Investor's Corner
Jim Cramer gives inside look at how a Tesla skeptic turns into a TSLA bull
If one were to watch some videos about Tesla back in 2010, one would probably encounter videos of Mad Money host Jim Cramer advising long term investors to stay away from the electric car maker. For a while, Cramer was a Tesla skeptic, at some points even trading barbs with Elon Musk on Twitter. But eventually, Cramer announced that he was no longer bearish against the company, and since then, he has become one of TSLA’s most vocal bulls.
In a recent conversation with Rob Maurer of the Tesla Daily podcast, Cramer shared the inside story behind his change from a bearish skeptic into a full-on TSLA bull. According to the Wall Street veteran, his shift has been nothing short of a religious conversion, and it involved experiences with his daughter, wife, and close friends in the financial sphere.
The Mad Money host noted that one of his initial experiences with Tesla involved his daughter, who drove from Oregon to California. Cramer noted that his daughter was not a car person at all, but she proved very enthusiastic about the all-electric car. This is quite remarkable, as Cramer noted that Tesla essentially turned his daughter into a car enthusiast.
“I think what happened was basically a religious conversion. I went out to California. My daughter had just driven a Tesla from Oregon from where she was living to Los Angeles, and she talked about charging, talked about how fun it was, talked about the flatulence button, and said, you know, ‘Dad, I’ve been driving for 12 years, I’ve never cared about what I drove. It’s never been important.’ She had a beat-up 2008 Ford Fiesta that she’d been driving. She just wasn’t a car person. But Tesla made her into a car person,” he said.
The same enthusiasm over Tesla’s vehicles was interestingly shared by his wife, according to Cramer. Unlike his daughter, his wife is an avid car person, and she loved the company’s all-electric vehicles. But ultimately, the experience that truly changed the Mad Money host’s mind about Tesla was a drive he had with two friends who were Tesla owners. Cramer noted that when he mentioned what he believed were weaknesses in Tesla’s financials, his friend, who was a former CFO, pointed out that the company could raise $2 billion in a snap. That, according to Cramer, was his conversion.
“Then I went out to see a couple of friends of mine. One an executive in a Silicon Valley company, another, a former CFO, and they had all Teslas. And my wife, who is a complete car person, I mean a nut car person, just loves it. Her favorite thing is a ’94 Range Rover that she has. She said, ‘This is it.’ She drove it, and she said, ‘This is it.’ Now we have not bought one yet because she’s frugal enough to be able to say ‘Listen, Jim, you should buy it because you live in Summit, New Jersey, and you can use it as a go-around car.’
“But when I was driving with it, (with) the person who was a retired CFO, I said ‘You know what, my daughter loves it, my wife loves it, it’s so cool, but they don’t have the financials that make it so that I can recommend it at 260 (per share).’ And he looked at me and goes ‘Jim, they could raise $2 billion (just) like that.’ That was a religious conversion. The conversion was right there. Because then, I knew that the balance sheet was not in question,” he said.
Ultimately, Cramer stated that it came to the point where he realized that it was futile to fight progress. And as it turned out, his bullish turn proved to be the correct decision. According to the Mad Money host, surrendering and recommending Tesla became his best call this year. “I said, what am I doing? Why am I fighting progress? So I surrendered, and it’s the best call I’ve made this year.”
Watch Jim Cramer and Rob Maurer’s Tesla recent discussion in the video below.
Investor's Corner
Tesla gets its latest short from Michael Burry: ‘Happy it jumped back to this level’
Tesla short seller Michael Burry, the subject of the film “The Big Short,” where he was portrayed by Steve Carell, has revealed he has opened a new bet against the stock.
In a new update to his Substack newsletter in a post titled “Trading Post June 30, 2026,” Burry revealed a new set of bets against Tesla, Caterpillar, NVIDIA, Applied Materials Inc., and the iShares Semiconductor ETF.
In regard to Tesla, Burry wrote:
“And finally I shorted Tesla at 416.22. Happy it jumped back to this level.”
This means Burry likely opened his new short position after the company’s recent rally on Wall Street, which saw Tesla shares sink in mid-May, only to recover to well over the $400 mark. Currently, shares trade at around $427.
The company saw a big Tuesday as shares climbed considerably, over 10 percent. The size of the Tesla short was not provided, nor did Burry give any information on the position’s structure, the number of shares, dollar value, or whether options were used in the short.
The Tesla and SpaceX merger everyone is talking about is quietly building
Over the years, Burry has been one of the more vocal critics of Tesla, calling its share price “media inflated,” and saying it was “ridiculously overvalued” as recently as December.
