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Tesla shares rise amid positive analyst outlook after Gigafactory tour, Chinese rival’s underwhelming IPO

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Tesla shares (NASDAQ:TSLA) are rising on Wednesday’s intraday, trading as high as $291.31 per share amid encouraging updates from analysts after a tour of Gigafactory 1, as well as seemingly improved investor sentiments over the company’s updates in management.

Tesla shares took a big blow last Friday amidst reports of former Chief Accounting Officer David H. Morton’s departure from the company after being on the job for just two months. Chief People Officer Gabrielle Toledano also announced that she would not be returning to the company after her ongoing leave. On top of this, CEO Elon Musk courted controversy once more after he seemingly smoked cannabis during a podcast with comedian Joe Rogan.

Amidst the noise from the latest executive departures and Elon Musk’s most recent controversy, Tesla stock saw some recovery on Monday. Baird analyst Ben Kallo, for one, gave the company a “Buy” rating over what he believed were the company’s improving fundamentals this Q3. Kallo also noted that last Friday’s sharp decline in Tesla stock’s price seemed to be a “mispricing.”

Tuesday saw the release of a note from Worm Capital analysts Eric Markowitz and Dan Crowley, who recently went on a tour of Tesla’s Gigafactory 1 in Nevada. The analysts’ note included several compelling updates from Martin Viecha, head of Tesla’s investor relations, who answered questions about the company’s battery tech, its software, and its upcoming vehicles. Viecha, for one, noted that Tesla is on track to achieve a battery cell cost of $100 per kWh by the end of the year, provided that commodity prices remain stable. The Tesla head of investor relations also stated that Tesla would be receiving machines from Grohmann Engineering which would aid the company in producing batteries more quickly and cost-effectively. Updates for the Tesla Semi and the $35,000 base Model 3 were also given. 

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While the encouraging updates from the Worm Capital analysts were noteworthy, investor sentiments appear to be improving for Tesla as well, particularly after it was announced that longtime problem-solver Jerome Guillen would now be serving as the company’s Head of Automotive, reporting directly to Elon Musk. Guillen is among the most hands-on of Tesla’s longtime executives, known for personally responding to early customers of the Model S during the vehicle’s initial rollout. Guillen appears to be a perfect fit for Tesla’s electric car business, and his promotion could serve as a reassurance for investors regarding Elon Musk being overstretched by his workload and responsibilities in the company.

Wednesday also saw the rather underwhelming IPO of NIO, a highly-anticipated Tesla rival from China. NIO is among the electric car makers that are expected to provide competition to Tesla, to the point where the company’s CEO is fondly dubbed as “The Elon Musk of China.” Among NIO’s first entries into the electric car segment is the ES8, a pure-electric, seven-seater SUV that is seen as a potential rival to the Tesla Model X.

A person familiar with the company’s IPO proceedings informed Reuters that NIO had initially hoped for a valuation of as much as $20 billion. Unfortunately for the company, the ongoing trade tensions between the United States and China, as well as its ongoing cash burn as it attempted to ramp the ES8’s production, weighed down the electric car maker’s IPO. NIO ultimately priced its shares at $6.26, just above the low end of its $6.25-$8.25 target price range. The company sold $1 billion in shares in the IPO, which still made it the third-largest US listing by a Chinese company this 2018.

Similar to Tesla, NIO incurred a significant net loss during the first half of the year, with the company incurring a net loss of $502.6 million on $6.95 million in revenues in the first six months of 2018. NIO noted that as of the end of August, it had delivered about 1,600 units of the ES8, and it still had another 15,778 unfulfilled reservations for the vehicle.

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As of writing, Tesla shares are up 3.3% at $288.66 per share. 

Disclosure: I have no ownership in shares of TSLA and have no plans to initiate any positions within 72 hours. 

Simon is an experienced automotive reporter with a passion for electric cars and clean energy. Fascinated by the world envisioned by Elon Musk, he hopes to make it to Mars (at least as a tourist) someday. For stories or tips--or even to just say a simple hello--send a message to his email, simon@teslarati.com or his handle on X, @ResidentSponge.

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Investor's Corner

Tesla gets tip of the hat from major Wall Street firm on self-driving prowess

“Tesla is at the forefront of autonomous driving, supported by a camera-only approach that is technically harder but much cheaper than the multi-sensor systems widely used in the industry. This strategy should allow Tesla to scale more profitably compared to Robotaxi competitors, helped by a growing data engine from its existing fleet,” BoA wrote.

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla received a tip of the hat from major Wall Street firm Bank of America on Wednesday, as it reinitiated coverage on Tesla shares with a bullish stance that comes with a ‘Buy’ rating and a $460 price target.

In a new note that marks a sharp reversal from its neutral position earlier in 2025, the bank declared Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) technology the “leading consumer autonomy solution.”

Analysts highlighted Tesla’s camera-only architecture, known as Tesla Vision, as a strategic masterstroke. While technically more challenging than the multi-sensor setups favored by rivals, the vision-based approach is dramatically cheaper to produce and maintain.

This cost edge, combined with Tesla’s rapidly expanding real-world data engine, positions the company to scale robotaxis far more profitably than competitors, BofA argues in the new note:

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“Tesla is at the forefront of autonomous driving, supported by a camera-only approach that is technically harder but much cheaper than the multi-sensor systems widely used in the industry. This strategy should allow Tesla to scale more profitably compared to Robotaxi competitors, helped by a growing data engine from its existing fleet.”

The bank now attributes roughly 52% of Tesla’s total valuation to its Robotaxi ambitions. It also flagged meaningful upside from the Optimus humanoid robot program and the fast-growing energy storage business, suggesting the auto segment’s recent headwinds, including expired incentives, are being eclipsed by these higher-margin opportunities.

