As vendas da Tesla na Europa dispararam em setembro de 2026, indicando que a montadora de veículos elétricos de Elon Musk segue ganhando espaço em uma região onde concorrentes chineses também avançam rapidamente.
Os novos emplacamentos de carros da Tesla – usados como sinal de vendas – saltaram 72,5% na comparação anual, para 68.776 unidades, nos mercados da União Europeia, Reino Unido, Islândia, Liechtenstein, Noruega e Suíça, segundo a Associação Europeia de Fabricantes de Automóveis (ACEA).
O ritmo acelerou de forma clara em relação a agosto, quando o aumento havia sido de apenas 4% – mês que costuma ser mais fraco para registros, já que muitas concessionárias na Europa fecham nas férias de verão do Hemisfério Norte.
O avanço sugere que consumidores europeus continuam aderindo à Tesla apesar da concorrência mais intensa, sobretudo de marcas chinesas.
No mesmo recorte, a ACEA informou que montadoras chinesas registraram altas expressivas. Os emplacamentos da BYD quase dobraram, em salto de 99%, para 49.953 veículos.
A SAIC Motor avançou quase 24%, para 41.987 unidades, e a Leapmotor teve alta superior a quatro vezes, para 14.594 veículos.
Em contraste, grupos tradicionais europeus mostraram desempenho mais fraco: a Volkswagen registrou queda de 2,9%, para 308.474 unidades, e a Renault recuou 0,7%, para 114.726.
O desempenho da Tesla ocorre enquanto a empresa busca ampliar aprovações para seu sistema de direção assistida Full Self-Driving (FSD) na União Europeia.
Em abril de 2026, a Holanda foi o primeiro país do bloco a autorizar o sistema em funções como mudança de faixa e navegação em torno de veículos e objetos. Segundo a própria Tesla, o FSD não torna o carro totalmente autônomo e deve ser usado com o motorista totalmente atento.
Desde então, países como Lituânia, Estônia e Dinamarca reconheceram a autorização holandesa, permitindo que a Tesla disponibilize o FSD nesses mercados enquanto autoridades europeias avaliam um pedido para expandir a autorização para todo o bloco.
Em setembro, o mercado europeu de veículos 100% elétricos a bateria cresceu quase 60%, segundo a ACEA. Os emplacamentos de híbridos subiram 5,3%, enquanto as de híbridos plug-in avançaram 24%.
No total, os registros de automóveis de passageiros aumentaram 10% na Europa como um todo e 9,3% na União Europeia, com alta de 9% na Alemanha, 12% na França e 9,8% na Itália.
Speaking on the company's earnings call on Wednesday, CEO Elon Musk compared training the EV maker's humanoid robot to raising a toddler.
Musk said that while Tesla's autonomous driving models can learn from data collected by its massive fleet of vehicles, its Optimus robot has to learn by watching people do tasks and practicing them itself, a process similar to how humans learn.
"You can see this when you have a toddler, and they initially are sort of wobbly, and they don't know how to do things, and eventually, they learn to wipe their own ass, which is a big milestone," Musk told investors.
"They learn to read and do all sorts of things, and they learn this by playing. And we actually need Optimus to play at scale in order to have it be really good at tasks in the real world," Musk said.
Musk said Tesla expects to begin delivering Optimus to consumers by the end of 2027.
Bloomberg/Getty Images
The Tesla CEO added that the company was building out an "Optimus Academy" where prototypes can practice a wide range of tasks and generate training data to teach future versions of Optimus.
"For Optimus to get the training data we need, we actually need to make a lot of Optimi. So we need to make, I think, on the order of 10,000 or 20,000 bots and then have them do self-play," said Musk.
Tesla said on Wednesday that it had begun production of Optimus at its Fremont factory, with Musk saying the company expects to begin delivering Optimus to customers by the end of next year.
The near-trillionaire cautioned that production would be "somewhat bumpy" and that development of the humanoid robot still has some way to go.
He listed the challenges of designing durable yet responsive robotic hands, as well as AI capable of handling open-ended tasks, among the main hurdles Tesla faces.
