Investor's Corner
Tesla (TSLA) starts strong recovery amidst Musk’s SEC settlement, Model 3 delivery estimates
Tesla stock (NASDAQ:TSLA) is exhibiting a strong recovery on Monday, trading up 15.40% at $305.54 per share during the opening bell. With its meteoric rsie, Tesla has practically recovered the losses it incurred last week after the SEC announced that it was filing a lawsuit against Elon Musk over his “funding secured” Twitter announcement last August.
Tesla shares took a steep dive last Friday, plunging 13.90% amidst news of the SEC’s lawsuit against the outspoken CEO. Amidst reports that Musk reportedly rejected a settlement from the government agency, Friday’s trading ultimately ended at $264.77 per share. Despite Friday’s plunge, though, Musk seemed to be in light spirits on Friday, expressing his gratitude to the Tesla community and even posting a “Don’t Panic” message on Twitter.
As developments over the weekend would prove, Elon Musk’s “Don’t Panic” message seems to be well-founded. On Saturday, the SEC released an update announcing that Musk had accepted a settlement for his lawsuit. The settlement involved a hefty fine worth a total of $40 million, as well as Musk’s resignation as Chairman for Tesla’s Board of Directors, but it did allow him to keep his post as CEO. The appointment of two new Board members, as well as the creation of a committee tasked with “placing additional controls and procedures to oversee” Musk’s communications, were warmly received by the Tesla community as well.
Loup Ventures Managing Partner Gene Munster noted that the SEC settlement is the best outcome possible from Elon Musk’s “funding secured” fiasco. Munster pointed out that the terms of the settlement actually works in Tesla’s favor, as the appointment of a new, capable Chairman of the Board could help Tesla reach sustainability, as well as become the wake-up call that Musk needs with regards to his behavior online.
“It’s not often that an SEC lawsuit could be viewed as an opportunity, but this is one of those rare cases. There are two key potential outcomes from the lawsuit. First, Musk stepping down as chairman of the board is something we wrote about before. The open board chairperson role creates an opportunity for Tesla to potentially put someone in place that is capable of influencing Musk and helping Tesla reach sustainability. Second, the lawsuit could serve as a wakeup call for Musk to tone down some of his public-facing behavior, particularly on Twitter. If Musk can step away from the external stuff that doesn’t matter, he’ll make the game that much easier for himself, and that will be good for everyone, just like this settlement.”
Apart from Musk’s settlement with the SEC, Tesla also seemed to have ended the third quarter on a strong note. The actual delivery figures for the Model S, 3, and X are yet to be released, but based on the company’s end-of-quarter push, it appears that Tesla has delivered a record number of vehicles to reservation holders during the final weeks of Q3. An email from Musk to Tesla employees sent over the weekend even noted that the company is “very close” to profitability, and that a strong Sunday delivery push would allow Tesla to “achieve an epic victory.”
What was rather remarkable is that Tesla and its employees were not alone in the company’s end-of-Q3 delivery blitz. Just like the past week, delivery centers received a boost from electric car owners who volunteered their time to orient newcomers with the features and functions of their electric cars. Even as the company approached the end of the third quarter, reports from the Tesla community still pointed to a continued delivery push, thanks to dedicated employees and owners who are willing to pitch in when help was needed.
Disclosure: I have no ownership in shares of TSLA and have no plans to initiate any positions within 72 hours.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk will give ‘every kid in America’ a SpaceX share in 2027
Elon Musk said he is planning to give “every one of his SpaceX shares to every kid in America” in 2027, stating that “this will be the first of many.”
SpaceX went public earlier this year, and its stock price has been relatively stable since leveling off shortly after its IPO. Based on its current price, it’s a gift of just over $10 billion to children across the United States.
It appears to be closely related to President Donald Trump’s bank accounts for children, which were set up earlier this year as Trump Accounts.
Just hours earlier, Anthropic had announced the establishment of its Anthropic Public Benefit Fund, “a new wholly-owned entity dedicated entirely to public benefit.” Musk responded by stating he recommended “giving the shares directly to the public,” and that he would be doing it that way.
Just a little bit later, Musk said children across the U.S. would be getting a share from him:
Next year, I will give one of my SpaceX shares to every kid in America.
This will be the first of many.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 19, 2026
There are roughly 70 million children, meaning someone under the age of 18, in the United States, according to the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics. Musk’s ownership of SpaceX stock shows he has around 849 million Class A shares of SpaceX stock, according to filings with the SEC.
