Investor's Corner
Tesla short-seller explains losses, reduced position after TSLA’s rise in late October
Jan Petter Sissener is not a careless investor. Being one of short-sellers betting against Tesla stock (NASDAQ:TSLA), the Norwegian businessman and hedge fund manager has been rewarded in the past due to dips in the electric car maker’s stock. During the third quarter, though, things did not go according to plan, and Sissener Canopus, the fund that Sissener manages, saw its worst loss in two years.
Sissener’s losses on October were almost a stroke of irony. The short-seller noted to Norwegian newspaper Dagens Næringsliv that he actually took a very careful stance at the beginning of the month, even adjusting his fund’s share weight to about 50%. Despite this, Sissener Canopus still fell 5.5%. In a report to his clients, Sissener admitted that one of the main reasons behind the fund’s losses was Tesla, which saw a steep rise at the end of October, fueled by the company’s surprisingly strong third-quarter earnings. Sissener’s bets in two other companies, Transocean and Elkem, did not pan out as well.
Sissener noted to the Norwegian publication that he does not understand Tesla’s third-quarter figures, and that he is presently trying to investigate the company’s numbers. While the fund manager stated that he is not ruling out an increased short position against the company in the near future, Sissener noted that he had reduced his short position on Tesla nonetheless.
“October became a painful month for world stock markets, and although we were very careful and had a lot of indexes, some of our key positions dropped significantly more than the markets. We had timed the market right, but lost on single shares. We have done two things (on Tesla). Firstly, we took a little profit when the stock reached $ 250. Then we weighed a little after the quarterly figures came,” he said.
As Tesla’s short-sellers begin to feel some pressure, some of the company’s supporters are expressing optimistic forecasts for the electric car maker. In a recent interview with CNBC, for example, billionaire investor Ron Baron reiterated his statement that Tesla might be a $1 trillion company by 2030. When asked if he has any reservations about Tesla’s capability to become consistently cash-flow positive, Baron stated that he remains confident in the company and Elon Musk.
“As far as the cash flow goes, when I look at the numbers, it doesn’t appear to be a problem. Elon Musk says it’s not a problem. I take him at his word. And he could have sold equity a year and a half ago at $370, $380 a share, people scrambling to buy, he chose not to. You have these businesses that they invest, and when they’re investing, they penalize profitability. (They’re) at the point now where incremental investments are going to be profitable. They are now doing 5,000 cars a week. They’re gonna be able to do for Model 3, for virtually no additional investment, they’re gonna get to 7,000 cars a week,” Baron said.
Wall Street analyst Maynard Um of Macquarie Research also adopted an optimistic stance on Tesla for the coming quarters. In a note last Thursday, the analyst stated that the company “checks all the boxes” except for one to be included in the S&P 500. While it remains to be seen if Tesla can stay profitable, Um nevertheless stated that a steady demand for the Model S and X, as well as improving production numbers of the Model 3, could allow the electric car maker to be eligible for the S&P 500, possibly sometime next year.
“While (Tesla) still has to prove it can sustain profitability, we believe the company will achieve this last eligibility requirement driven by steady demand for Model S & X, increasing production to meet Model 3 demand, and potential for meaningful (Zero Emission Vehicle) credit revenue,” the analyst wrote.
There is no doubt that Tesla’s third-quarter results were a pleasant surprise for the company’s investors. That said, Tesla’s current strategies, such as the introduction of the Mid Range Model 3, VIN filings at record batches, and Panasonic’s additional battery cell production lines in Gigafactory 1, suggest that Q4 might be even better. In an extensive interview with tech journalist Kara Swisher during the Recode Decode podcast, Elon Musk even noted that Tesla is actually capable of producing 6,000-6,500 Model 3 per week now, though such a feat would require a lot of overtime from the company’s workers.
“We’re certainly over the hump on Model 3 production. For us, making 5,000 cars in a week for Model 3 is not a big deal. That’s just normal. Now we’re working on raising to 6,000 and then 7,000 Model 3s a week, while still keeping costs under control. We could probably do 6,000 or more, maybe 6,500 Model 3s a week right now, but it would have to stress people out and do tons of overtime,” Musk said.