Tesla is not alone in setting up robot academies to provide training data for humanoid robots.
Unlike large language models like ChatGPT, which were trained on the vast corpus of text data available on the internet, robotics faces a shortage of real-world training data to teach humanoids to navigate the physical world.
Other startups, such as Texas-based Apptronik, have also set up "data factories" where robots load conveyor belts and sort objects to generate training data to combat the data shortage.
A tecnológica norte-americana Tesla anunciou quarta-feira um lucro líquido de 804 milhões de dólares (715,56 milhões de euros) no terceiro trimestre, 42% abaixo do período homólogo.
As receitas atingiram os 28.046 milhões de dólares (24.960,94 milhões de euros), um valor semelhante ao registado no terceiro trimestre de 2025.
No período, a Tesla entregou 486.532 veículos em todo o mundo, menos 2% do que nos mesmos três meses do ano anterior.
Os modelos Tesla Model 3 e Tesla Model Y foram os mais vendidos pela empresa no trimestre, totalizando 478.237 unidades, o que corresponde a 98% do total.
O resultado EBITDA ajustado foi de 3.900 milhões de dólares (3.471 milhões de euros) — 8% abaixo do ano passado.
Na última semana, a Tesla apresentou o Roadster, o seu aguardado modelo desportivo, que incorpora tecnologia desenvolvida em parceria com a SpaceX e foi protagonista de uma demonstração na qual conseguiu elevar-se do solo, realizar manobras aéreas e aterrar de forma controlada.
Elon Musk’s public endorsement this week of a potential $3.5 trillion merger between SpaceX SPCX.O and Tesla TSLA.O has rattled some insiders involved in the discussions, who worry his comments could invite shareholder scrutiny and delay the process by several weeks, according to a person with direct knowledge of the talks.
The disclosure created a “mess” for the process, as it could lead to questions about how well Tesla shareholders’ interests would be represented, the person said. The concerns reflect similarities some participants see with Tesla’s 2016 acquisition of SolarCity, which sparked years of litigation over Musk’s role in the deal.
Musk, who serves as CEO of both SpaceX and Tesla and owns significant stakes in each company, this week told investors that the two companies were examining what would be the largest corporate transaction in history and revealed that both had formed special committees to evaluate it. The backlash to those remarks is reported here for the first time.
The parties have hired advisers, but discussions are at an early stage, three sources familiar with the matter said. SpaceX approached Tesla in recent weeks, and the companies have been discussing a range of transaction structures, including a SpaceX acquisition of Tesla or a merger under a newly formed holding company, the person familiar with the matter said. They are weighing different forms of merger consideration, including an all-stock deal, the person said. These details of the talks have not been previously reported.
Tesla, SpaceX and Musk did not respond to requests for comment.
SolarCity deal raises legal concerns
In related-party transactions such as a SpaceX-Tesla merger, independent board members typically oversee the process to safeguard public shareholders’ interests.
That issue loomed large in Tesla’s 2016 acquisition of SolarCity, which triggered years of litigation after shareholders alleged the world’s richest man had influenced the process to bail out his investment in the struggling rooftop solar company. At the time, Musk owned roughly 22% of both Tesla and SolarCity, which was founded by his cousins.
Shareholders argued that Musk’s involvement and public support undermined the deal’s fairness. Central to the case were claims that despite his minority stake, Musk was a controlling shareholder of Tesla due to his ties to board members and domineering style.
The Delaware Supreme Court later noted that plaintiffs’ contention of the absence of an independent committee, together with “certain other facts concerning Musk’s involvement in and public support for the transaction,” warranted the finding of unfair dealing.
The courts ultimately upheld the acquisition as fair, though it took several years for the case to be resolved and Tesla directors settled allegations for $60 million.
Musk excluded from merger negotiations
Musk owns nearly a fifth of Tesla and just under half of SpaceX, and analysts have said a merger would give him control of the combined entity. On Tuesday’s call with investors, Musk acknowledged that as a conflicted party he cannot be part of the discussions of the special committees. Advisers are also in contact with his lawyers to ensure Musk is recused from the merger discussions, the source familiar with the talks said.
