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.
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“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.
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Venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya has cautioned investors shorting SpaceX shares, drawing a direct parallel to the intense short-selling pressure Tesla faced in its early public years.
Responding to reports of elevated short interest in the newly public rocket, satellite, and AI company, Palihapitiya noted that similar dynamics played out with Tesla, where aggressive short sellers ultimately “went broke.”
SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX) went public on June 12, 2026, in the largest IPO on record, pricing at $135 per share. Shares quickly surged to an all-time high of $225.64 just days later, briefly implying a valuation exceeding $2 trillion. The stock has since retreated sharply amid valuation concerns, lockup expiration fears, and broader market dynamics.
By early August, it traded near $108–$125, representing a roughly 50 percent decline from the peak and bringing the market capitalization closer to the $1.5–1.7 trillion range. On August 4, shares closed up more than 9 percent at $125.33 ahead of earnings before facing pressure in after-hours and premarket trading.
Short interest has climbed dramatically. According to S3 Partners data widely cited in market reports, short positions reached approximately 219.3 million shares by late July, about 34 percent of the limited public float of roughly 640 million shares, and represented a notional value of around $24.6 billion.
Utilization of shares available to borrow hit 95 percent, with borrow fees rising. This level of shorting exceeded the dollar value of short bets against Tesla at the time and built rapidly ahead of two catalysts: the company’s first post-IPO earnings and an August 6 lockup expiration that could free up to 911.5 million additional shares.
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CEO Elon Musk has issued warnings of his own. In mid-July, as short interest approached one-third of the float, he posted that “the survival probability of firms who maintain a significant short position in SpaceX over time is very low,” reiterating his view that the company could ultimately be worth more than Earth if it achieves its goals.
On August 4, just before earnings, Musk responded to the latest short-interest data by saying, “I try to warn them, but they just double down.”
SpaceX delivered its first quarterly results as a public company after the close on August 4. Second-quarter revenue rose 92 percent year-over-year to $7.8 billion, beating consensus estimates near $6.8–6.9 billion.
The net loss narrowed to $541 million, or 9 cents per share, better than the roughly 23–24 cent loss expected. Starlink/connectivity contributed about $4.3 billion (up 66 percent), while the AI business generated $2.6 billion (up roughly 250 percent). Capital expenditures were heavy at $18.4 billion, largely tied to AI infrastructure. Management projected a $100 billion annualized revenue run rate by year-end 2026 and outlined a path toward $1 trillion in annual revenue by 2030.
The combination of Chamath’s historical reminder, Musk’s repeated alerts, and the company’s ambitious growth targets underscores the high-stakes debate surrounding SPCX. Short sellers are positioned for near-term supply pressure from the lockup, while long-term bulls point to Starlink scale, Starship progress, and AI compute expansion as reasons the bears may ultimately face the same fate as many early Tesla skeptics.
Investor's Corner
SpaceX and Nvidia team up on Musk’s orbital AI bet
SpaceX revealed a new Nvidia satellite partnership, then Musk pledged an exclusive Nvidia hardware commitment.
SpaceX and Nvidia are now working together on the hardware that will power Musk’s orbital data center ambitions. SpaceX announced on X on Tuesday that it is partnering with Nvidia to design the compute payload for Starmind AI1, the first satellite in a planned constellation built to run AI workloads directly in orbit. Each Starmind satellite will carry Nvidia’s Rubin GPUs and Vera CPUs, according to the post, which included renderings of the payload design.
The announcement landed hours before SpaceX’s first earnings call as a public company, where Musk went further, saying the company has committed to building its AI infrastructure exclusively on Nvidia hardware. “We think the Vera Rubin architecture is the best architecture. We think it’s the best AI computer, and we greatly value our close cooperation and partnership on many levels with Nvidia,” Musk told investors on the call,. “So we’re exclusive to Nvidia.”
Musk said SpaceX plans to deploy Nvidia’s Vera Rubin NVL72 rackscale system, codenamed Kyber, both on the ground and in space. He set a target of 2 gigawatts of compute capacity online by the end of this year, scaling to roughly 10 gigawatts by the end of 2027.
