Investor's Corner
Tesla's battle lines are drawn with retail investors on one side and Wall St on another
There are very few stocks in the market that inspire such volatility as American electric car maker Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA). The company has been on a tear lately, propelled by positive Q4 2019 results and emphasized by an ever-growing number of ardent supporters online. Yet amidst these victories, it appears that Tesla has finally reached a point where the battle lines are now being drawn between the company’s supporters, particularly its retail investors and analysts from Wall Street.
Tesla is a tricky company to evaluate, mainly since it covers several industries. The electric car maker is currently the second-largest automaker in the world by market value, though it only produces and delivers a fraction of the vehicles that veteran car companies sell every year. In 2019, Tesla sold just over 367,000 vehicles. Volkswagen, the third-largest automaker according to market cap, sold over 6 million units.
But the Tesla story is never just about the company’s electric cars. A look at Tesla’s mission shows that the company’s goals are bigger than just selling cars and making money doing so. Tesla aims to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainability, and making electric cars that are better than petrol-powered vehicles is but a crucial part of the puzzle. This also means that there are dimensions to the company that lies far beyond that of its electric car business.
It is this last point where the divergence is most evident between Tesla’s supporters and Wall Street analysts. Tesla shareholders, many of whom actually own the company’s products, are intimately familiar with CEO Elon Musk’s overall plans and goals, as well as the scope of the company’s numerous business. Very few of those who own a Model 3, for example, are not aware that Tesla also makes solar roof tiles, or residential batteries like Powerwalls, or grid-scale batteries like Megapacks for that matter.
Unfortunately, a good number of analysts who cover TSLA stock seem to be stuck under the impression that the company is an automaker, full stop. A look at analysts and critics who frequent media outlets such as CNBC shows that very few actually consider the potential, or even recognize the existence of Tesla Energy, a business that legendary billionaire Ron Baron believes could be just as big as the company’s electric car business. Even fewer acknowledge the value of Tesla’s Autopilot data, which are gathered from real-world miles.
This could be seen in Wall Street’s estimates on Waymo, a Google-based company aimed at developing and deploying a self-driving service. Morgan Stanley analyst Brian Nowak wrote in a note to clients last year that the startup is worth $105 billion because of its self-driving technology, and that’s a conservative estimate. Before last year’s update, Nowak valued Waymo at a far more optimistic $175 billion. In comparison, Tesla’s current valuation, as of last Friday’s close, stood at $134 billion. That amount included the company’s auto business, its energy business, and its autonomous driving tech.
As is the nature of Tesla stock, the company’s full potential is usually acknowledged and considered only by the company’s most ardent supporters on the Street. So for now, there is very little chance that the perception of Tesla between its retail supporters and traditional analysts will converge anytime soon. This divergence became a focal point in the company’s recent Q4 2019 earnings call, when Elon Musk admitted that retail investors might have a better grasp of the company’s plans than conventional Wall Street analysts.
“I do think that a lot of retail investors actually have deeper and more accurate insights than many of the big institutional investors and certainly better insight than many of the analysts. It seems like if people really looked at some of the smart retail investor analysts and what some of the smart smaller retail investors predicted about the future of Tesla, you would probably get the highest accuracy and remarkable insight from some of those predictions,” Musk said.
Tesla will likely remain a polarizing company for years to come. That said, Tesla Energy’s ramp is upon the market already, and the company’s Solarglass Roof V3 are now being installed to a growing number of homes in the United States. Tesla’s Full Self-Driving system is also closing in on being feature-complete. Overall, it seems that it will only be a matter of time before the true potential of Tesla emerges, and when it does, one would have to deny a whole lot of the company to consider it just as an automaker.
Disclosure: I have no ownership in shares of TSLA and have no plans to initiate any positions within 72 hours.
Elon Musk
California snubs Tesla in its newly passed EV incentive that favors Rivian and Lucid
California passed a $135 million EV incentive that rewards Rivian and Lucid while sidelining Tesla
California just drew a line in the EV incentive sand to put Tesla on the wrong side of it. The state recently passed a $135 million program offering first-time electric vehicle buyers a direct incentive with no application required, but the rules were written in a way that leaves Tesla at a structural disadvantage compared to Rivian and Lucid.
The program caps eligible vehicles at $50,000 for new EVs and $25,000 for used ones. That pricing threshold rules out a significant portion of Tesla’s lineup, though some lower-priced Model 3 and Model Y configurations would still qualify. California-based automakers are exempt from the price cap entirely, regardless of what their vehicles cost. Rivian, headquartered in Irvine, and Lucid, based in the San Francisco Bay Area, both benefit from that exemption. Rivian’s R2 starts at roughly $45,000 but has versions above the cap. Lucid’s Air and Gravity start at $70,990 and $79,990 respectively, well above any threshold a non-California company would face.
California hits Tesla Cybercab and Robotaxi driverless cars with new law
Tesla built its reputation and a significant portion of its early market share in California, where EV adoption has consistently led the nation. The company operates its original factory in Fremont, California, and the state was home to Tesla’s headquarters for most of its existence. That changed in 2021 when Tesla moved its corporate headquarters to Austin, Texas. Since then, the relationship between the company and California Governor Gavin Newsom has been openly adversarial, with Musk and Newsom trading public criticism on multiple occasions.