Eric Talley, a law professor at Columbia University, said a merger could benefit shareholders by eliminating the need for Musk to divide his time between the two companies. He added that any legal challenge may be harder to predict than the SolarCity case because Tesla is now incorporated in Texas rather than Delaware.
“The Texas thing is a wild card. No one knows how Texas deals with cases like this because Texas never dealt with cases like this,” Talley said, noting that Texas has sought to establish itself as a business-friendly alternative to Delaware, and Musk’s comments so far were not necessarily problematic.
Ultimately, he said, litigation risk would hinge on the terms of any transaction.
“Who’s going to get the better side of this deal? And that’s usually what gives rise to litigation,” Talley said.
Public comments could delay historic deal
People involved in the process worry Musk’s public endorsement of the merger and disclosure of talks could intensify investor scrutiny, as interested parties typically avoid expressing views publicly while independent directors evaluate a deal, the source said.
The SolarCity case could become a reference point for investors and courts assessing any future SpaceX-Tesla transaction if advisers fail to fully insulate the special committees from Musk’s influence, the source added.
A tie-up between Tesla and SpaceX would be the biggest deal in history, creating one of the world’s largest industrial and technology groups. It would surpass Musk’s acquisition earlier this year of his artificial intelligence company xAI by SpaceX, which ranks among the largest corporate transactions ever announced.
A deal of this size would also face scrutiny from global regulators, especially due to Tesla’s business in China and SpaceX’s work in US defense and AI.
Tesla said that it expects to release unsupervised FSD around Q2 2027.
Harald Tittel/picture alliance via Getty Images
Tesla's Full Self-Driving feature still requires drivers to pay attention to the road.
During its Q3 earnings call, the company said unsupervised FSD for personal cars is coming in 2027.
The catch? Your Tesla must remain within the company's Robotaxi geofences.
When I reviewed Tesla's Full Self-Driving software in January, I hailed it as an "impressive" driver-assistance feature that left me wanting more.
I dreamed of being able to flip the autonomous driving system on whenever I make my routine 400-mile trip from San Francisco to Los Angeles — kick my feet up, listen to music, and ideally fall asleep without having to supervise the road.
That's been part of Tesla's ultimate pitch for the future. "With autonomy, you get your time back," Elon Musk has said.
And the pitch may soon come true. Just don't expect to make long self-driven road trips quite yet.
On Wednesday, during Tesla's Q3 earnings call, Ashok Elluswamy, the company's VP of AI, painted a more modest picture of what FSD unsupervised will look like for a personal car — at least at first.
Elluswamy said unsupervised FSD is coming "somewhere around Q2 next year" for privately owned Teslas, with the rollout of FSD V15.
The caveat is that it will only be operable in areas where Tesla already operates its Robotaxi service, which represents a small fraction of square miles for the total number of Teslas on US roads.
The Robotaxi platform is available in parts of seven metropolitan regions: Austin, Dallas, Houston, Miami, Orlando, Tampa, and the San Francisco Bay Area.In the Bay Area, all Tesla robotaxis are supervised by a human operator.
"The only additional requirement is to make sure that, for example, the customer Model Ys can be part of the geofences and the fleet management that Tesla has for it to be fully autonomous," Elluswamy said.
In other words, your Tesla may be able to drive itself, but only if you're within the zones where Tesla Robotaxi is operating. If you're in Austin, that could cover about 260 square miles of the city, excluding high-speed roadways.
That's similar to what other aspiring self-driving car companies have pitched.
Tensor, a San Jose-based automaker, aims to sell a luxury sedan that it says can drive itself. However, the self-driving feature will only operate within restricted geofences, the company told Business Insider.
Tesla didn't say why it needs to limit the release of unsupervised FSD to geofences at first, although there are likely questions about liability that the company will have to address once it declares, Yes, our technology now lets you take your eyes off the road.
Autonomy is a difficult problem to solve after all. During the call, Elluswamy shut down the idea that competitors could catch up to Tesla's FSD.
