Investor's Corner
Tesla’s Robotaxi service will be an inevitable player in the autonomous taxi race
Elon Musk envisions the Tesla Network to be comprised of full self-driving vehicles being used as a ride-hailing service. During Tesla’s Autonomy Day presentation last month, Musk mentioned that owners operating their vehicles as part of the Tesla Network’s “Robotaxi” service could earn as much as $30,000 per year. Musk has set his sights on the autonomous mobility-as-a-service (MaaS) market, and during a call following Tesla’s announcement of a capital raise, the CEO noted that Robotaxis could ultimately push the company towards a market cap of $500 billion.
While Musk’s Robotaxi concept has been dismissed (and to a point, even mocked) by Tesla skeptics, the era of autonomous ride-hailing services appears all but certain nonetheless. As early as 2014, former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick was predicting that the ride-hailing industry will eventually shift to self-driving cars. Speaking at the 2014 Code Conference, the Uber CEO stated that “This (autonomous vehicles) is the way the world is going. If Uber doesn’t go there, it’s not going to exist either way. The world isn’t always great,” he said, admitting that Uber’s own drivers will likely lose their work as a result of the self-driving revolution.
These points were recently echoed by Amnon Shashua, who is currently serving as senior vice president at Intel and CEO of Mobileye, Tesla’s former partner for its Autopilot hardware. At a recent sit-down interview with CNBC‘s Jon Fortt, the Mobileye CEO noted that robotaxis would indeed be a game-changing element in the transportation industry. Shashua also stated that by simply removing human drivers from the equation, ride-hailing companies would immediately see significant savings.
“What is really the game-changing element is going from a human-driven ride-hailing service to a robotaxi service. Where the driver today is 80% of the economics. Once you remove the driver and you replace it with CapEx — the cost of the car, the cost of the technology, and you can, you can have the cost of technology for a few tens of thousands of dollars. It is game-changing in terms of the discount that you can provide on the current ride-hailing business, 40% to 50% discount on the existing ride-hailing service, and still make a viable business; viable in terms of high profitability,” Shashua said.
Based on Tesla’s plan for its Full Self-Driving suite, the electric car maker is already pursuing these cost savings well before launching its Robotaxi service. Musk estimates that Tesla can run a Robotaxi service for around $0.18 per mile, thanks in part to the advantages that come with all-electric vehicles, such as little maintenance and no fuel costs. Tesla’s Full Self-Driving computer, which was developed in-house and tuned specifically for the company’s vehicles, is also expected to be cheaper than comparable components from chipmakers such as Nvidia. ARK Invest analyst James Wang, who used to work for Nvidia, noted that Tesla’s FSD computer effectively puts the electric car maker around four years ahead of rival automakers in the self-driving race.
Based on the comments from the Mobileye CEO, the previous predictions of the former Uber CEO, and the recent statements from Elon Musk, it appears that the transportation sector is indeed heading towards the autonomous driving era. Whether Tesla can indeed leapfrog the competition and the industry’s biggest players like Waymo and GM Cruise is still up for question, but the arrival of full self-driving vehicles, as well as their use for ride-hailing, seems to be all but inevitable. Thus, however implausible it might seem today, Elon Musk’s vision for the Tesla Network’s Robotaxis will most definitely come true. The network might be deployed later than expected considering Musk’s tendency to be optimistic with his timeframes, but the service will likely be rolled out sooner rather than later.
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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