Investor's Corner
Tesla (TSLA) gets more bullish outlook from Wall St. amid go-private initiative
Wall Street analysts covering Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) are starting to show a more bullish outlook towards the electric car maker. Since Tesla posted its Q2 financial results on August 1, analysts have upped their earnings estimates for the company, taking forecasts for 2019 up by more than 68%.
Mott Capital Management founder Michael Kramer notes that the improving outlook among Wall St. analysts comes as Tesla continues the production ramp of the Model 3. In the company’s Q2 earnings call, Elon Musk noted that Tesla was able to sustain the Model 3’s 5,000/week production rate during “multiple weeks” in July. Encouraging signs about the Model 3 ramp continued to emerge this week as well, after Tesla registered more than 16,000 new VINs for the electric car in a seven-day period. Bloomberg‘s Model 3 tracker, which has gotten more accurate over the past few months, also estimates the production of the vehicle to be at over 5,800 per week.
After August 1, analysts have narrowed their losses for the company in 2018 from $6.79 to $5.85. Revenue estimates for the full year were also revised higher by 4%, and are now seen rising by almost 74% versus the past year to $20.5 billion. Revenue estimates before August 1 among Wall St. analysts were at $19.5 billion. Apart from this, earnings estimates from Wall St. became more bullish since August started, with analysts now forecasting earnings to rise by more than 68% to $2.83 from $1.73. This signified the first time that analysts upped their forecast for next year.
While Wall St. analysts still believe that Tesla stock may be currently overvalued, the average price target for the company has been raised to $321.40, which is roughly 10% below the current price of the stock. This represents a nearly 13% average price increase since the end of July. Kramer noted that among 28 analysts covering Tesla, 32% currently have a Buy or Outperform rating on the company, while 36% have a Sell or Underperform rating. Among these is Oppenheimer analyst Colin Rusch, who upgraded Tesla from Perform to Outperform and set a price target of $385 after the company’s Q2 earnings call.
“While we have been cautious on Model 3 ramp, we believe gross-margin performance on Model 3 will carry the stock over the next 12 months,. With higher volumes and slower spending, we believe Tesla has reached a critical inflection point in its development,” Rusch wrote in a report to clients.
Tesla stock continues to be a battleground between the company’s supporters and critics. Since Elon Musk dropped a bombshell announcement last week about the possibility of Tesla going private, the company’s stock has proven to be volatile. After Musk’s announcement last Tuesday, TSLA ended the day at $379.58 per share. Tesla stock has since dropped back to the $350 range, ending Monday at $356.41 per share, despite Elon Musk releasing a follow-up blog post explaining why he announced that funding for Tesla’s privatization had been “secured.”
Amidst the controversy surrounding Musk’s announcement, fellow billionaire Mark Cuban, who owns the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks, expressed his support for Musk. In an interview with CNBC, Cuban noted that Musk’s unorthodox business decisions, as well as his eccentric behavior, are things that contribute to Tesla’s potential.
“When you invest in an entrepreneur, you get the personality. This is a guy who is sleeping in the factory. This is a guy who is pushing, pushing, pushing. I would tell shareholders ‘be grateful that you have somebody that committed to the company,’ and recognize that being unique is what has helped make Tesla so successful,” Cuban said.
Tesla has formed a special committee to evaluate proposals for the company’s privatization. The committee, comprised of Brad Buss, Robyn Denholm and Linda Johnson Rice, who are independent directors, has noted that it is waiting to receive a formal proposal from Elon Musk as of Tuesday morning.
As of writing, Tesla stock is trading at -1.06% at $352.90 per share.
Disclosure: I have no ownership in shares of TSLA and have no plans to initiate any positions within 72 hours.
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.
Tesla stock (NASDAQ: TSLA) endured one of its sharpest single-day declines in years on July 23, tumbling approximately 14.5 percent and closing near $320 after opening the session around $374. The drop erased more than $140 billion in market value amid heavy trading volume and left the shares at multi-week lows.
