Investor's Corner
Tesla (TSLA) rallies +4.5% as Wall Street shrugs off Q4 delivery miss
While the initial after market reaction to the miss in Q4 2016 production and deliveries was negative, reaction from Wall Street tell a different story as the company’s stock (Nasdaq: TSLA) quickly rallied to a 4.5% gain.
We’ve provided some market reactions from analysts watching the stock.
Colin Rusch from Oppenheimer reiterated a Hold rating on Tesla and said that “with TSLA announcing shipments of ~22.2k cars in 4Q16, we are expecting a better- than-feared trade over the next couple of days. While the company missed its 4Q16 shipment guidance by over 10% for the quarter, we believe expectations had dropped significantly below guidance due to media reports of slow sell-through. We anticipate investors will now shift focus to the Gigafactory ramp, timing of Model 3 production, and the company’s ability to generate cash from operations. We continue to be cautious about potential margin drag given simultaneous Model 3 and Gigafactory ramp plus purchase commitments for solar modules from its Buffalo facility.”
Lou Whiteman of TheStreet.com in a piece titled “Wall Street Still Loves Tesla and This Chart Proves It” stated that “While the results provided fresh fodder for the bears, they didn’t do enough to crush Wall Street’s long love affair with Elon Musk’s baby. Investors may also be optimistic ahead of a previously-planned analyst tour of the company’s Gigafactory battery facility scheduled for Wednesday.” Additionally he positively stated that “The total deliveries, though a miss, by far surpassed 2015’s total of about 50,000.” “The company has a history of missing internal deadlines, but simply showing progress towards bringing the Model 3 to market should be enough to keep bulls on board and allow Tesla to return to the capital markets to raise more cash if needed.”
TheStreet.com has been bearish on Tesla for a long time, and Lou warned that “even if the Model 3 arrives on time, there are still questions about whether the company can turn a profit on the vehicle. Tesla has targeted a base price of $35,000 for the vehicle, but skeptics including Stanphyl Capital managing member and portfolio manager Mark Spiegel estimate it might cost the company upwards of $48,000 per unit to produce the car.”
Jim Cramer, also of TheStreet.com, said on CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” that “the market isn’t having a stronger reaction because the company seems to be coated with Teflon, meaning that it can withstand things like a lower-than-expected delivery number.” “It should be called Teflon Motors because I don’t think this will matter. Tesla seems to be “charmed,” and it’s still making a lot of cars, like Jay Leno noted,” Cramer noted. “In particular, Tesla’s sales numbers in China jumped dramatically this past year, which is “important. But regardless, people are not going to react to this news. The analysts aren’t going to change their view on it. I think that’s the important way to look at it. They’re just not going to change. No ‘buy’ to ‘holds.’”, Cramer reiterated.
In a Marketwatch story titled “Here’s why Tesla is Baird’s top stock-market pick for 2017“, analyst Ben Kallo was quoted saying that he”expects the company’s energy business and the launch of the Model 3 electric sedan will exceed expectations.” He went on saying that “Tesla energy storage business and growth opportunity is not currently reflected in share prices”. Ben named Tesla Motors (NASDAQ: TSLA) his “top pick for 2017” and reiterated an Outperform rating and price target of $338. He “does not believe the Q4 delivery number (expected by Jan. 3) will be an overhang and recommends buying shares heading into 2017 as they believe the stock will make new highs.
As I predicted on Tuesday, several unrelated reports covered the positive fact that Tesla finally begun producing batteries at the Gigafactory, lead by information coming from Tesla’s invite-only ‘investor event’. Everyone from Reuters to Bloomberg and the WSJ reported this news in their opening pages.
Cadie Thompson reported on Business Insider that Tesla began production of battery cells at its Gigafactory on Wednesday. “The battery cells currently in production will be used for Tesla’s rechargeable home battery, Powerwall 2, as well as its massive commercial battery, Powerpack 2. The electric-car maker said in a statement that it aims to begin production of battery cells for the Model 3, its first mass-market car, sometime in the second quarter.”
Tom Randall of Bloomberg, in an article titled “Tesla Flips the Switch on the Gigafactory” stated that “Musk meets a deadline: Battery-cell production begins at what will soon be the world’s biggest factory—with thousands of additional jobs.”
He goes on stating that “the Gigafactory has been activated. Hidden in the scrubland east of Reno, Nev., where cowboys gamble and wild horses still roam—a diamond-shaped factory of outlandish proportions is emerging from the sweat and promises of Tesla CEO Elon Musk. It’s known as the Gigafactory, and today its first battery cells are rolling off production lines to power the company’s energy storage products and, before long, the Model 3 electric car.”
Tom added that “by 2018, the Gigafactory, which is less than a third complete today, will be staffed by 6,500 full-time Reno-based employees and singlehandedly double the world’s production capacity for lithium-ion batteries, according to a new hiring forecast from Tesla.”
In a pointed message on X, Elon Musk warned that firms maintaining significant short positions in SpaceX over time face “very low” survival probability.
The statement comes amid post-IPO volatility for the rocket company, now trading under the ticker $SPCX.
The survival probability of firms who maintain a significant short position in SpaceX over time is very low
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 17, 2026
Five weeks after what was described as the largest IPO in history, the stock had fallen roughly 30% from its peak above $2.6 trillion, briefly surpassing Microsoft and Amazon in market value. Short sellers celebrated gains of about $8.7 billion, but Musk’s reply underscores his long-term conviction.