"When they get in the long tail of this problem — it's so long that people don't realize — anyone with a sane mind should not attempt to solve this problem," he said. "It's so difficult."
Musk says ‘there’s a lot of merit’ to potential merger that would require approval of 50% of all Tesla shareholders, but he declined to elaborate
Investors were paying close attention to Tesla’s third-quarter earnings call on Wednesday afternoon, after chief executive Elon Musk floated the idea of merging the car company with his rocket and AI company, SpaceX. But they didn’t glean further information after the company announced there would be no questions on the matter.
“With regard to a potential merger with SpaceX, I think I said everything that should be said yesterday,” Musk, the CEO of both companies, said on Tesla’s earnings call. He repeated a phrase he said on Tuesday: “I feel like I’m tap dancing through a minefield.”
Depois do Roadster Concept de 2017, prometendo a sua chegada ao mercado em 2020, a Tesla surgiu finalmente com o novo Roadster que vai de 0-100 em menos de 1 seg, e voa como um foguetão.
A confirmar-se a chegada ao mercado em 2028, o novo Roadster irá ser entregue com nove anos de atraso, mas será mais leve e mais potente, podendo ainda voar, fazer acrobacias e ser mais eficaz em pista e em estrada devido a herdar a solução do carro aspirador, o Brabham BT46B de F1
A Tesla registrou lucro líquido de US$ 787 milhões no terceiro trimestre de 2026, uma queda de 43,8% em relação ao mesmo período do ano anterior. O lucro ajustado por ação foi de US$ 0,48, disse a empresa nesta quarta-feira (21) em comunicado.
A expectativa dos analistas consultados pela FactSet era de um lucro ajustado por ação de US$ 0,45.
O fluxo de caixa livre foi de US$ 1,53 bilhão no trimestre, ante número negativo no segundo trimestre, mesmo com a empresa citando investimentos em inteligência artificial (IA) e robótica para ganhar espaço nesses setores. Os gastos de capital mais que dobraram em relação ao ano anterior, chegando a US$ 4,73 bilhões.
A companhia também reportou US$ 28,05 bilhões em receita para o período, praticamente estável em relação ao terceiro trimestre do ano passado, e em linha com previsão dos analistas de US$ 28,05 bilhões.486.532
A Tesla ainda informou que vendeu veículos elétricos globalmente no terceiro trimestre, uma queda de 2% em relação ao mesmo período do ano passado – sua maior fonte de receita. Os modelos SUV Model Y e o sedã Model 3 registraram o maior número de vendas. Nos EUA, o Model Y foi, de longe, o veículo elétrico mais vendido nos EUA.
Às 17h48 (de Brasília), as ações da Tesla subiam 3,4% no after hours de Nova York.
Tesla posted a highlight reel showing off its robotaxi navigating real-world road conditions, including robotaxis getting in the way.
Andrej Sokolow/picture alliance via Getty Images
Tesla posted footage of its robotaxi driving without a safety driver ahead of its Q3 earnings call.
Two of the clips included footage of a Waymo robotaxi and Avride encroaching on Tesla's path.
The clips showed the Tesla Robotaxi slowing down.
Tesla took some subtle jabs at its robotaxi competitors ahead of its third-quarter earnings call on Wednesday.
On a website Tesla created for its robotaxi safety report, the company uploaded clips of its self-driving cars maneuvering in real-world conditions without a driver behind the wheel. Obstacles and hazards included stormy weather, a pedestrian crossing at a green light, stray pets, and rival robotaxis getting in the way.
Ashok Elluswamy, Tesla's VP of AI, also posted the video on X, calling it "Robotaxi B-roll."
At around the 1:44 mark of Elluswamy's post, the video shows a robotaxi coming to a complete stop in its own lane as a Waymo makes a wider-than-usual right turn. The Waymo can be seen encroaching into Tesla's lane before it returns to its own path.
A Waymo spokesperson did not immediately return a request for comment.
In another short clip, the Tesla robotaxi is seen driving at night, braking for an Avride car that pulled up from the right, a little too far into the Tesla's path.
