Investor's Corner
Tesla selects Oracle founder as new board member in “home run” appointment
Tesla shares (NASDAQ:TSLA) are up on Friday amidst the company’s appointment of Oracle Corp. founder Larry Ellison and Walgreens Boots Alliance’s Global Chief Human Resources Officer Kathleen Wilson-Thompson as the newest members of its board of directors. Wall Street appears to have responded well to Tesla’s selection, with analysts dubbing it as a “home run” and as a “strong step forward” for Elon Musk and Tesla.
In a note on Friday, Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives, who has an “Outperform” rating and a $440 price target on TSLA stock, described Ellison as a “home run appointment” for the electric carmaker. The Wall Street analyst also noted that Wilson-Thompson, with her extensive experience in human resources, is a “second impressive” independent director. Ives further remarked that the new appointments would likely help Tesla navigate through challenges in the coming years.
“Given Ellison’s stature in tech circles, strong reputation in the Valley and on the Street, and vast accomplishments at Oracle among other achievements over the past 40 years, the addition of Mr. Ellison on the board, in our opinion, is another key step forward for Tesla and Musk as the company starts to build an independent and well-regarded board that can help the company navigate through transformational opportunities in the electric vehicle market over the coming years with competition and production complexity a key factor that needs to be handled without a major speed bump,” the analyst wrote.
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- Larry Ellison (Photo: Tesla)
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- Kathleen-Wilson-Thompson (Photo: Tesla)
Tesla’s two new board members, Oracle Corp. founder Larry Ellison and Walgreens Boots Alliance’s Global Chief Human Resources Officer Kathleen Wilson-Thompson. (Photos: Tesla)
Loup Ventures Managing Partner Gene Munster is also optimistic about Tesla’s new members of the board. In a post on the financial firm’s website, Munster stated that the new appointments are a “strong step forward” for the electric car maker. The executive added that Ellison, in particular, would boost Tesla, since he could be considered “a rare peer to Elon Musk,” in the way that he built Oracle — one of the world’s largest and most prolific tech companies today — from the ground up.
“In many ways, Larry was “Elon” before Elon was Elon. Or maybe Elon is the new Larry — the boldest of tech entrepreneurs. Either way, we see Ellison as someone that may be able to influence Musk when he veers into unhelpful or unhealthy territory,” Munster wrote.
Tesla critics would be quick to point out that Musk and Ellison are portrayed as friends. That said, Munster expects Ellison’s personal friendship with Musk to not get in the way of his professional responsibilities at Tesla. The Oracle founder, after all, previously served on the board of Apple from 1997-2002, where he worked with Steve Jobs, one of his closest friends.
While Ellison’s addition to Tesla’s board of directors is worthy of headlines on its own, Munster noted that Kathleen Wilson-Thompson also brings a particularly important skill set to the electric car maker’s top executives. Wilson-Thompson has extensive experience in HR, which would likely come in handy considering that Tesla is facing some degree of talent drain, partly due to Musk’s style and his behavior. The Loup Ventures managing partner stated that ultimately, Wilson-Thompson’s presence in the board could very well be “influential in helping the company add new talent, which will be critical in building a sustainable organization.”
In a blog post, Tesla’s board of directors have expressed their support for the appointment of the two new members.
“In conducting a widespread search over the last few months, we sought to add independent directors with skills that would complement the current board’s experience. In Larry and Kathleen, we have added a preeminent entrepreneur and a human resources leader, both of whom have a passion for sustainable energy,” the board wrote.
The addition of Ellison and Wilson-Thompson stands as part of Elon Musk’s settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which filed a lawsuit against the CEO over his now-infamous tweet last August, where he stated that he was considering taking Tesla private at $420 per share and that he had “funding secured.” Under the settlement’s terms, Musk was required to step down as the Chairman of the Board. Tesla was also required to appoint two new independent board members, on top of a $40 million fine. Back in November, Tesla appointed a new Chair to the board, in the form of longtime board member Robyn Denholm, who has experience in both the tech and the finance industry.
