Investor's Corner
Tesla (TSLA) short-sellers’ media publicity called out by high-profile finance veteran
The past few months have been challenging for Tesla and Elon Musk. As the company attempted to make progress in its efforts to ramp the production of the Model 3, a consistent stream of attacks from short-sellers and critics, as well as aftereffects of Musk’s own behavior on Twitter, have weighed heavily on Tesla stock.
Amidst the constant stream of negative reports against the company coming from mainstream media, James Anderson, co-manager of Scottish Mortgage and a senior partner at Baillie Gifford in Edinburgh, noted that while some of Elon Musk’s actions, particularly against British diver Vernon Unsworth, were “ethically unacceptable,” the CEO is not really one of the biggest problems of the company. Rather, it is the prevalent — and at times aggressive — attacks it consistently receives from critics and short-sellers.
Anderson was recently featured in a segment of Citywire Money, where he discussed Tesla’s expenses as it ramped the Model 3, the peculiar amount of publicity given to TSLA short-sellers, and Elon Musk’s actions online. The Baillie Gifford senior partner noted that it wasn’t particularly surprising to his firm that Telsa is spending a lot as it grows, considering that the electric car maker is “building a car company in a completely different way with a completely new technology.”
That being said, the financial industry veteran opted to call out the media coverage of Tesla’s short-sellers and critics, who have been given a surprisingly generous amount of publicity. Anderson noted that the media needs to ask itself a lot of questions, particularly regarding the rhetoric of TSLA short-sellers, as well as their “vicious” hypothesis against the electric car maker.
“I feel the media in general needs to ask itself a lot of questions – which is the extraordinary level of publicity given to the claims and rhetoric of the absolutely vicious short investment hypothesis and individuals behind them. I think that they are not to be viewed as a beneficial force for allowing a convenient avenue to attack over enthusiasm,” Anderson said.
The Scottish Mortgage co-manager further noted that while some of Elon Musk’s actions on Twitter were ethically unacceptable, it should be noted that the actions of some of the company’s short-sellers and critics against Tesla and Elon Musk are just as unethical.
“I think these people try and make their claims come true in ways that to me seem. I said Mr. Musk behaved unethically — I believe many of these people do as well, and I do wish that many of our most prominent media personalities and institutions would examine the claims and records of many of these people. And in some cases there is a lot of evidence through court cases of just how malignant they can be,” he said.
Anderson’s observations about the behavior and prevalence of Tesla’s critics in the media are quite accurate. Rarely does a day go by, after all, when Tesla sees few negative stories about its business, or about Elon Musk himself. Last week, for example, the departure of Tesla’s CAO ended up being augmented by Elon Musk’s single whiff of cannabis during a podcast, causing the company’s stock to drop.
Even small-time Tesla short-sellers are beginning to gain support from mainstream media. Late last month, Reuters published a report celebrating the sleuthing work being conducted by several TSLA shorts, including an anonymous Twitter user known for posting misogynistic, aggressive, and racist comments against Tesla supporters. Michelle Price, one of the writers of the piece, later clarified in a follow-up Twitter post that they did multiple and varied checks on the anonymous TSLA short that they featured before considering the person as a valid source.
As of writing, Tesla shares (NASDAQ:TSLA), in which Baillie Gifford holds a 7.8% stake and which accounts for 5% of Scottish Mortgage assets, is trading up 1.67% at $294.27 per share.
Disclosure: I have no ownership in shares of TSLA and have no plans to initiate any positions within 72 hours.
The Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan (OTPP) stands to reap one of the most extraordinary returns in pension fund history thanks to a bold 2019 investment in SpaceX.
According to a recent report from The Globe and Mail, the Toronto-based fund invested roughly $300 million CAD (~$220 million USD at the time) in Elon Musk’s space company as its inaugural deal through the Teachers’ Innovation Platform.
At SpaceX’s anticipated $1.75 trillion IPO valuation, set for a mid-June debut on Nasdaq under ticker $SPCX, that stake could now be worth up to $11.6 billion USD. This would represent a roughly 50x return and easily become OTPP’s most successful single investment ever.
The fund manages $279 billion in assets for approximately 346,000 working and retired teachers in Ontario, potentially delivering an average boost of around $33,500 per member if fully realized.
SpaceX has filed its S-1 and plans to price shares at $135 each, aiming to raise a record $75 billion in what would be the largest IPO in history, surpassing Saudi Aramco. The company reported $18.67 billion in revenue for 2025, driven primarily by Starlink satellite internet growth and NASA contracts, though it continues to post significant losses tied to ambitious R&D in Starship and AI initiatives.
Important pieces moving forward include:
- Starlink Expansion: The satellite broadband service is scaling rapidly, targeting global connectivity, especially in underserved rural and remote areas. This segment offers massive recurring revenue potential as numbers climb.
- Starship and Reusability Leadership: SpaceX’s fully reusable Starship aims to slash launch costs dramatically, enabling frequent missions, Mars ambitions, and lucrative government/defense contracts. Success here could unlock exponential growth.
- AI and Diversification: Recent moves, including ties to xAI, position SpaceX in high-growth AI infrastructure, broadening beyond traditional aerospace.
- Validation Scrutiny: While the $1.75 trillion target excites investors, analysts like Morningstar value the company closer to $780 billion, citing high multiples (around 90x trailing revenue) and execution risks. A 180-day lockup period will prevent early investors like OTPP from selling immediately post-IPO.