As of writing, Tesla stock is trading at -1.14% at $346.50 per share.
Watch billionaire investor Ron Baron’s take on Tesla’s in the video below.
Disclosure: I have no ownership in shares of TSLA and have no plans to initiate any positions within 72 hours.
Tesla has its answer to grow its automotive sales over the next few years, TD Cowen analyst Itay Michaeli says, but it just has to bring it to the U.S.
On Thursday, Michaeli reiterated his $490 price target and the ‘Buy’ rating he already held on Tesla stock (NASDAQ: TSLA). However, its automotive division has struggled to show sequential growth over the past few years, mostly due to its focus on AI and Full Self-Driving. Tesla already axed two of its lower-volume vehicles with the Model S and Model X earlier this year.
However, Tesla does not need to engineer an entire new vehicle to trigger an upward tick in sales; it just has to bring it from China to the U.S., Michaeli said.
He is talking about the Model Y L, a slightly larger version of the all-electric crossover that is already available in China. U.S. customers have been pleading with CEO Elon Musk to bring it to the country since its launch in Asia last year, but he’s not convinced of it because of the advent of self-driving and its importance in this particular market.
The problem is that Tesla owners have been requesting something larger that could fit a typical American family. The Model Y L is slightly larger than the standard Model Y, but some are concerned that it could still be too small to fit what most people might need.
Instead, they have asked for a full-size SUV from Tesla.
Tesla gives big hint that it will build Cyber SUV, smaller Cybertruck
Nevertheless, the Model Y L still presents a great opportunity for Tesla in the U.S., and Michaeli says that there is an additional sales opportunity of about 100,000 units, with demand potential falling somewhere between 60,000 and 135,000 units.
TD Cowen’s note to investors also analyzed that Tesla’s growth could come from a stock perspective as well, positively impacting the stock price, as it has been widely reliant on vehicle sales, even though Tesla has truly phased itself away from that being an important metric.
Tesla stands to gain greatly from the introduction of the Model Y L in the U.S., but only if Elon Musk sees it as a viable fit for the market. Families may need to see Tesla bring something larger to the U.S., or they might be forced to buy from another automaker that offers something that fits is needs for more interior space to haul around the kids.
Elon Musk
SpaceXAI just launched into your kitchen with their new app
SpaceXAI just powered its first consumer app and it predicts what you want to buy.
SpaceXAI just made its first move into consumer AI, and it involves your grocery cart. On June 3, 2026, Gopuff and SpaceXAI announced the launch of Go, a Grok-powered shopping assistant built directly into the Gopuff app that predicts what you need before you even start searching for it.
Gopuff is an instant delivery platform that operates more than 400 micro-fulfillment centers across the U.S., delivering everyday essentials, snacks, drinks, and household items in as little as 15 minutes. It is not a restaurant delivery app or a marketplace. It owns its inventory, controls its warehouses, and handles its own logistics, which means it has built one of the most detailed consumer behavior datasets in retail over its 13-year history.
Go combines SpaceXAI’s advanced reasoning, voice, and image generation models with Gopuff’s dataset of hundreds of millions of orders and real-time cultural signals from X to prepare a suggested cart the moment a customer opens the app. It learns each shopper’s habits and automatically builds a personalized cart based on time of day, location, order history, and real-time indicators. Returning customers can check out with a single tap.
Rather than searching for specific items, users can describe a situation like a game-day party or the desire for a healthy breakfast and Go will assemble a cart automatically. It can also predict when shoppers are running low on items like coffee or paper towels and have them packed and delivered in under 15 minutes. Grok voice integration lets users talk to the app in plain conversational language and check out completely hands-free.
Gopuff co-founder and co-CEO Yakir Gola said: “Today, we believe the greatest friction left in commerce is not delivery or instantaneous access to the essentials customers need. It’s the moment before: the thinking, the deciding, the remembering. We’re combining Gopuff’s demand intelligence with xAI’s frontier reasoning to create an everyday shopping experience that feels like a true extension of you.”
