Investor's Corner
Tesla (TSLA) plunges 6% amid new executive departures, Musk’s cannabis whiff during podcast
Tesla stock (NASDAQ:TSLA) is down 6% in Friday’s intraday amid reports that the company lost two more executives, with Chief Accounting Officer David H. Morton, Jr. leaving his post after just two months and Chief People Officer Gabrielle Toledano confirming that she would not be coming back from a leave. Today also stands as Tesla VP of Comms Sarah O’Brien’s last official day at the company.
The latest round of executive departures comes after Elon Musk opted to walk away from his initiative to take the company private last month. Tesla noted in a statement to Reuters that Morton opted to depart from the company due to his discomfort with the level of public attention and Tesla’s overall pace of work. Morton is a veteran in the tech sector, serving as the Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Seagate before starting his employment at Tesla. That said, his experience was probably not a good fit for the electric car maker’s startup culture, which is characterized by its flat organizational structure and its fast pace.
Overall, Morton appears to have parted ways with Tesla amicably, stating that he still believes in the company’s overall mission, as well as its future prospects.
“I want to be clear that I believe strongly in Tesla, its mission, and its future prospects, and I have no disagreements with Tesla’s leadership or its financial reporting,” he said.
Statements from Chief People Officer Gabrielle Toledano have not been reported as of writing.
Even before the announcement of Morton’s departure, the company’s shares were already seeing a slight decline in Friday’s pre-market trading as reports of Elon Musk’s behavior in a podcast with comedian Joe Rogan emerged. During the 2.5-hr podcast, the two men talked about several topics, from AI to time management to vertical liftoff airplanes and Japanese feudal weapons. At one point, Rogan, who was smoking cannabis, invited Elon Musk to take a puff. Musk did, and the image of the CEO smoking cannabis immediately spread on social media like wildfire.
The latest drop in Tesla’s stock has caused Consumer Edge analyst James Albertine to call for the company to appoint another senior leader to support Elon Musk. Musk has admitted that running an electric car and energy company like Tesla is exhausting, and in an interview with the New York Times last month, Musk stated that anyone who could do a better job can take over for him anytime. Considering the recent stock drop, as well as the apparent effects of Musk’s little cannabis puff to Tesla shareholders, Albertine noted that the time might be right for Tesla’s Board to step in.
“We have been calling for a Co-CEO or COO to assist to codifying the leadership structure and in so doing, the culture at Tesla. We think this is further evidence that the time is now for management and the Board to address these issues,” Albertine said.
The plunge in Tesla’s stock comes just a day after Elon Musk expressed his support for a report estimating the US sales figures for electric cars currently available in the United States. The report, which was published by electric car-themed news site InsideEVs, estimated that the Tesla Model 3, Model S, and Model X, were the Top 3 electric cars in the US in August. A report from auto sales tracking website GoodCarBadCar also listed the Model 3 as the 5th best-selling passenger car in America last month, in a list that included mainstream vehicles like the Toyota Camry, Honda Civic, and the Honda Accord.
As of writing, Tesla stock is down 6.64% at $263.13 per share.
Disclosure: I have no ownership in shares of TSLA and have no plans to initiate any positions within 72 hours.
Elon Musk
SpaceX just filed for the IPO everyone was waiting for
SpaceX filed its public S-1, revealing $18.7 billion in revenue and billions in losses.
SpaceX publicly filed its S-1 registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission on May 20, 2026, making its financial details available to the public for the first time ahead of what could be the largest IPO in history.
An S-1 is the formal document a company must submit to the SEC before going public. It includes audited financials, risk factors, business descriptions, and how the company plans to use the money it raises. Companies are required to file one before selling shares to the public, and it must be published at least 15 days before the investor roadshow begins. SpaceX had already submitted a confidential draft to the SEC in April, which allowed regulators to review the filing privately before it went public.
The S-1 reveals that SpaceX generated $18.7 billion in consolidated revenue in 2025, driven largely by its Starlink satellite internet division, which posted $11.4 billion in revenue, growing nearly 50% year over year. Despite that growth, the company lost about $4.9 billion in 2025 and has burned through more than $37 billion since its founding.
SpaceX just forced Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile to team up for the first time in history
A significant portion of those losses trace back to xAI, Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company, which was recently merged into SpaceX. SpaceX directed roughly 60% of its capital spending in 2025 to its AI division, totaling around $20 billion, yet that division lost billions and grew revenue by only about 22%.
SpaceX plans to list its Class A common stock on Nasdaq under the ticker SPCX, with Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Bank of America leading the offering. The dual-class share structure means going public will not meaningfully reduce Musk’s control, as Class B shares he holds carry 10 votes per share compared to one vote for public Class A shares.
