shares, and represented a notional value of around $24.6 billion.
Utilization of shares available to borrow hit 95 percent, with borrow fees rising. This level of shorting exceeded the dollar value of short bets against Tesla at the time and built rapidly ahead of two catalysts: the company’s first post-IPO earnings and an August 6 lockup expiration that could free up to 911.5 million additional shares.
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CEO Elon Musk has issued warnings of his own. In mid-July, as short interest approached one-third of the float, he posted that “the survival probability of firms who maintain a significant short position in SpaceX over time is very low,” reiterating his view that the company could ultimately be worth more than Earth if it achieves its goals.
On August 4, just before earnings, Musk responded to the latest short-interest data by saying, “I try to warn them, but they just double down.”
SpaceX delivered its first quarterly results as a public company after the close on August 4. Second-quarter revenue rose 92 percent year-over-year to $7.8 billion, beating consensus estimates near $6.8–6.9 billion.
The net loss narrowed to $541 million, or 9 cents per share, better than the roughly 23–24 cent loss expected. Starlink/connectivity contributed about $4.3 billion (up 66 percent), while the AI business generated $2.6 billion (up roughly 250 percent). Capital expenditures were heavy at $18.4 billion, largely tied to AI infrastructure. Management projected a $100 billion annualized revenue run rate by year-end 2026 and outlined a path toward $1 trillion in annual revenue by 2030.
The combination of Chamath’s historical reminder, Musk’s repeated alerts, and the company’s ambitious growth targets underscores the high-stakes debate surrounding SPCX. Short sellers are positioned for near-term supply pressure from the lockup, while long-term bulls point to Starlink scale, Starship progress, and AI compute expansion as reasons the bears may ultimately face the same fate as many early Tesla skeptics.
Investor's Corner
SpaceX and Nvidia team up on Musk’s orbital AI bet
SpaceX revealed a new Nvidia satellite partnership, then Musk pledged an exclusive Nvidia hardware commitment.
SpaceX and Nvidia are now working together on the hardware that will power Musk’s orbital data center ambitions. SpaceX announced on X on Tuesday that it is partnering with Nvidia to design the compute payload for Starmind AI1, the first satellite in a planned constellation built to run AI workloads directly in orbit. Each Starmind satellite will carry Nvidia’s Rubin GPUs and Vera CPUs, according to the post, which included renderings of the payload design.
The announcement landed hours before SpaceX’s first earnings call as a public company, where Musk went further, saying the company has committed to building its AI infrastructure exclusively on Nvidia hardware. “We think the Vera Rubin architecture is the best architecture. We think it’s the best AI computer, and we greatly value our close cooperation and partnership on many levels with Nvidia,” Musk told investors on the call,. “So we’re exclusive to Nvidia.”
Musk said SpaceX plans to deploy Nvidia’s Vera Rubin NVL72 rackscale system, codenamed Kyber, both on the ground and in space. He set a target of 2 gigawatts of compute capacity online by the end of this year, scaling to roughly 10 gigawatts by the end of 2027.
SpaceX’s newest Starmind will make earth data centers obsolete
Starmind has been in development since Musk confirmed the name in June, following an xAI trademark filing that tipped off the project before SpaceX made it official. The idea is massive in scope and instead of moving data down to ground based servers, satellites equipped with onboard processors and large solar arrays would compute AI workloads in orbit and beam results back to Earth. SpaceX has already filed with the FCC for a constellation of up to one million satellites to support the effort, citing constant solar power and the absence of zoning restrictions as advantages over terrestrial data centers.
The Nvidia exclusivity marks a shift in tone from just two weeks ago, when Musk was busy knocking down a report that SpaceX had ordered $52 billion worth of Nvidia GPUs through Foxconn, calling it fake news at the time. The dollar figure in that rumor may have been wrong, but the underlying direction seems correct. SpaceX’s AI division already leases Colossus compute capacity to Anthropic and Google, and Tuesday’s earnings report showed AI revenue climbing sharply as those deals ramp up.
Nvidia shares rose roughly 3% in Tuesday trading on the news, while SpaceX stock climbed nearly 9% during the day before giving back gains after hours as investors digested the earnings report’s capital spending figures.
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Tesla Cybertruck production snaps back after ugly supplier fight
Space finally faced the people living next to its next Terafab mega-project