Why SpaceX just made a $60 billion bet on AI coding ahead of historic IPO
The timing carries context beyond the product launch. SpaceXAI was formed after SpaceX completed an all-stock merger with Elon Musk’s xAI earlier this year, folding one of the most advanced AI labs in the world into the same corporate structure as the company preparing what could be the largest IPO in history. SpaceXAI is dipping into consumer-focused AI just as it prepares for its public debut, and while Musk has openly discussed building an everything app, this launch uses Grok to power another company’s product rather than launching a standalone consumer platform. Every consumer-facing deployment of Grok ahead of the IPO roadshow adds tangible evidence that SpaceXAI is not just an infrastructure play but a direct competitor in the AI application layer where OpenAI and Google are already fighting for dominance.
Elon Musk
SpaceX’s amended S-1 is sparking a major Tesla merger conversation
A single line in SpaceX’s amended S-1 just sent Tesla stock down 5% in one day.
A single line buried in SpaceX’s amended S-1 filing is doing more to move Tesla’s stock price than anything Tesla itself has announced in months. The clause, disclosed as SpaceX prepares for what could be the largest IPO in Wall Street history, states that the company “may issue a significant amount of equity in connection with future transactions.” While this may be seen as boilerplate language in S-1 filings, the historical ties between SpaceX and Tesla, and with Elon Musk reportedly discussing a possible merger with close colleagues, investors are interpreting it as something closer to a signal.
The concern among institutional investors like Gary Black, managing director of The Future Fund, pointed directly to the amended filing on X, saying it “strongly suggests more SPCX equity will be issued,” which could potentially be used to acquire Tesla. He estimated such a deal could be 28% dilutive to Tesla shareholders since SpaceX would likely command a significantly higher valuation multiple. Black added that institutional investors he knows hate the idea of a combination because they prefer pure plays over conglomerates, which he said “nearly always gravitate to the lowest common multiple.”
The Tesla and SpaceX merger everyone is talking about is quietly building
The bull case runs the math differently. Tesla influencer and retail shareholder advocate AleXandra Merz pushed back on what she called a widespread misunderstanding of how merger-of-equals deals actually work. Rather than simply splitting the difference between two market caps, a merger exchange ratio is negotiated based on relative fair market values, meaning the lower valued company typically sees its stock reprice upward toward the deal value.
Under her model, SpaceX enters at a $2.5 trillion valuation and Tesla at $1.6 trillion, producing a combined entity worth $4.1 trillion split evenly between both shareholder groups. That implies Tesla’s side of the deal would be valued at $2.05 trillion, a gain of roughly $450 billion from its current market cap. She cited Dow-DuPont and CBS-Viacom as historical examples of how markets reprice both companies toward the announced exchange ratio after a deal is unveiled.
What does a Merger of Equals mean to Elon’s compensation packages?
Well, it changes everything.
Enjoy https://t.co/uekCldyITw pic.twitter.com/kolq1C9qTu
— AleXandra Merz 🇺🇲 (@TeslaBoomerMama) June 1, 2026
The SpaceX S-1 amendments also revealed just how much financial infrastructure already binds the two companies together. As Teslarati has reported, SpaceX purchased $697 million in Tesla Megapacks, $131 million in Cybertrucks, and the two companies have shared supply chain resources, and semiconductor fabrication plans since well before any merger conversation became public. A retail poll by Tesla influencer Sawyer Merritt is finding that 36% of respondents do not plan to buy SpaceX shares at IPO and 15.3% saying their decision depends on the valuation.
Do you plan on buying @SpaceX stock at its IPO?
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) June 1, 2026
Whether the merger happens or not, the amended filing is seemingly moving markets and sharpened a debate that is no longer theoretical. SpaceX is weeks away from trading publicly, and Tesla shareholders are now watching every word of every filing for clues about what Musk plans to do next.
Tesla Roadster unveiling gets pushed again, but new event details emerge
Tesla Model 3 has a tasty Supercharging incentive, but it’s ending soon