Avride is a robotaxi company that offers robotaxi rides through Uber in Dallas and is testing rides with a safety driver behind the wheel in Austin.
A spokesperson for Avride did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Tesla posted the footage as it seeks to make its case publicly on robotaxi safety. The company began offering a limited number of autonomous rides without an in-car safety monitor in Austin in January.
In the newly posted safety report, Tesla said its robotaxi service has driven 3.3 million miles autonomously — relatively small compared to Waymo's more than 271 million miles driven as of June.
Tesla said during its Q3 earnings call that it will launch unsupervised Cybercabs in Dallas in November.
Tesla has begun production of its humanoid robot, Optimus, in Fremont, California.
Musk said he expects to begin delivering Optimus to customers at the end of 2027.
Musk said it will take at least a year to produce 20,000 Optimus units a week.
Tesla has begun producing its long-awaited humanoid robot, Optimus, at its Fremont factory, the company said in its quarterly earnings report.
"The bots coming off this line are the first production-quality bots that we have manufactured," Tesla said, saying the current manufacturing process is "suitable for a commercial product."
"There's still some things we need to tweak about the design, because you need to deliver a robot that is safe and reliable and has long duration," CEO Elon Musk said on Tesla's Q3 earnings call. "It can't, like, wear out after a month."
Musk said the company will take at least a year to scale up Optimus production to 20,000 units a week in Fremont. He said he expects to begin delivering Optimus to customers at the end of next year.
Musk tempered expectations about how quickly Tesla can scale up Optimus production because it is "such a radically new product." He said the early stages of production will be "somewhat bumpy" because "there's like 10,000 things that have to go right" to build the robot. One of the big challenges Musk outlined is building robot hands.
Musk said Tesla is building an "Optimus Academy," where robots will practice tasks and generate data to improve the AI models that power them. The company also plans to install its next-generation AI5 chip in Optimus in April, which will give the robots more computing power and be a "big step change in intelligence," Musk said.
The latest version of Optimus has not been unveiled. Musk said he expects to release a video of Optimus within one or two months. He previously said Tesla was keeping the robot under wraps to prevent competitors from copying its design.
Tesla stopped producing the Model S and Model X at its Fremont, California, plant earlier this year to make room for an Optimus line designed to eventually produce a million robots a year. A second line under construction in Austin is planned to have an annual capacity of 10 million robots.
Tesla is competing in a crowded humanoid market. Agility Robotics, which plans to go public, has deployed its Digit robot across nine customer facilities, while Figure AI has announced deployments in logistics and distribution centers this year. Sunday Robotics, 1X, and Weave Robotics are preparing to ship robots into homes this fall.
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On Wednesday, the Elon Musk-led automaker reported that its operating income fell 56% year over year to $718 million in the third quarter — below Wall Street's estimates of $746.3 million — while overall revenue of $28.05 billion came in a smidge below analysts' estimates.
Tesla pointed to higher operating expenses tied to its AI efforts, or "SI"/"Super Intelligence" as Trump prefers, and other R&D projects. Lower regulatory credit revenue and weaker energy storage gross profit also weighed on profitability, while lower vehicle prices hurt revenue.
"While we continue to execute on innovations to reduce the cost of manufacturing and operations, over time, we expect our hardware-related profits to be accompanied by an acceleration of SI, software and fleet-based profits," the company reported.
It's not all bad news for Tesla's profits. The company is still solidly in the green, and it beat on the bottom line. Tesla reported 48 cents in adjusted earnings per share, above the 44-cent analyst consensus estimate. Free cash flow of $1.5 billion was also a surprise after Wall Street had expected negative free cash flow of $4.92 billion.
The automaker also sees areas of profit growth in its future: autonomy subscriptions are trending up, and Tesla said it's offering the right, region-specific product mixes.
During the earnings call, Tesla's chief financial officer, Vaibhav Taneja, said the company is experiencing its "highest backlog" of vehicles in four years. The company, he said, is trying to increase vehicle production.
He also added that Tesla has secured $30 billion of borrowing to support expected capital expenditures, but the company doesn't expect to "make any draws under any of the new facilities in this calendar year."
