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Tesla showcases Semi truck to PepsiCo employees in private event
After making an appearance at the Dallas Service Center, the Tesla Semi was spotted at a private demo event for PepsiCo employees at Reunion Tower, one of the city’s landmarks. The gathering was reportedly a demo of the electric truck for the snack and beverage company, which had placed orders for 100 Semis back in December.
Reports of the electric truck being spotted at Reunion Tower emerged in the forum community on Tuesday night, with several Texas-based members of the r/TeslaMotors subreddit sharing images of the vehicle as it was parked in front of the building. Ryan O’Donnell, one of the subreddit’s members, was able to check out the Semi as it was being showcased to PepsiCo’s employees. According to O’Donnell, the gathering was very small and private, with only around 200-300 people being present as Tesla gave a demo of the electric truck.
O’Donnell was able to capture almost a dozen close-up photographs showing the Tesla Semi’s four Model 3-based electric motors, its brakes, and its incredibly low ground clearance. The Elon Musk-led firm was very careful about the tech inside the electric long-hauler, however, as no photos of the truck’s twin displays, its navigation system, or its battery information were allowed to be taken.
Nevertheless, O’Donnell’s images of the Tesla Semi’s exterior and motors are among the most detailed ones yet. A gallery of these pictures could be found below.
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- The Tesla Semi shows up at a private demo for PepsiCo employees at Dallas, TX. [Credit: Ryan O’Donnell/Imugr]
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- The Tesla Semi shows up at a private demo for PepsiCo employees at Dallas, TX. [Credit: Ryan O’Donnell/Imugr]
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- The Tesla Semi shows up at a private demo for PepsiCo employees at Dallas, TX. [Credit: Ryan O’Donnell/Imugr]
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- The Tesla Semi’s low ground clearance. [Credit: Ryan O’Donnell/Imugr]
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- The Tesla Semi shows up at a private demo for PepsiCo employees at Dallas, TX. [Credit: Ryan O’Donnell/Imugr]
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- A closer look at one of the rear wheels of the Tesla Semi. [Credit: Ryan O’Donnell/Imugr]
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- The Tesla Semi shows up at a private demo for PepsiCo employees at Dallas, TX. [Credit: Ryan O’Donnell/Imugr]
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- The Tesla Semi shows up at a private demo for PepsiCo employees at Dallas, TX. [Credit: Ryan O’Donnell/Imugr]
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- The Tesla Semi shows up at a private demo for PepsiCo employees at Dallas, TX. [Credit: Ryan O’Donnell/Imugr]
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- The Tesla Semi shows up at a private demo for PepsiCo employees at Dallas, TX. [Credit: Ryan O’Donnell/Imugr]
As we noted in a previous report, the Tesla Semi’s appearance in Dallas, TX, appears to be part of the electric car and energy company’s initiative to showcase the electric truck to some of its clients. PepsiCo, after all, has several facilities in the region, including the corporate headquarters of Frito-Lay, the company’s snack food subsidiary. PepsiCo Sr. Director of Environmental Sustainability Al Halvorsen, who plays a huge part in the company’s current green initiatives, is also based in Dallas.
With Halvorsen at the lead, PepsiCo’s green projects have achieved several milestones over the past few years, such as the company’s Frito-Lay facility in Casa Grande, AZ becoming a “Near Net Zero” manufacturing plant, recycling up to 75% of its water and using up to 80% less gas. With this in mind, PepsiCo’s reservations for the Tesla Semi, a potential disruptor in the transportation industry, is well in line with the company’s current environmentally-friendly initiatives.
If any, the initial orders for the Tesla Semi are reportedly just the start of PepsiCo’s transition to a fully sustainable fleet of delivery vehicles. According to O’Donnell, one of the PepsiCo employees he was able to speak with during the demo event remarked that the 100 orders for the Semi were just “a drop in the bucket” for how many units the company is looking to order in the future.
The Tesla Semi recently visited another one of its biggest buyers last week as well, with the electric long-hauler making an appearance at Anheuser-Busch’s brewery in St. Louis, MO. Just like PepsiCo, Anheuser-Busch has also committed to the Tesla Semi, ordering 40 electric trucks from the Elon Musk-led company.
Elon Musk
SpaceX Starship just nailed something it’s never done before
SpaceX’s Starship flew successfully Friday, landing both stages and deploying its first Starlink V3 satellites.
Starship’s thirteenth test flight delivered exactly what SpaceX needed with a clean liftoff, two successful stage recoveries, and the first real payload the vehicle has ever carried to space. Booster 20 and Ship 40 lifted off at 5:51 p.m. CT from Starbase, and by the time the mission wrapped roughly an hour later, both halves of the rocket had done exactly what they were supposed to do.
Booster 20 separated from Ship 40 a few minutes into the flight and stuck a controlled splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico about six minutes after liftoff. That is a meaningful turnaround from Flight 12 in May, when the booster lost several engines during its boostback burn before a hard water landing attempt.