As of writing, Tesla shares are trading +4.45% at $330.19 per share.
Disclosure: I have no ownership in shares of TSLA and have no plans to initiate any positions within 72 hours.
Elon Musk
SpaceX (SPCX) IPO is live today at $135: Here’s exactly what you need to know
SpaceX priced its historic IPO at $135 per share today, raising a record $75 billion.
SpaceX officially priced its initial public offering at $135 per share, offering 555,555,555 shares of Class A common stock and raising $75 billion in what is the largest IPO in stock market history. Shares are set to begin trading on the Nasdaq Global Select Market on Friday, June 12, under the ticker symbol SPCX. The previous record holder was Saudi Aramco’s 2019 offering at $29 billion, followed by Alibaba’s $22 billion offering in 2014.
At $135 per share and roughly 555.6 million shares, the implied valuation sits near $1.75 trillion, which would make SpaceX roughly the seventh largest company in the United States, just above Tesla’s current market cap. Regular investors can request shares at the IPO price through Robinhood, Fidelity, Charles Schwab, SoFi, and E*TRADE, though the deal is heavily oversubscribed and most retail allocations will be partial or unfilled. Once trading opens June 12, anyone with a brokerage account can buy SPCX on the open market.
SpaceX’s amended S-1 is sparking a major Tesla merger conversation
The valuation is anchored primarily by Starlink. Starlink crossed 10 million subscribers as of February 2026 and is adding 750,000 to 1.5 million new users per month, with the connectivity segment already posting a $1.19 billion profit last quarter. The offering also bundles in xAI following SpaceX’s all-stock merger earlier this year, adding Grok and the Colossus supercomputer to the investment thesis. As Teslarati reported, Starlink ended 2025 with $10 billion in revenue, a figure analysts project could reach $24 billion by end of 2026.
Wedbush analyst Dan Ives has been vocal in his support. “I think the time is right,” Ives said, adding that the offering expands the Elon Musk ecosystem rather than competing with Tesla. An average 12-month price target of $165 per share represents roughly 22% upside from the IPO price. Not everyone agrees – Motley Fool noted xAI is spending $1 billion per month playing catch-up to OpenAI and Anthropic.
Musk founded SpaceX in 2002 with a single stated purpose. “Elon founded SpaceX with a goal to change humanity, to make us a multi-planet species,” CFO Bret Johnsen said in the company’s retail roadshow video this week. Musk himself has been more direct: “We are building the systems and technologies necessary to provide global connectivity on Earth and beyond, to understand the true nature of the universe, and to extend the light of consciousness to the stars.”
Investor's Corner
Tesla unfolded its first European “folding Supercharger”
Tesla’s folding Supercharger just arrived in Europe and it changes how fast charging expands.
Tesla’s Folding Unit Supercharger has officially landed in Europe, with the company teasing a new installation in its effort for a broader rollout targeting major motorway rest stops across the European continent in Q3 2026. The arrival marks a notable shift in how Tesla is thinking about network expansion, moving from hardware performance alone to engineering the logistics chain itself.
While Tesla did not reveal the exact location for the new folding Supercharger in Europe, the photo shared on X heavily suggests that this maybe somewhere in Norway. Historically, whenever Tesla rolls out an entirely new infrastructure architecture in Europe, whether it was the original Supercharger stalls years ago or these brand-new modular V4 “Folding Units”, Norway is almost always the designated launch pad because of its unmatched EV adoption rate and supportive infrastructure
The Folding Unit, introduced in March 2026, is a factory pre-assembled V4 charging station built on an industrial hinge system mounted to a heavy-duty concrete base. The entire assembly arrives on site ready to unfold and connect. Tesla confirmed the units feature telescopic light poles specifically designed for easy transportation and fast on-site deployment, a detail that signals how carefully the logistics chain has been engineered alongside the hardware itself. The design allows 33% more stalls per delivery truck, cuts installation time roughly in half, and reduces overall deployment costs by more than 20% compared to traditional installations.
