Investor's Corner
Tesla shares (TSLA) bolstered by Elon Musk’s China Gigafactory 3 agreement
Tesla shares (NASDAQ:TSLA) are showing some recovery after last week’s dive, trading up 1.81% at $324.28 per share amidst reports stating that Elon Musk has signed an agreement with Chinese officials to build Gigafactory 3 in Shanghai. The upcoming factory, which will be capable of producing up to 500,000 vehicles per year, is expected to begin construction after necessary approvals and permits for the facility are completed.
The boost in stock price comes as a relief to last week’s surprise sell-off after the company released its delivery and production numbers for Q2 2018. While Tesla was able to hit its target of producing 5,000 Model 3 in a week due to a “burst build” strategy at the final week of June, some Wall St. analysts nonetheless expressed doubts about the company’s capability to sustain production. CFRA Research analyst Efraim Levy, for one, downgraded TSLA to a “Sell,” stating that the Model 3’s 5,000-a-week production pace was not “operationally or financially sustainable.”
As news broke of Elon Musk’s trip to China, TSLA stock started climbing once more, ending Monday at $318.51 per share. The stock rallied as high as $326.29 on Tuesday’s intraday.
So far, Shanghai officials have confirmed that a preliminary agreement between Tesla and the government has been reached. The Shanghai government has also issued a press release about the upcoming factory.
“Tesla Gigafactory, which aims to build 500,000 electric vehicles per year, has officially settled in Shanghai Lingang Area Development Administration. It is the largest foreign-invested manufacturing project in Shanghai’s history. Today, on July 10th, the Shanghai Municipal People’s Government and Tesla signed a Cooperative Agreement.
“Mayor Ying Yong and Tesla Chairman and CEO Elon Musk were in attendance to unveil a plaque for the Tesla (Shanghai) Ltd. Electric Vehicle Development and Innovation Center. The agreement was signed by Zhou Bo, Executive Vice Mayor of Shanghai, and Robin Ren, Tesla Vice President for Worldwide Sales.”
Shanghai’s press release included a statement from Elon Musk, who described the upcoming facility as a “state-of-the-art vehicle factory and a model for sustainability.” A Tesla spokesperson also provided additional details on the recently-signed agreement, including an estimated timeline for the construction of the factory.
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“Last year, we announced that we were working with the Shanghai Municipal Government to explore the possibility of establishing a factory in the region to serve the Chinese market. Today, we have signed a Cooperative Agreement for Tesla to start building Gigafactory 3, a new electric vehicle manufacturing facility in Shanghai.
“We expect construction to begin in the near future, after we get all the necessary approvals and permits. From there, it will take roughly two years until we start producing vehicles and then another two to three years before the factory is fully ramped up to produce around 500,000 vehicles per year for Chinese customers. Tesla is deeply committed to the Chinese market, and we look forward to building even more cars for our customers here. Today’s announcement will not impact our U.S. manufacturing operations, which continue to grow.”
Tesla’s China Gigafactory will be the California-based electric car maker’s largest facility outside the United States. The massive factory is expected to be tasked with the production of the Model Y, as well as some of the Model 3. With Gigafactory 3 producing vehicles in China, Tesla would be able to tap into the country’s growing and government-supported electric car market, while bypassing the steep import tariffs that the nation places on imported vehicles. Overall, Tesla’s Gigafactory 3 would join the ranks of Tesla’s three other main facilities — the Fremont, CA car plant, the Gigafactory 1 in NV, and Gigafactory 2 in Buffalo, NY. Another Gigafactory, expected to be dubbed as Gigafactory 4, is expected to be built in Europe within the next few years as well.
As of writing, Tesla shares are trading up 1.81% at $324.28 per share.
Disclosure: I have no ownership in shares of TSLA and have no plans to initiate any positions within 72 hours.
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Elon Musk’s space exploration company, SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX), is set to report its earnings for the second quarter today in what will be its first-ever earnings call since going public in July.
SpaceX is trading down roughly 25 percent from its IPO. These early stock signals are usually a bit tumultuous, and considering this is the first company actively launching rockets that is available on the stock exchange, investors might have a tendency to be a bit skittish.
However, there are going to be some details that investors will hear for the first time today on the earnings call. Here’s what to look for:
Wall Street Expectations
Revenue is expected to fall somewhere around $6.8 billion, and will be heavily driven by Starlink, which is SpaceX’s widely popular satellite internet platform that has been adopted by numerous airlines, cruise ships, and other maritime operations. It is also available for consumers at home or in their cars.
Earnings Per Share (EPS) expectations fall at a net loss of $0.23 per share. Wall Street sees this as a total net loss of roughly $1.9 billion.
EBITDA is expected to come in between $2 billion and $2.1 billion.
What Investors Want to Know
Tesla uses the Say platform to help work with both retail and institutional investors to answer relevant and quality questions that address concerns or questions that they might have.
