Investor's Corner
Tesla crushes Q3 2019 results and returns to profitability
Tesla’s (NASDAQ:TSLA) third-quarter earnings for 2019 saw the electric car maker post $6.3 billion in revenue, meeting Wall Street estimates. The results, which were discussed at length in an Update Letter, were released after the closing bell on Wednesday, October 23.
The following are the key points in Tesla’s Q3 Update Letter.
EARNINGS
Tesla shareholders saw earnings per share of $1.91. In contrast, analysts polled by FactSet expected Tesla to report an adjusted quarterly loss of $0.46 a share for Q3 2019. Estimize, a crowdsourced platform that aggregates estimates from analysts, executives, fund managers, and academics, expected Tesla to report an adjusted loss of $0.29 per share.
REVENUE
Tesla reported revenue of $6.3 billion for the third quarter. Analysts polled by FactSet expected Tesla to report sales of $6.45 billion in the third quarter, while Estimize placed Tesla at a slightly more optimistic $6.60 billion.
Tesla Q3 results:
– Shanghai Giga ahead of schedule
– Model Y ahead of schedule
– Solar installs +48% from Q2
– GAAP profitable
– Positive free cash flow— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 23, 2019
RELATED: Top 5 things Tesla (TSLA) investors want to know from the Q3 2019 earnings call
Overall, Tesla’s results are a pleasant surprise for supporters of the electric car maker. Even CEO Elon Musk, after all, proved tempered with his expectations for the third quarter, stating during the second-quarter earnings call that he expects a small loss in Q3 2019. The company’s vehicle delivery figures in Q3 did not help this case, as the company was unable to meet Elon Musk’s internal goal of delivering 100,000 electric cars in the third quarter, delivering around 97,000 vehicles during the quarter.
TESLA MODEL Y PRODUCTION
Apart from its encouraging financials, Tesla also shared a number of optimistic updates for its vehicles and its budding Energy business. The Model Y, a crossover SUV that is expected to be even more popular than the widely-successful Tesla Model 3, has had its estimated deliveries move up to Summer 2020. During the vehicle’s unveiling, Musk proved conservative, giving an estimate of Fall 2020 (about a year from now) for the Model Y to begin customer deliveries.
GIGAFACTORY 3 PROGRESS
Tesla has also confirmed reports from China that Gigafactory 3 is progressing ahead of schedule. Previous reports from local media outlets have already hinted at this in recent months, and Tesla’s validation of these reports proved enough to shift the narrative back into the electric car maker’s favor.
“We are already producing full vehicles on a trial basis, from body, to paint and to general assembly, at Gigafactory Shanghai. We have cleared initial milestones toward our manufacturing license and are working towards finalizing the license and meeting other governmental requirements before we begin ramping production and delivery of vehicles from Shanghai,” Tesla stated.
TESLA SOLAR
Tesla’s Energy business also showed some growth in the third quarter. Long dormant and tempered compared to the company’s electric vehicle business, Tesla Energy has long been considered by skeptics as a neglected project. This has changed in the third quarter, with Tesla Solar installs moving up 48% compared to Q2 2019’s figures. These installations are further bolstered by new initiatives relating to the company’s energy business, such as the introduction of the Megapack, a massive 3 MW battery that could prove to be as disruptive as Tesla’s electric cars.
TESLA SEMI and GIGAFACTORY EUROPE
Tesla has been quite thin on updates surrounding the Tesla Semi, having focused more on Model 3. In its Q3 Update Letter, Tesla revealed that its all-electric long-hauler is poised to begin production in late 2020. An official announcement about the location of Gigafactory 4 in Europe is also expected to be released in 2021. “We are planning to produce limited volumes of Tesla Semi in 2020 and are hoping to announce soon the location of our European Gigafactory for production in 2021,” Tesla wrote.
As of writing, Tesla stock is up 21.03% at $ 308.25 per share in Thursday’s after-hours trading.
Following is Tesla’s Q3 2019 Update Letter.
Tesla Q3’19 Update Letter by Simon Alvarez on Scribd
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.
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:
“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
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.
Elon Musk
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.
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.
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%.
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.
Elon Musk
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.
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.”
Elon Musk in new interview: “Hold on to your $TSLA stock. It’s going to be worth a lot, I think. That’s my bet.” pic.twitter.com/cucirBuhq0
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) February 26, 2026
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.