Tesla’s newest “Folding V4 Superchargers” are key to its most aggressive expansion yet
Tesla also noted telescopic light poles which provide benefits over traditional Supercharger installations that require fixed-height poles that are awkward to ship, slow to position on site, and often require separate crews and equipment to erect before charging hardware can even be staged. By engineering poles that compress for transit and extend on arrival, Tesla has removed one of the quieter bottlenecks in the physical deployment process. Every hour saved on a light pole installation is an hour redirected toward getting stalls energized. At scale, across dozens of new sites per quarter, those hours add up to a meaningful acceleration in how quickly a location goes from approved permit to serving its first customer.
Each Folding Unit pairs a single V4 power cabinet with eight charging posts. The V4 cabinet delivers up to 500 kW per stall for passenger vehicles and up to 1.2 MW for the Tesla Semi, supporting twice the stalls per cabinet at three times the power density of its predecessor. Longer cables make every new station immediately usable by non-Tesla vehicles, a priority as Tesla continues opening its network to Ford, GM, Rivian, Hyundai, Stellantis, and others.
As Teslarati reported when the Folding Unit was first unveiled, Tesla’s Gigafactory New York produced its final V3 Supercharger cabinet in March 2026 after more than seven years and 15,000 units, completing a full pivot to V4 production. The European arrival of the folding design is the next chapter in that transition.
Faster and cheaper deployment means Tesla can justify building in markets and corridors that were previously too expensive to serve, filling the coverage gaps that have slowed EV adoption outside major urban centers.
First Folding Unit Superchargers in Europe 🇪🇺 https://t.co/KNfYWJukkL pic.twitter.com/YR1udIpH1i
— Tesla Charging (@TeslaCharging) June 10, 2026
Tesla Full Self-Driving (Supervised) is currently listed as a Level 2 suite in terms of its passenger cars. As its Robotaxi platform continues to move quickly, it has been recognized as a Level 4 ride-sharing program by the State of Texas, as Tesla recently self-certified itself.
However, a Wall Street analyst is arguing that Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) has effectively achieved Level 4 autonomy in most conditions in all of its vehicles, drawing on personal experience and data released by the company.
Alex Potter of Piper Sandler said in a note to investors on Wednesday that “Tesla has solved the self-driving puzzle,” pointing to decisions to offer insurance discounts for FSD-enabled policies as a signal of confidence, which is backed up by stellar safety records compared to human driving.
Investing.com initially reported on Potter’s new note.
Additionally, Potter looks at the recent start of Cybercab production at Giga Texas as a potential indication that Tesla is ready to offer some level of unsupervised driving at least in the near future. The Cybercab has no steering wheel or pedals, completely eliminating the ability for human input.
He also sees Tesla’s allocation of “several hundred million USD (if not $1B+)” as confidence internally, seeing as it would be tough to set aside that amount of capital toward a project that the company does not see as relatively near-term.
Forward thinking, especially as Cybercab has no human controls, it would make sense that Tesla is at least close to self-driving. How close is another question.
Tesla has routinely teased that unsupervised FSD is close, but there are still a lot of things it feels as if the company has to roll out some more capability, including unsupervised parking features, known as “Banish,” better operation with regional self-driving performance, and other improvements.
That is not to say that Tesla FSD is super impressive already. It has already completed coast-to-coast drives across the United States and Canada, it routinely takes the stress out of driving for most people, and it has proven through Tesla Safety Reports that it is safer and involved in accidents less frequently than humans.
🚨 These are the first-ever FSD safety statistics out of the Netherlands, showing it was over 3.5x safer than human driving on Dutch roads.
The most recent numbers out of Tesla for North America show:
-Over 5.5 million miles between accidents for Teslas using FSD
-660k miles… https://t.co/XKlRzgSGEh pic.twitter.com/HX6kzh0ZKc— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) June 9, 2026
Even Potter believes it is capable, as he used it to go from Missoula, Montana, to Minneapolis, Minnesota, back in April.
“There’s no substitute for personal experience,” he wrote.
SpaceX (SPCX) IPO is live today at $135: Here’s exactly what you need to know
Tesla unfolded its first European “folding Supercharger”