SpaceX’s newest Starmind will make earth data centers obsolete
Starmind has been in development since Musk confirmed the name in June, following an xAI trademark filing that tipped off the project before SpaceX made it official. The idea is massive in scope and instead of moving data down to ground based servers, satellites equipped with onboard processors and large solar arrays would compute AI workloads in orbit and beam results back to Earth. SpaceX has already filed with the FCC for a constellation of up to one million satellites to support the effort, citing constant solar power and the absence of zoning restrictions as advantages over terrestrial data centers.
The Nvidia exclusivity marks a shift in tone from just two weeks ago, when Musk was busy knocking down a report that SpaceX had ordered $52 billion worth of Nvidia GPUs through Foxconn, calling it fake news at the time. The dollar figure in that rumor may have been wrong, but the underlying direction seems correct. SpaceX’s AI division already leases Colossus compute capacity to Anthropic and Google, and Tuesday’s earnings report showed AI revenue climbing sharply as those deals ramp up.
Nvidia shares rose roughly 3% in Tuesday trading on the news, while SpaceX stock climbed nearly 9% during the day before giving back gains after hours as investors digested the earnings report’s capital spending figures.
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SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX) reported a beat in revenues and EBITDA in its first earnings call report while also minimizing losses as its business continues to gain momentum.
After its IPO in July, SpaceX saw some tough losses on Wall Street due to a major selloff after a delay in its 13th Starship test flight. The ship launched later that week and completed what was arguably the most successful IFT operation in the Starship program’s history.
Nevertheless, the company is continuing on and reported some encouraging financials while also promoting what appears to be a robust outlook moving forward in its Space, AI, and Connectivity divisions.
SpaceX to report first-ever earnings today: here’s what to expect
Earnings Results
- Revenues: $7.8 billion reported vs. $6.7 billion expected
- Adjusted EBITDA: $3.5 billion vs. $2 billion expected
- Net loss of $541 million, an improvement of $467 million from net loss of $1.0 billion
Additionally, CFO Bret Johnsen had these comments:
“2026 has been a momentous year so far, and the second quarter demonstrated the true power of SpaceX. Revenue growth accelerated across all our business segments and we delivered strong operating leverage, with significant margin expansion led by our new AI compute agreements. Our unparalleled leadership in launch, Starlink subscriber growth, new enterprise and government partnerships, and best-in-class AI infrastructure underscore our ability to drive meaningful scale and deliver attractive returns. As a newly public company, we are delighted to welcome our broad base of shareholders and bondholders. We ended the second quarter with $100 billion of cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities, and $47.5 billion in backlog. This financial strength gives us substantial capacity to invest in Starship, Starlink Broadband and Mobile satellites, and our AI platform, while maintaining a disciplined long-term capital allocation framework.”
Space Business Highlights
SpaceX shared some of its biggest Space Business Highlights for Q2:
- Space revenues grew 55% sequentially and 29% year-over-year to $962 million, driven by a higher number of large customer launches and a favorable customer shift compared to the prior year
- Total costs and expenses for the Space segment were up by $389 million year-over-year, as we continued to accelerate R&D investments in our Starship program, which we believe will reduce the cost to orbit by 99% or more relative to the historical average, and unlock significant revenue potential across all business segments
- Leading launch provider for the world with 78 launches and 1,041 metric tons of mass to orbit deployed over the six months ended June 30, 2026, primarily allocated to Connectivity for the deployment of our Starlink constellation
- Starship V3 development continued to advance towards full and rapid reusability:
- Completed Starship V3’s first suborbital mission in May, Flight 12, which achieved a successful lift off from our new Starbase pad, a precision landing of Starship’s upper stage, and deployment of modified V2 Starlink satellites
- Subsequent to the second quarter, completed Starship Flight 13 in July, which achieved all flight objectives including deploying 20 production V3 satellites, demonstrating in-space relight of a Raptor engine, and executing the softest ever splashdown of Starship, providing critical views of an intact heatshield
SpaceX will report its earnings today at 4:30 P.M. EDT.
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