Investor's Corner
SpaceX’s biggest earnings test yet lands Tuesday, and Tesla shareholders should be watching
SpaceX reports earnings Tuesday as Wall Street watches AI spending, Starlink growth and Tesla merger
SpaceX reports third quarter results after the market closes Tuesday, with a webcast at 4:30 p.m. ET streamed on X, and Tesla follows a day later. Bloomberg consensus, cited by Pepperstone, calls for revenue of $12.89 billion, adjusted EBITDA of $6.62 billion and adjusted EPS near $0.15. That would be about 65% growth from the second quarter and SpaceX’s first profitable quarter since its IPO. Analysts expect roughly $6.4 billion from AI and $4.9 billion from Starlink, which is projected to reach 14.3 million consumer subscribers. Capital spending is forecast at $19.6 billion, leaving free cash flow near negative $11.6 billion.
The numbers matter because SpaceX has spent months trying to win over a skeptical market. It priced its record IPO at $135, spiked to $225.64, then sank near $105 in early August. Friday’s close of $146.03 sits about 28% below the June high. The Q2 report beat on revenue at $7.8 billion and put Starlink at 12 million subscribers, but $18.4 billion of capex hurt the stock. Since then SpaceX reached orbit on Starship Flight 14 with 26 Starlink V3 satellites, agreed to buy 800 MHz spectrum for about $8 billion as part of its Starlink Mobile push, and signed a fourth compute hosting deal in four months worth roughly $13 billion a year from December. Management is targeting more than 2 gigawatts of compute by year end and a $100 billion annualized revenue run rate. Evercore ISI, which raised its target to $275, said the quarter may be judged more on those targets than the reported figures
All of this sits under the Tesla merger question. Barclays analyst Dan Levy expects an all stock deal in which SpaceX buys Tesla at a premium, using reference values of $2.1 trillion and $1.5 trillion, and said an announcement would need to come by late October or early November to be voted on at Tesla’s December 6 annual meeting. Barclays estimates Musk would hold about 37% of the combined company and 56% of the votes. Musk said in July that combining companies cannot be discussed on an earnings call, but an investor question asking when SpaceX will merge with Tesla is sitting on SpaceX’s Q&A platform, and Teslarati has tracked how the Roadster demo revived the talk.
If a deal happens, Tuesday’s result would effectively set the price Tesla holders would receive. Their shares would convert into SpaceX stock, along with exposure to a company with a heavy investment on AI, while Tesla itself expects 2026 capex above $25 billion. A strong quarter and calmer spending would make that exchange easier to sell. Another round of heavy capex and a falling stock would make it harder.
Investor's Corner
Tesla’s flying Roadster just revealed something bigger than the car
Analysts say the Roadster demo puts a Tesla and SpaceX merger back on the table.
The Roadster unveiling near Waco ended Thursday night, and by Friday morning much of the investor reaction had less to do with the car than with who owns the rocket technology inside it.
Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said the event “puts the Tesla/SpaceX relationship on the table in a tangible way,” pointing to the propulsion, pressure vessel and control hardware sitting on a Tesla product. Gene Munster of Deepwater Asset Management called the demo “a ridiculous display of engineering” with “no commercial value” beyond embarrassing traditional automakers, though he said it showed Musk wants the two companies together.
The more specific forecast came a day earlier from Barclays. Analyst Dan Levy told clients a deal could be announced before Tesla’s annual meeting, which must happen by December 6, and that an announcement in late October or early November could make shareholder approval harder. Barclays expects SpaceX to be the buyer in an all stock deal, with Tesla holders receiving SpaceX shares at a premium, based on market values of roughly $2.1 trillion for SpaceX and $1.5 trillion for Tesla. If nothing lands around the meeting, the bank still sees an announcement within 6 to 12 months.
The Roadster demo just added more weight to merger speculations. Tesla’s demo used cold gas thrusters and pressure tanks of the kind SpaceX uses on Falcon 9, and Musk described the car as a collaboration between Tesla and SpaceX engineers, as we mentioned in our breakdown of the three Roadster configurations.
Musk has not publicly addressed a deal since the event, as far as we have seen. His most direct answer remains the one he gave at the All In Summit, when he said that with so much collaboration, “who can imagine what action one might take” without ruling anything out. Ives has held to a 2027 timeline since his March note, and Musk pushed back on the China piece of the speculation when ARK floated a year end announcement in August.
The next test is Tesla’s third quarter earnings call on October 21. However, we recall in July that Musk told analysts, “we can’t talk about combining companies and that kind of thing on an earnings call,” so a clear answer wouldn’t be expected.