The warning directly echoes a detailed bullish analysis arguing that Starship’s cost reductions could unlock a multi-trillion-dollar space economy. Projects ranging from solar power beamed from orbit and asteroid mining to orbital data centers and Mars terraforming were projected to create over $100 trillion in new market capitalization.
In this vision, SpaceX acts as the essential infrastructure provider, akin to AWS for cloud computing, capturing monopoly-like revenues from launches, crew transport, and data traffic across a rapidly expanding frontier.
This is far from the first time Musk has targeted short sellers. With Tesla, he has repeatedly framed persistent bears as destined for major losses. In July 2024, Musk declared that once Tesla achieves full autonomy and volume production of Optimus robots, “anyone still holding a short position will be obliterated. Even Gates,” referencing Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates’ reported short bets.
Elon Musk reveals what Tesla stock surge could do to Bill Gates
Earlier, in 2018, he taunted shorts that they had “about three weeks before their short position explodes,” a remark followed by sharp stock gains. Musk has also called short selling “value destroying” and once suggested it “should be illegal,” viewing it as betting against innovation and progress.
Critics often dismiss Musk’s optimism as hype, especially when near-term metrics like quarterly deliveries or stock fluctuations disappoint.
Yet his pattern remains consistent: framing short positions against his companies as fundamentally misjudging exponential technological leaps. For SpaceX shorts, the message is clear: betting against multi-planetary ambitions and the infrastructure monopoly they enable carries existential risk for the firms involved.
As Musk and supporters see it, the space economy’s upside dwarfs Earth-bound valuation models, making today’s dips temporary in a decades-long ascent.
Elon Musk
SpaceX Starship Flight 13 aborted at Zero and Musk just told us what broke
Four Raptor engines failed to ignite at T-zero, forcing SpaceX to scrub Starship Flight 13 Thursday.
SpaceX scrubbed the Starship Flight 13 launch attempt Thursday evening at the last possible moment, after four of the Super Heavy booster’s 33 Raptor 3 engines failed to ignite during the startup sequence. The 90-minute window had opened at 6:45 p.m. EDT from Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas, and the countdown had proceeded without issue all day, with more than 11.5 million pounds of liquid methane and liquid oxygen being fully loaded into the rocket before the automated abort triggered. SpaceX’s launch directors posted on X, “Standing down from today’s flight test attempt,” and shut down the livestream shortly after.
Musk confirmed the root cause within hours. “Some of the engines didn’t start, triggering an automatic launch abort,” he wrote on X. “To be confident of a good flight, 2 Raptors will be removed and replaced. Most probable launch timing is early next week.” SpaceX engineers began draining propellant tanks immediately and Booster 20 was rolled back to its hangar for inspection.
The timing adds a layer of significance that did not exist during any of the previous 12 Starship flights. This is the first time SpaceX has attempted to launch Starship since the company made its stock market debut in June, listing under ticker SPCX at $135 per share. Public investors are now watching every Starship outcome in real time, and a last-second abort carries more visibility than it would have six months ago.
Flight 13 was designed to be one of the most consequential tests in the program’s history. It was set to carry 20 Starlink V3 satellites, the first operational payload Starship has ever attempted to deploy. Six of those satellites carried external cameras to photograph Starship’s heat shield from the outside during flight, which would act as a self-inspection approach SpaceX has never attempted before. The mission also needed to complete a Raptor engine relight in space, a step SpaceX skipped on Flight 12 in May after losing an engine during ascent. That Flight 12 booster also flipped 90 degrees off course during its boostback burn when five engines failed to reignite.
SpaceX has not announced an official next launch date. Musk’s “early next week” window points to July 21 or 22 at the earliest, pending the engine swap and a return to the pad.
Lucid CEO Silvio Napoli responded to rumors of an imminent bankruptcy that was reportedly being mulled after a report stated the automaker was working with the firm AlixPartners to iron out its next steps.
The company felt a massive loss on Wall Street yesterday, as the report essentially pushed the stock down as much as 55 percent on Tuesday.
The report, published initially by Eletric-Vehicles.com, claimed Lucid was essentially in dire straits and was told by AlixPartners, a commonly used restructuring advisor, to either take shares private or file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
Lucid’s head of Communications, Nick Twork, immediately challenged the report and stated the company “has sufficient liquidity to carry its operations well into next year.”
Now, the company’s CEO is chiming in as well, stating that the report is “so far from the facts that they require a direct response.”
Napoli said:
“Lucid is not considering bankruptcy or a transaction to take the company private. Those reports are false. The Board did not explore either scenario. Period.
As disclosed in our most recent quarterly filing, Lucid has sufficient liquidity to fund its operations well into next year.
We work with outside advisors to improve operational performance and execution. They are not advising Lucid on a take-private transaction or bankruptcy, and any suggestion that they have recommended either course of action to management or the Board is false.
My priority is clear: turn this company around. That is where the leadership team and I are focused.
I look forward to providing a full update during our quarterly earnings call on August 4th.”
🚨 Lucid CEO Silvio Napoli calls rumors of financial issues “so far from the facts that they require a direct response.”
Read his full remarks here: https://t.co/t3Pg1NHvzy pic.twitter.com/LvHUPhO4Qf
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) July 15, 2026
It seems pretty clear that Lucid is confident things will be okay, and, to be honest, they should not have much to worry about, especially considering the company has been backed by the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF) for years. It has solid financial backing, and its sales, while weak, are pretty much right on par with a company of this age.
Lucid also sent a Cease & Desist letter to the publication for their report.
Lucid shares have rebounded nicely and are up nearly 21 percent at the time of publication. As soon as the company dispelled the rumors of bankruptcy yesterday, the stock began to climb back toward more reasonable levels.
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