Tesla’s own data underscores exactly why Wall Street is waking up to FSD’s potential. According to Tesla’s official safety reporting page, the FSD Supervised fleet has now surpassed 8.4 billion cumulative miles driven.

Tesla FSD (Supervised) fleet passes 8.4 billion cumulative miles

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That total ballooned from just 6 million miles in 2021 to 80 million in 2022, 670 million in 2023, 2.25 billion in 2024, and a staggering 4.25 billion in 2025 alone. In the first 50 days of 2026, owners added another 1 billion miles — averaging more than 20 million miles per day.

This avalanche of real-world, camera-captured footage, much of it on complex city streets, gives Tesla an unmatched training dataset. Every mile feeds its neural networks, accelerating improvement cycles that lidar-dependent rivals simply cannot match at scale.

Tesla owners themselves will tell you the suite gets better with every release, bringing new features and improvements to its self-driving project.

The $460 target implies roughly 15 percent upside from recent trading levels around $400. While regulatory and safety hurdles remain, BofA’s endorsement signals growing institutional conviction that Tesla’s data advantage is not hype; it’s a tangible moat already delivering billions of miles of proof.

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SpaceX IPO could push Elon Musk’s net worth past $1 trillion: Polymarket

The estimates were shared by the official Polymarket Money account on social media platform X.

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Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Recent projections have outlined how a potential $1.75 trillion SpaceX IPO could generate historic returns for early investors. The projections suggest the offering would not only become the largest IPO in history but could also result in unprecedented windfalls for some of the company’s key investors.

The estimates were shared by the official Polymarket Money account on social media platform X.

As noted in a Polymarket Money analysis, Elon Musk invested $100 million into SpaceX in 2002 and currently owns approximately 42% of the company. At a $1.75 trillion valuation following SpaceX’s potential $1.75 trillion IPO, that stake would be worth roughly $735 billion.

Such a figure would dramatically expand Musk’s net worth. When combined with his holdings in Tesla Inc. and other ventures, a public debut at that level could position him as the world’s first trillionaire, depending on market conditions at the time of listing.

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The Bloomberg Billionaires Index currently lists Elon Musk with a net worth of $666 billion, though a notable portion of this is tied to his TSLA stock. Tesla currently holds a market cap of $1.51 trillion, and Elon Musk’s currently holds about 13% to 15% of the company’s outstanding common stock.

Founders Fund, co-founded by Peter Thiel, invested $20 million in SpaceX in 2008. Polymarket Money estimates the firm owns between 1.5% and 3% of the private space company. At a $1.75 trillion valuation, that range would translate to approximately $26.25 billion to $52.5 billion in value.

That return would represent one of the most significant venture capital outcomes in modern Silicon Valley history, with a growth of 131,150% to 262,400%.

Alphabet Inc., Google’s parent company, invested $900 million into SpaceX in 2015 and is estimated to hold between 6% and 7% of the private space firm. At the projected IPO valuation, that stake could be worth between $105 billion and $122.5 billion. That’s a growth of 11,566% to 14,455%.

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Other major backers highlighted in the post include Fidelity Investments, Baillie Gifford, Valor Equity Partners, Bank of America, and Andreessen Horowitz, each potentially sitting on multibillion-dollar gains.

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Elon Musk hints Tesla investors will be rewarded heavily

“Hold onto your Tesla stock. It’s going to be worth a lot, I think. That’s my bet,” Musk said.

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Credit: Grok

Elon Musk recently hinted that he believes Tesla investors will be rewarded heavily if they continue to hold onto their shares, and he reiterated that in a new interview that the company released on its social accounts this week.

Musk is one of the most successful CEOs in the modern era and has mammothed competitors on the Forbes Net Worth List over the past year as his holdings in his various companies have continued to swell.

Tesla investors, especially those who have been holding shares for several years, have also felt substantial gains in their portfolios. Over the past five years, the stock is up over 78 percent. Since February 2019, nearly seven years ago to the day, the stock is up over 1,800 percent.

Musk said in the interview:

“Hold onto your Tesla stock. It’s going to be worth a lot, I think. That’s my bet.”

It’s no secret Musk has been extremely bullish on his own companies, but Tesla in particular, because it is publicly traded.

However, the company has so many amazing projects that have an opportunity to revolutionize their respective industries. There is certainly a path to major growth on Wall Street for Tesla through its various future projects, including Optimus, Cybercab, Semi, and Unsupervised FSD.

  • Optimus (Tesla’s humanoid robot): Musk has discussed its potential for tasks like childcare, walking dogs, or assisting elderly parents, positioning it as a massive long-term driver of company value.
  • Cybercab (Tesla’s robotaxi/autonomous ride-hailing vehicle): a fully autonomous vehicle geared specifically for Tesla’s ride-sharing ambitions.
  • Semi (Tesla’s electric truck, with mentions of expansion, like in Europe): brings Tesla into the commercial logistics sector.
  • Unsupervised FSD (Full Self-Driving software achieving full autonomy without human supervision): turns every Tesla owner’s vehicle into a fully-autonomous vehicle upon release

These projects specifically are some of the highest-growth pillars Tesla has ever attempted to develop, especially in Musk’s eyes, as he has said Optimus will be the best-selling product of all-time.

Many analysts agree, but the bullish ones, like Cathie Wood of ARK Invest, are perhaps the one who believes Tesla has incredible potential on Wall Street, predicting a $2,600 price target for 2030, but this is not even including Optimus.

She told Bloomberg last March that she believes that the project will present a potential additive if Tesla can scale faster than anticipated.

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