Investor's Corner
Tesla’s strong Q3 financials catalyze price target increases from analysts
Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) posted an incredibly strong third quarter last evening during its Earnings Call, making remarkable strides on its financials to extend its profitable quarters streak to nine. Analysts at numerous Wall Street firms are upgrading their price targets on Tesla stock following the company’s strong numbers and positive outlook moving forward as it intends to ramp its Texas and Berlin Gigafactories in the coming months.
Wedbush – Dan Ives
Starting with some of Tesla’s most notable bulls, Wedbush’s Daniel Ives boosted his price target to $1,100 from $1,000 while maintaining an Outperform rating. “Last night, Tesla delivered solid top-line results which were in-line with expectations and speaks to a new Tesla margin story going forward,” Ives wrote to investors. “Auto GM was 30%+ and roughly 250 bps ahead of Street expectations which highlights the massive leverage in the Tesla story now starting to take hold with Giga China front and center as Tesla is on an EBITDA run-rate of roughly $13 billion, a staggering number given the company is still in the early stages of building out its global EV moat.”
Tesla’s demand increases, which have resulted in delivery estimates extending well into 2022 are going to be handled by Giga Berlin and Giga Texas. “We believe EV demand is outstripping supply for Tesla by roughly 30k units and the chip shortage has clearly amplified this dynamic with wait times for Model Y and some Model 3’s extending into the spring for current orders,” Ives said. “However, big supply help is on the way for Musk & Co. as the long the awaited Gigafactory hubs in Austin and Berlin are set to have are set to have the ribbon cut over the coming months and should expand Tesla’s capacity to roughly 2 million units annually over the next 18 months.
Ives has a $1,500 price target for Tesla’s bull case, up from the $1,300 target he previously held. TipRanks has Ives ranked 18 out of 7,705 analysts, with an average return of 37.5% and a success rate of 79%.
Canaccord Genuity – Jed Dorsheimer
Dorsheimer raised his price target from $940 to $1,040 while maintaining a Buy rating. “Post Tesla’s 3Q21, we are maintaining our BUY rating and increasing out PT to $1,040, which is based on 45x our ’24 Adj. EBITDA estimate of $25.9B (previously $940 based on 55x of $19B). We are bullish on the auto gross margin expansion, and remain excited for battery constraints to abate and be reallocated to energy products later in 2022,” Dorsheimer wrote. “After reporting record delivery numbers a few weeks ago, a beat may have been priced in and shares could see a ‘buy the rumor, sell the news’ type pull back. We would be buyers at these levels and if any pullback occurs.”
TipRanks has Dorsheimer ranked 210 out of 7,705 analysts, with an average return of 32.9% and a success rate of 56%.
Deutsche Bank – Emmanuel Rosner
Rosner raised his price target on Tesla from $900 to $1,000, maintaining his Buy rating. The impressive measure of automotive gross margins was indicative of a strong operational performance, despite industry challenges like semiconductor and parts shortages.
“Tesla reported particularly strong 3Q21 operating performance, delivering its highest auto gross margins since Model 3 was introduced, despite minimal S+X volume and higher supply chain costs, and impressive GAAP operating margin of 14.6% (18.4% ex-SBC), surpassing even its long-term company targets,” Rosner wrote. Tesla also stated that, despite its low volume, the Model S has returned to profitability.
“While revenue came in somewhat below expectations, this was driven mainly by lower regulatory credit and services/other contributions, while auto revenue was more in-line. We leave our 2021E deliveries unchanged at 845k, but take up our auto GM (ex credit) to nearly 27% from <26%, and EPS to $6.45 (from $6.20 previously).”
Rosner holds a ranking of 1,339 out of 7,705 analysts with a 57% success rate and an average return of 14.3%, according to TipRanks.
Disclosure: Joey Klender is a TSLA Shareholder.
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’