The irony has not been lost on observers. Ontario’s government previously canceled a Starlink rural internet contract amid political tensions involving Musk, yet the pension fund’s savvy investment, made when SpaceX was valued around $33-36 billion, and Starlink was nascent, delivers outsized gains independent of politics.
For OTPP, this windfall strengthens its already solid 111 percent funding ratio and underscores the value of patient, innovation-focused capital allocation.
For SpaceX, the IPO marks a new chapter: greater transparency, access to public markets for talent retention and growth capital, and heightened pressure to deliver on its multi-planetary vision.
All eyes are fixed on whether SpaceX can justify its lofty valuation through sustained execution. For Ontario teachers, the returns are already stellar, but SpaceX, like other Musk companies in the past, has plenty of things to prove. Perhaps the most ideal person for the job is at the helm, hoping to bring the company to a massive valuation.
Tesla has its answer to grow its automotive sales over the next few years, TD Cowen analyst Itay Michaeli says, but it just has to bring it to the U.S.
On Thursday, Michaeli reiterated his $490 price target and the ‘Buy’ rating he already held on Tesla stock (NASDAQ: TSLA). However, its automotive division has struggled to show sequential growth over the past few years, mostly due to its focus on AI and Full Self-Driving. Tesla already axed two of its lower-volume vehicles with the Model S and Model X earlier this year.
However, Tesla does not need to engineer an entire new vehicle to trigger an upward tick in sales; it just has to bring it from China to the U.S., Michaeli said.
He is talking about the Model Y L, a slightly larger version of the all-electric crossover that is already available in China. U.S. customers have been pleading with CEO Elon Musk to bring it to the country since its launch in Asia last year, but he’s not convinced of it because of the advent of self-driving and its importance in this particular market.
The problem is that Tesla owners have been requesting something larger that could fit a typical American family. The Model Y L is slightly larger than the standard Model Y, but some are concerned that it could still be too small to fit what most people might need.
Instead, they have asked for a full-size SUV from Tesla.
Tesla gives big hint that it will build Cyber SUV, smaller Cybertruck
Nevertheless, the Model Y L still presents a great opportunity for Tesla in the U.S., and Michaeli says that there is an additional sales opportunity of about 100,000 units, with demand potential falling somewhere between 60,000 and 135,000 units.
TD Cowen’s note to investors also analyzed that Tesla’s growth could come from a stock perspective as well, positively impacting the stock price, as it has been widely reliant on vehicle sales, even though Tesla has truly phased itself away from that being an important metric.
Tesla stands to gain greatly from the introduction of the Model Y L in the U.S., but only if Elon Musk sees it as a viable fit for the market. Families may need to see Tesla bring something larger to the U.S., or they might be forced to buy from another automaker that offers something that fits is needs for more interior space to haul around the kids.
Elon Musk
SpaceXAI just launched into your kitchen with their new app
SpaceXAI just powered its first consumer app and it predicts what you want to buy.
SpaceXAI just made its first move into consumer AI, and it involves your grocery cart. On June 3, 2026, Gopuff and SpaceXAI announced the launch of Go, a Grok-powered shopping assistant built directly into the Gopuff app that predicts what you need before you even start searching for it.
Gopuff is an instant delivery platform that operates more than 400 micro-fulfillment centers across the U.S., delivering everyday essentials, snacks, drinks, and household items in as little as 15 minutes. It is not a restaurant delivery app or a marketplace. It owns its inventory, controls its warehouses, and handles its own logistics, which means it has built one of the most detailed consumer behavior datasets in retail over its 13-year history.
Go combines SpaceXAI’s advanced reasoning, voice, and image generation models with Gopuff’s dataset of hundreds of millions of orders and real-time cultural signals from X to prepare a suggested cart the moment a customer opens the app. It learns each shopper’s habits and automatically builds a personalized cart based on time of day, location, order history, and real-time indicators. Returning customers can check out with a single tap.
Rather than searching for specific items, users can describe a situation like a game-day party or the desire for a healthy breakfast and Go will assemble a cart automatically. It can also predict when shoppers are running low on items like coffee or paper towels and have them packed and delivered in under 15 minutes. Grok voice integration lets users talk to the app in plain conversational language and check out completely hands-free.
Gopuff co-founder and co-CEO Yakir Gola said: “Today, we believe the greatest friction left in commerce is not delivery or instantaneous access to the essentials customers need. It’s the moment before: the thinking, the deciding, the remembering. We’re combining Gopuff’s demand intelligence with xAI’s frontier reasoning to create an everyday shopping experience that feels like a true extension of you.”
Why SpaceX just made a $60 billion bet on AI coding ahead of historic IPO
The timing carries context beyond the product launch. SpaceXAI was formed after SpaceX completed an all-stock merger with Elon Musk’s xAI earlier this year, folding one of the most advanced AI labs in the world into the same corporate structure as the company preparing what could be the largest IPO in history. SpaceXAI is dipping into consumer-focused AI just as it prepares for its public debut, and while Musk has openly discussed building an everything app, this launch uses Grok to power another company’s product rather than launching a standalone consumer platform. Every consumer-facing deployment of Grok ahead of the IPO roadshow adds tangible evidence that SpaceXAI is not just an infrastructure play but a direct competitor in the AI application layer where OpenAI and Google are already fighting for dominance.
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