Investor's Corner
Morgan Stanley stops Tesla (TSLA) equity coverage, Elon Musk tempers social media use
Tesla stock (NASDAQ:TSLA) is up ~3% in early Tuesday trading amid reports that Morgan Stanley has stopped its equity coverage of the company. As of writing, Morgan Stanley’s website currently shows that Tesla had been moved from “Equal-weight” to “Not Rated.”
Neither Tesla nor Morgan Stanley has issued a formal statement about why the financial firm ceased its coverage of the electric car maker. Nevertheless, speculations have now emerged that Tesla might have reached an agreement with Morgan Stanley to have the investment bank serve as a financial advisor for the company’s possible privatization. Just last week, analyst David Tamberrino revealed that Goldman Sachs is serving as a financial advisor to Tesla for the company’s go-private initiative. Prior to the release of Tamberrino’s update, Goldman Sachs also stopped its equity coverage of Tesla.
Apart from Morgan Stanley possibly serving as a financial advisor to the electric car maker, reports also emerged that Norway’s wealth fund could stay as a Tesla investor even if the company goes private. This was addressed by Trond Grande, the deputy CEO of Norway’s $1 trillion wealth fund in a statement to Reuters. Norway’s wealth fund had a 0.48% stake in the carmaker as of the beginning of 2018, which is worth about $253 million.
“The priority is to try to preserve the value for the fund. That is the priority. If that means that the fund will be invested in a company that has been delisted for a period of time, that could happen,” Grande said.
Tesla stock had been particularly volatile since Elon Musk tweeted earlier this month that funding had been secured for the company to go private at $420 per share. Immediately after Musk’s Twitter announcement, Tesla stock soared, closing the day up 11% at $379.57 per share. Tesla stock has taken a steady trek down in the days that followed, as questions emerged about the source of funding Musk mentioned in his tweet. The company’s stock hit a low of $288.20 on Monday’s early day trading, before recovering and ending the day at $308.44 per share.
There is little doubt that Tesla’s current volatility was caused in no small part by Elon Musk’s social media activities. Had Musk not announced that funding was secured for Tesla’s privatization on Twitter, the CEO would have escaped much of the criticism being directed towards him today. And this is not the first time Musk’s social media activities affected Tesla’s stock either. When Musk had a row with a British cave explorer about his efforts to help rescue a stranded soccer team in Thailand, for example, Musk’s Twitter activities partly fueled a drop in Tesla stock. In an interview with Bloomberg‘s Tom Randall last month, Elon Musk mentioned that he would try to temper himself more on social media, particularly Twitter.
“I have made the mistaken assumption—and I will attempt to be better at this—of thinking that because somebody is on Twitter and is attacking me that it is open season. And that is my mistake. I will correct it,” he said.
Today, Elon Musk appears to have taken a significant step towards tempering his social media use even further. Musk has been using Twitter and Instagram to post updates about his companies and his personal life, but today, his Instagram page appears to have been taken offline. Navigating to Musk’s page, which had 8.4 million followers, now shows a page stating that the profile might have been deleted.
Elon Musk’s use of social media is pretty much a double-edged sword for Tesla. On the one hand, it enables him to interact with his company’s fans and customers directly, but on the other hand, it could also result in him causing harm to Tesla stock. As more pieces of the puzzle seemingly emerge with regards to Tesla’s privatization, it appears that the deletion of Musk’s Instagram page might be a step towards the CEO adopting a more cautious online stance on the company’s privatization.
As of writing, Tesla stock is showing more recovery, up 3.23% at $318.41 per share.
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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