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However, SpaceX is doing things differently, as the company launched its own Investor Relations website where these questions are being fielded. Just like the Tesla questions, they seem to be less focused on the operational tasks and overall progress of the company, and more novelty.
Here are the top five:
- Has the team thought about what possibilities there are with your mascot Asteroid? Whether it’s starting additional foundations for kids in its name, helping kids learn about space, etc. Kids are our future, and Asteroid would be a fun and easy way to help.
- Baby Asteroid is already making a difference through charity around the world. Could SpaceX take it even further with programs that inspire kids to explore space?
- SpaceX has some legendary vehicle names. Would you ever allow the public to name a Starship, even knowing there is a 99% chance it becomes Shipy McShipface?
- When can we expect to see more footage of the Human Landing System?
- Will Asteroid (your mascot) go to Mars?
SpaceX will report its earnings today, August 4, at 4:30 P.M. EDT.
SpaceX will report second quarter results after the market closes on Tuesday, August 4, marking the first time the company has opened its books to the public since its record IPO in June. Management will host a live audio only webcast at 4:30 p.m. ET, streamed on X, with no dial in option.
The debut carries more weight than a typical first quarter as a public company. Two trading days after the release, on August 6, the first tranche of SpaceX’s lockup expires, freeing roughly 911.5 million insider and employee shares, worth well over $100 billion at current prices and the largest such release in Wall Street history. A second, larger tranche tied to the stock trading 30 percent above its $135 IPO price never triggered, since shares have spent most of July trading below that price.
Wall Street’s models point to revenue near $6.9 billion for the quarter, up sharply from the $4.69 billion SpaceX reported in the first quarter, with a narrower per share loss than the $1.27 posted three months earlier, according to estimates compiled by Motley Fool. Those numbers will be the first look at how SpaceX’s three segments, Starlink, launch and AI, are performing independently.
SpaceX scores another massive Pentagon deal to support military satellites
Investors heading into the call have a specific list of questions. How many net new Starlink subscribers did SpaceX add after ending March with 10.3 million, and is average revenue per user holding up as the service expands into lower income markets. How much of the AI segment’s revenue reflects contract signings with Anthropic, Google and Reflection AI this year, deals that combined could annualize to nearly $28 billion if fully ramped. Whether capital expenditures, which nearly doubled in the AI segment alone between 2024 and 2025, are still accelerating or starting to plateau. And whether management offers any forward guidance at all, something SpaceX has never done publicly.
The report will also land days after Elon Musk publicly denied a Wall Street Journal report describing internal planning to separate Tesla’s China business ahead of a potential Tesla-SpaceX merger. Whether Musk or SpaceX executives address that speculation on the call, even indirectly, maybe something investors will be listening for on Tuesday.
As Teslarati reported after Musk’s own warning to short sellers last week, the CEO has made clear he expects skeptics to be proven wrong over time. Tuesday will be the first chance for the numbers themselves to make that case.
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Elon Musk
Tesla AI boss reveals how big Optimus is going to get
Tesla’s Optimus chief corrected himself on X, confirming a staggering 10 million robot production target.
![Tesla Optimus Gen 3 [Credit: Tesla]](https://www.teslarati.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/tesla-optimus-gen3-diner.jpg)
Tesla’s Optimus program has a new number attached to it, after Ashok Elluswamy, the executive who has run the humanoid robot program since June 2025, posted a three word correction on X Thursday, “Correction, 10 million robots.”
The line clarifies the long term annual capacity Tesla is building toward its planned second Optimus production line at Gigafactory Texas, a figure Musk has cited repeatedly since last year’s shareholder meeting.
The scale is worth noting, because ten million robots a year would mean Tesla building more units annually than most countries sell in new cars. Tesla has framed this as a second line, not the first. The buildout is happening in two phases: a roughly one million unit per year line inside Tesla’s Fremont factory, installed on the floor space vacated when Model S and Model X production ended earlier this year, and a much larger dedicated facility under construction at Giga Texas that broke ground on its first steel structure in May. That Texas facility is the one Elluswamy’s correction refers to, and is expected to reach volume production sometime in 2027.
Correction, 10 million robots https://t.co/0z4nyQNTzp
— Ashok Elluswamy (@aelluswamy) July 30, 2026
Tesla Optimus project fires up as Musk sees production line progress
Elluswamy took over Optimus from Milan Kovac last summer and has spent the months since talking up the program’s trajectory. Elon Musk has also floated the ten million figure at Tesla’s 2025 shareholder meeting.
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Ending Model S and Model X production to make room for the first Optimus line was one of the more consequential manufacturing decisions in the company’s recent history, retiring two flagship vehicles in favor of a robot that has yet to enter mass production. Musk has previously estimated per unit production costs at $20,000 to $25,000 once Tesla reaches a million units a year, though he hasn’t said what that cost looks like at ten times the volume.
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