The sell-off followed the company’s second-quarter 2026 results, released the previous evening. Tesla reported record revenue of $28.2 billion, up 26 percent year over year, driven by a Q2-record 480,126 vehicle deliveries. Energy storage deployments also rose strongly.
Tesla (TSLA) Q2 2026 earnings results: miss on EPS, beat on revenue
Yet profitability disappointed sharply. Operating income fell 57 percent to $398 million, compressing the operating margin to just 1.4 percent. Non-GAAP earnings per share came in at $0.33, well below the roughly $0.53 analysts had expected. Free cash flow turned negative by $1.1 billion as capital expenditures surged 142 percent to $5.8 billion, largely tied to accelerated spending on artificial intelligence, robotics, and autonomous systems.
The losses on capex were expected, as Tesla said it would be spending heavily in 2026.
Investors also reacted to lingering uncertainty surrounding key product timelines. During the Earnings Call, management reiterated ambitions for Robotaxi deployment and the Optimus humanoid robot, but offered limited new concrete milestones, renewing questions about execution pace that have long accompanied Tesla’s ambitious roadmap.
The magnitude of the decline places it among Tesla’s more severe one-day percentage losses since its 2010 initial public offering. Historically, the two largest single-day drops (split-adjusted) remain September 8, 2020, when shares fell 21.1 percent amid broader market volatility and valuation concerns, and January 13, 2012, with a 19.3 percent plunge during the company’s early growth struggles.
Other notable declines include an 18.6 percent drop on March 16, 2020, at the onset of pandemic-related market turmoil. Thursday’s move ranks roughly ninth on the all-time list but stands out as the steepest in more than a year.
Despite the short-term pain, Tesla’s long-term trajectory has repeatedly recovered from such volatility. The latest results underscore both the strength of its core automotive and energy businesses and the near-term costs of heavy investment in next-generation technologies.
In a striking revelation that underscores the lucrative crossover between Big Tech and space exploration, Alphabet Inc., Google’s parent company, disclosed a massive $94.1 billion equity stake in SpaceX following the rocket company’s blockbuster initial public offering earlier this year.
The disclosure came in Alphabet’s quarterly filing, marking the first time the long-held private investment has been publicly valued at market prices. Google was an early backer, investing alongside Fidelity in 2015 with roughly $500-900 million at a time when SpaceX was valued around $12 billion.
That bet has delivered extraordinary returns, roughly a hundredfold, transforming a strategic play on satellite internet and launch capabilities into one of Alphabet’s largest assets.
Google, $GOOGL, has said they hold $94 billion in SpaceX, $SPCX, shares after IPO.
— unusual_whales (@unusual_whales) July 23, 2026
Of the total holding, approximately $80 billion remains subject to short-term post-IPO lockup restrictions, preventing near-term sales. An additional $14.1 billion faces longer-term restrictions, extending into the third quarter of 2027. This structure limits immediate liquidity but protects against market volatility as SpaceX transitions into public trading.
The SpaceX position contributed significantly to gains in Alphabet’s broader investment portfolio, which also includes a major stake in AI leader Anthropic. Combined, these holdings helped drive nearly $100 billion in investment gains during the second quarter, providing a substantial boost to net income amid ongoing AI spending pressures.
Analysts view the disclosure as validation of Alphabet’s venture strategy beyond its core search and cloud businesses. The investment aligns with deeper ties, including reported multi-billion-dollar deals for AI computing capacity on SpaceX infrastructure. As SpaceX advances Starship flights, Starlink expansion, and ambitious Mars goals under Elon Musk, Google’s stake positions it to benefit from the commercialization of space.
For Alphabet, the windfall highlights how patient, forward-looking bets in transformative sectors can yield outsized rewards. While lockups temper short-term impact, the holding cements SpaceX as a cornerstone of Alphabet’s diversified portfolio in an era where aerospace, AI, and connectivity increasingly intersect. Investors will watch closely as restrictions lift and SpaceX’s public performance unfolds.
Tesla’s Supercharger Diner probably just secured more locations
Tesla short sellers win big after shares fall after earnings