California’s EV incentive landscape has shifted repeatedly in recent years, and Tesla has previously lost eligibility for state-level programs as its vehicles exceeded income-adjusted price thresholds. The federal $7,500 EV tax credit, which Tesla models have qualified for and lost depending on policy cycles, is no longer available after it expired without renewal, making state-level programs more meaningful to buyers than they have been in years.
The practical impact for buyers is more nuanced than the headline suggests. California residents purchasing a Tesla under $50,000 for the first time can still access the incentive. But the exemption written for California-based manufacturers is a structural advantage that rewards where a company plants its headquarters flag rather than where it builds its products, and Tesla moved that flag to Texas.
Elon Musk
SpaceX’s newest logo confirms everything about what it’s become
SpaceX officially absorbed xAI under the SpaceXAI brand, completing the largest private merger in history.
SpaceX made its corporate transformation official in May 2026 when Elon Musk posted on X that xAI would cease to exist as a standalone company. “xAI will be dissolved as a separate company, so it will just be SpaceXAI, the AI products from SpaceX,” he wrote.
A new SpaceXAI logo was announced today, visually embedding the xAI letters inside the SpaceX identity, which can be seen as a deliberate design choice that signals the merger is not a partnership but a full absorption and XAi a core function of the same company. The same way Starlink is not a separate brand but a SpaceX product. The announcement closed the loop on a process that began February 2, 2026, when SpaceX acquired xAI in the largest private merger in history, valued at $1.25 trillion. SpaceX at $1 trillion and xAI at $250 billion.
We are now @SpaceXAI. pic.twitter.com/ema66xDWC9
— SpaceXAI (@SpaceXAI) July 6, 2026
The reason SpaceX bought xAI was stated plainly by Musk at the time of the deal: to build orbital data centers. SpaceX had simultaneously filed with the FCC to launch up to one million satellites designed to function as AI compute nodes in low Earth orbit, escaping what Musk described as the energy constraints limiting AI development on Earth.
xAI provided the AI software stack, with Grok, the X platform, and the Colossus supercomputer infrastructure in Memphis with over 220,000 NVIDIA GPUs, while SpaceX provided the rockets, Starlink, and the capital base to fund it. The two companies needed each other. xAI was burning $2.5 billion in losses on $250 million in revenue. SpaceX was generating an estimated $8 billion in profit on $15 billion in revenue and needed an AI narrative to command the valuation it was targeting for its IPO.
What SpaceX has done, regardless of how the orbital AI vision ultimately plays out, is walk into a public market as something no company has been before: a rocket manufacturer, satellite internet provider, AI software company, social media platform, and supercomputer operator under one ticker. Whether that combination is worth $2 trillion depends entirely on which of those businesses you believe in most.
Investor's Corner
Tesla challenges startups to score a gig inside its most advanced European factory
Tesla is challenging startups to bring their best battery tech directly to Gigafactory Berlin.
Tesla has issued an open challenge to startups across Europe, inviting them to bring their best battery technology directly to the floor of Gigafactory Berlin. The program, called the JUNI x Tesla Battery Cell Giga Challenge, opened applications this month with a deadline of July 24, 2026, and is targeting startups with solutions that can make battery cell manufacturing faster, cheaper, safer, and more scalable at an industrial level.
The timing of the challenge is directly tied to Tesla’s most aggressive European battery investment yet. On May 12, 2026, Giga Berlin plant manager André Thierig announced a $250 million investment to scale the factory’s annual 4680 cell production capacity from 8 GWh to 18 GWh, more than doubling the previous target set just months earlier in December 2025. Thierig confirmed the expansion on X, saying the investment “will enable 18 GWh of annual 4680 cell production and create more than 1,500 new jobs.” Combined with a previously announced battery investment at the Grunheide site now approaches $1.2 billion.
Today, we announced a $ 250m investment for our Giga Berlin Cell factory. This will enable 18GWh of annual 4680 cell production and create more than 1500 new jobs. Good news during challenging times for the German industry. pic.twitter.com/ou4SWMfWh9
— André Thierig (@AndrThie) May 12, 2026
The challenge is looking specifically for startups with proven solutions across five categories: materials, equipment, operations, automation, and artificial intelligence. Applications are screened directly by Tesla’s cell manufacturing team in Grunheide, and the strongest submissions move through technical discussions, a pitch day in front of Tesla stakeholders, and potentially a paid pilot project with the cell team. Tesla is not looking for ideas at concept stage. The program requires applicants to demonstrate working prototypes, test data, or prior pilots before being considered.
The historical context matters here. Elon Musk first announced plans for what he called the world’s largest battery cell production facility alongside the Giga Berlin car factory back in 2020, targeting up to 250 GWh of annual capacity. Those plans were shelved in 2022 when Tesla shifted its battery investment focus to the United States to take advantage of Inflation Reduction Act incentives. The revival of cell production at Giga Berlin, now backed by over $1 billion in committed capital, represents a return to an ambition that was set aside for three years. As Teslarati has reported, the 4680 format is central to Tesla’s long-term cost reduction strategy across vehicles, energy storage, including the Tesla Semi and Cybercab.
By opening the challenge to outside startups, Tesla is acknowledging that reaching 18 GWh at Grunheide will require technology it does not currently have in-house, and it is willing to pay for the right solutions. For a startup in the battery supply chain, a paid pilot with Tesla’s European cell team is as close to a direct commercial path as the industry offers.
California snubs Tesla in its newly passed EV incentive that favors Rivian and Lucid
SpaceX’s newest logo confirms everything about what it’s become