The company has largely transitioned away from being known as an automotive company and instead is much more widely regarded as an AI play, mostly due to its Full Self-Driving efforts, Optimus robot development, and data collection related to both.
This has not pulled those skeptics away from being vocal about their distaste for how Tesla is valued, but there’s no denying that the company is a global force in many things, including sustainable energy, automotive, and AI.
Wedbush Securities is initiating stock coverage on SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX), marking the first comments on the company since it went public several weeks ago. Wedbush and its analyst handling coverage, Dan Ives, are widely bullish on fellow Musk company Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA).
Ives wrote his first note initiating coverage of SpaceX shares on Wednesday with a $190 price target and an ‘Outperform’ rating. The firm believes the company is well positioned off of its IPO because of its wide array of projects, including AI compute power and infrastructure, connectivity projects, and launches.
“We view SpaceX as one of the most differentiated assets within the tech market with a strong footprint across its three core markets, with Starlink driving success with connectivity,” Ives wrote, “Starship launches leading to a demand flywheel and increasing deal flow for its Colossus clusters.”
Elon Musk called it Epic: The full story of SpaceX’s Starship Flight 12
Wedbush leans heavily on Starlink, which they say is the “profitability driver given the strength of its recurring revenue base of ~12 million subscribers as of June 5th.” Ives believes Starlink is still in the “early innings” of penetrating the global telecommunications and broadband market, as it only holds less than a 1 percent share. However, this number is sure to increase over time.
It also highlights the importance of Starship, which it says is an “essential layer” of SpaceX’s overall success. SpaceX developing and displaying the ability to reuse rockets is a major cost and reliability advantage “as it reduces the necessary hardware launch costs while generating a feedback loop for future flights to improve their launch flight rate without accelerating capex spend.”
Finally, SpaceX’s recent AI/Compute projects are also very elementary, Ives writes. It is worth mentioning Wedbush said its $190 price target is derived from a valuation forecast that sees the company yielding roughly $2.48 trillion of implied enterprise value.
There are also some factors that Wedbush did not take into account with its initial coverage. The firm wrote in the note:
“We note that there is optional value coming from Starship’s accelerating scale towards sub-$200/kg unit economics, orbital data centers, and enterprise AI monetization as these factors could drive meaningful upside but these face major hurdles, so we do not take that into account with our valuation.”
SpaceX shares are down just over 2 percent today, trading at around $167 at the time of publication.
For years, there have been images and videos across social media platforms that have reminded me of when I was a 15-year-old kid teased by “Xbox 720” videos on YouTube. These videos are of the supposed “Tesla Phone” that Elon Musk was secretly developing in between leading Tesla with its electric cars and SpaceX with its reusable rockets.
Would you buy a Tesla phone ? pic.twitter.com/aaTwvvIJit
— Tesla Owners Silicon Valley (@teslaownersSV) October 6, 2023
Although Musk has put those rumors to bed several times, it was never completely out of the realm that he could get involved in cell phones in some capacity. Think outside the box and more macro-level, though. Instead of reinventing the computer, Musk reinvented connectivity by developing Starlink with SpaceX.
It could be something similar, TD Cowen analyst Gregory Williams said in a note last week, where he hinted SpaceX could be gathering some steam to acquire T-Mobile.
Williams said it would be the “clear choice” for SpaceX if it decided to go through with a network acquisition. He also suggested AT&T.
The move would be possible through selling more of its own stock, which would help SpaceX raise the money to purchase T-Mobile, which would cost roughly $300 billion. It could be one of the moves SpaceX makes post-IPO in terms of an acquisition: it already acquired Cursor AI for $60 billion.
Other analysts, like Dan Ives of Wedbush, believe SpaceX and Tesla will eventually merge into one anyway, and that conglomeration could come as soon as this year, some have said.
The implications of SpaceX purchasing T-Mobile are massive. A combined entity would create a truly ubiquitous network: T-Mobile’s terrestrial 5G towers and Starlink’s growing constellation of Direct-to-Cell satellites. This would essentially eliminate dead zones across the U.S. and potentially globally.
SpaceX would instantly become a full-scale facilities-based carrier with satellite differentiation; a huge advantage. This would pressure AT&T and Verizon heavily.
There are also concerns like a potential reduction in long-term competition, and of course, a deal of that size would face intense scrutiny from government agencies.
The strategic fit is compelling due to the existing Starlink–T-Mobile partnership and complementary technologies (space + terrestrial). It could create a dominant integrated communications player. However, the regulatory, financial, and execution hurdles are enormous — this remains highly speculative with no indication SpaceX is actively pursuing it right now.
Tesla Optimus project fires up as Musk sees production line progress
Tesla gets its latest short from Michael Burry: ‘Happy it jumped back to this level’