The company is targeting a raise of around $75 billion at a valuation of roughly $1.75 trillion, which would make it the largest IPO ever. The investor roadshow is reportedly planned for June 5.
Elon Musk
Tesla ditches India after years of broken promises
Tesla has ditched its plans to build a factory in India after years of failed negotiations.
Tesla’s long-running effort to establish a manufacturing presence in India is officially over. India’s Minister of Heavy Industries H.D. Kumaraswamy confirmed on May 19, 2026 that Tesla has informed authorities it will not proceed with a manufacturing facility in the country.
Tesla first signaled serious interest in India around 2021, when it began hiring local staff and lobbying the Indian government for lower import tariffs. The ask was straightforward: reduce duties enough for Tesla to test the market with imported vehicles before committing capital to a local factory. India’s position was equally firm, with an ask of Tesla to commit to manufacturing first, then receive tariff relief. Neither side moved, and the talks quietly collapsed.
Tesla to open first India experience center in Mumbai on July 15
India had offered a policy that would reduce import duties from 110% down to 15% on EVs priced above $35,000, provided companies committed at least $500 million toward local manufacturing investment within three years. Tesla declined to participate. The tariff standoff was only part of the problem. Analysts pointed to significant gaps in India’s local supply chain, inadequate industrial infrastructure, and a mismatch between Tesla’s premium pricing and the purchasing power of India’s automotive market as additional factors that made the investment difficult to justify.
First signs of an unraveling relationship came in April 2024, when Musk abruptly cancelled a planned trip to India where he was set to meet Prime Minister Modi and announce Tesla’s market entry. By July 2024, Fortune reported that Tesla executives had stopped contacting Indian government officials entirely. The government at that point understood Tesla had capital constraints and no plans to invest.
The more fundamental issue is that Tesla’s existing factories are currently operating at approximately 60% capacity, making a commitment to building new manufacturing capacity in a new market difficult to defend to investors. Tesla will continue selling imported Model Y vehicles through its existing showrooms in Mumbai, Delhi, Gurugram, and Bengaluru, but local production is no longer part of the plan.
Elon Musk
SpaceX just forced Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile to team up for the first time in history
AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon just joined forces for one reason: Starlink is winning.
America’s three largest wireless carriers, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon, announced on On May 14, 2026 that they had agreed in principle to form a joint venture aimed at pooling their spectrum resources to expand satellite-based direct-to-device (D2D) connectivity across the United States in what can be seen as a direct response to SpaceX’s Starlink initiative. D2D, in plain terms, is technology that lets a standard smartphone connect directly to a satellite in orbit, the same way it connects to a cell tower, with no extra hardware required.
The alliance is widely seen as a means to slow Starlink’s rapid expansion in the satellite internet and mobile markets. SpaceX’s Starlink Mobile service launched commercially in July 2025 through a partnership with T-Mobile, starting with messaging before expanding to broadband data. SpaceX secured access to valuable wireless spectrum through its $17 billion deal with EchoStar, paving the way for significantly faster satellite-to-phone speeds.
SpaceX was not shy about its reaction. SpaceX president and COO Gwynne Shotwell responded on X: “Weeeelllll, I guess Starlink Mobile is doing something right! It’s David and Goliath (X3) all over again — I’m bettin’ on David.” SpaceX’s VP of Satellite Policy David Goldman went further, flagging potential antitrust concerns and asking whether the DOJ would even allow three dominant competitors to coordinate in a market where a new rival is actively entering.
Weeeelllll, I guess @Starlink Mobile is doing something right! It’s David and Goliath (X3) all over again — I’m bettin’ on David 🙂 https://t.co/5GzS752mxL
— Gwynne Shotwell (@Gwynne_Shotwell) May 14, 2026
Financial analysts at LightShed Partners were blunt, saying the announcement showed the three carriers are “nervous,” and pointed to the timing: “You announce an agreement in principle when the point is the announcement, not the deal. The timing, weeks ahead of the SpaceX roadshow, was the point.”
As Teslarati reported, SpaceX’s next generation Starlink V2 satellites will deliver up to 100 times the data density of the current system, with custom silicon and phased array antennas enabling around 20 times the throughput of the first generation. The carriers’ JV, which has no definitive agreement, no financial structure, and no deployment timeline yet, will need to move quickly to matter.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX is targeting a Nasdaq listing as early as June 12, aiming for what would be the largest IPO in history. With Starlink now serving over 9 million subscribers across 155 countries, holding 59 carrier partnerships globally, and now powering Air Force One, the carriers’ joint venture announcement landed at exactly the wrong time to look like anything other than a defensive move.
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