Starship as seen from Starlink satellites pic.twitter.com/e2hvfmnewh
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 25, 2026
Starship 40’s performance was arguably the bigger win. The vehicle deployed the first 20 operational Starlink V3 satellites Starship has ever carried, then flew a suborbital arc to a landing in the Indian Ocean that SpaceX commentator Dan Huot called the company’s softest splashdown yet. “This is a dream scenario for this team that’s trying to get this heat shield data,” Huot said on the live broadcast, according to Space.com’s live coverage. “I’m a little over the moon right now. Wow. Lucky number 13.”
Unlike the mass simulators SpaceX flew on Flight 12, these were production Starlink V3 satellites, meant to extend solar arrays and antennas and attempt to link with the broader constellation before reentering minutes later. Getting real hardware through a full deploy sequence on only the second flight of the V3 generation keeps Starship on schedule for the payload work NASA is counting on for future Artemis lunar landings.
What an awesome launch, really seems like everything went super well and it was all incredibly smooth.
SpaceX is awesome. Very interested to see how the market will respond on Monday pic.twitter.com/KSHmyBfV55
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) July 25, 2026
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) July 25, 2026
The flight also arrives at a moment when SpaceX needed a win. SPCX has traded below its $135 IPO price since mid-July, as Teslarati reported when the mission slipped to Friday, and short interest has climbed to roughly a third of the tradable float. A clean flight will not fix a balance sheet, but it does answer the one question SpaceX absolutely needed answered this week: whether the fixes made after the July 16 abort would hold up under real flight conditions. They did, on both stages, on the first try after the redesign.
SpaceX has not set a target date for Flight 14, though the company has said it wants to push toward an orbital attempt on the next mission. After Friday, that goal looks a lot more within reach.
Tesla’s Supercharger Diner in Los Angeles dominated the company’s global usage rankings after just one year, proving the concept is more than just a one-off novelty location that will fade away.
The performance could incite the company to build more locations, something that CEO Elon Musk has hinted at for some time.
Tesla’s Supercharger Diner delivered 21.2 GWh of energy in its first year of operation, the company’s head of Charging, Max de Zegher, revealed on X. Of the top 10 most utilized Supercharger locations in Tesla’s global infrastructure, the Diner in Los Angeles was the most used by drivers, and it wasn’t particularly close:
Tesla Diner opened exactly 1 year ago. Inspiring that futuristic places like this exist.
It’s our highest usage Supercharger in the world: 21.2 GWh delivered in a year, 1.6k sessions/day.
Top 10 Superchargers by energy delivered: https://t.co/9YvJ8lw696 pic.twitter.com/koB3AUJHws
— Max (@MdeZegher) July 21, 2026
On its launch day one year ago, nobody was too sure what the Tesla Diner would be about. It seemed like an interesting concept, and considering it had been in the works for years, it was a highly anticipated launch that many were looking forward to.
Based on its success, we could see additional Diners with Superchargers built throughout the United States, and potentially beyond. Musk has said on several occasions that the company would be willing to bring the Diner idea to more markets.
Tesla makes major change at Supercharger Diner amid epic demand
Of the markets that Musk has mentioned, both Palo Alto and Austin have come to be perceived as ideal selections. However, there are no concrete plans as of now to build new Supercharger Diners anywhere; the location on Santa Monica Boulevard will remain the exclusive spot to pick up Tesla-inspired eats, at least for the time being.
Tesla short sellers won big following the company’s massive fall on Wall Street after it reported subpar Earnings on Wednesday.
Tesla short sellers collected about $4.12 billion in single-day profits on Thursday, according to Bloomberg. Shares fell as much as 15 percent during Thursday’s session. It closed as one of the worst days for Tesla on Wall Street in the past three years.
Investors sold off the stock after Tesla said it would aggressively direct its spending toward AI and its Optimus robot project. The company had record revenues, which were driven by one of the strongest quarters in terms of vehicle deliveries in company history.
However, it missed EPS estimates by reporting just $0.33, a far cry from the $0.53 analysts expected.
S3 Partners reported that about 3 percent of Tesla’s outstanding stock is sold short. Managing Director at S3, Ihor Dusaniwsky, provided the short seller’s potential profit, as well as another figure: shorts have likely had paper gains of $8.92 billion this year, as Tesla shares are down 30 percent in 2026.
Tesla (TSLA) Q2 2026 earnings results: miss on EPS, beat on revenue
Tesla has burned short sellers many times in the past, but the company’s latest Earnings Call was a chance for those skeptics to taste some payback. Although the company gave some very transparent information regarding future projects, the rollout of Robotaxi, Optimus, and Semi, many investors took their profits on Thursday.
Notable short sellers like Michael Burry have been transparent about their skepticism around Tesla shares. Burry just revealed three weeks ago that he had opened up a new short on the stock, stating he shorted Tesla shares at $416.22. “Happy it jumped back to this level,” he said in a blog post.
At the time of publication, Tesla shares were down about 3 percent and the stock was trading at $309.92.
SpaceX Starship just nailed something it’s never done before
Tesla’s Supercharger Diner probably just secured more locations