"The main takeaway is that Tesla's surprisingly positive cash flow quarter did not come from stronger profits," Thomas Monteiro, senior analyst at Investing.com, said after the report.
"Added to the equation is the fact that Tesla's AI spending remains broadly inefficient, with research costs up nearly 70% and operating margins down to just 2.6%, while at SpaceX AI is already one of the biggest sources of revenue," the analyst added.
The new quarter has already made waves
The Tesla story continues to play out in real time, and it's had a busy month since the fourth quarter kicked off in October.
On Tuesday, during SpaceX's earnings call, Musk said that Tesla and SpaceX had each formed committees to explore a potential merger. Both companies are helmed by Musk — and he owns billions of dollars in stock of each.
Anticipation of the potential mega-merger has been building around the companies for much of 2026, and has only increased since SpaceX went public. Musk said he was not included in those committees and that calling the merger a foregone conclusion "would be overstating it."
It also came less than a week after Tesla held its high-flying demo for the Roadster. The sports car performed a gymnastics routine, including briefly jumping into the air and twirling over a lineup of other Tesla vehicles.
Tesla had a high-flying demo for the coming Roadster. It came nine years after the company first floated the sports car.
Tesla
It came nine years after Tesla first promised to relaunch the Roadster. Musk first showed off a prototype of the vehicle in 2017 and predicted a 2020 product launch.
Elon Musk e gli analisti di Wall Street vedono molti vantaggi nella fusione tra Tesla e SpaceX. Ma sulla strada dell’accordo ci sono numerosi ostacoli, tra cui due commissioni speciali a cui Musk non può partecipare e il voto degli azionisti di Tesla che lui stesso ha definito difficile da superare.
Un’altra incognita è il prezzo, ossia quale sarebbe il premio che dovrebbero ricevere gli azionisti di Tesla. E qui gli analisti si dividono: si va da zero fino al 35%. Ovvio però che questa sia una questione chiave per il buon esito dell’operazione, con Tesla che capitalizza in Borsa 1.500 miliardi di dollari.
Musk ha detto che le commissioni devono ancora concordare i termini e che l’operazione non è certa, anche se Wall Street si aspetta un accordo entro la fine del prossimo anno. Le due società stanno sviluppando congiuntamente lo stabilimento di chip Terafab, mentre l’intelligenza artificiale rappresenta ormai più della metà dei ricavi di SpaceX, che prevede una spesa compresa tra i 35 e i 40 miliardi di dollari nel quarto trimestre per finanziare un’ulteriore espansione.
“Ritengo che una fusione tra Tesla e SpaceX abbia senso – ha detto un gestore che ha investito in entrambe le società –. È una mossa molto strategica perché entrambe si stanno rapidamente orientando verso l’intelligenza artificiale e i sistemi autonomi e stanno anche lavorando a enormi progetti infrastrutturali. Inoltre, si taglierebbero ridondanze e il tempo che Musk impiega a destreggiarsi tra le due società, riducendo così le spese generali, i costi legali e gli oneri amministrativi tipici delle società quotate in Borsa”.
Tra gli esempi citati anche la presentazione della Roadster la scorsa settimana, in cui un’auto Tesla dotata di propulsori SpaceX ha oltrepassato in volo un camion, dimostrando ciò che le due società insieme potrebbero essere in grado di produrre.
La possibilità di esercitare un maggiore controllo potrebbe anche essere parte del motivo per cui Musk, che detiene circa l’85% dei diritti di voto di SpaceX attraverso azioni privilegiate, mentre in Tesla ne possiede solo circa il 20%, è favorevole alla fusione, cosa che gli garantirebbe circa il 57% dei diritti di voto, ipotizzando un rapporto di cambio di 0,7 azioni SpaceX per ogni azione Tesla. Questo è però solo un livello calcolato da Barclays.
Ovviamente per una simile operazione non mancherebbero questioni di governance e di regolamentazione. Intanto in Borsa SpaceX, dopo i buoni risultati trimestrali, è in rialzo di oltre il 10% e Tesla del 3%.
Un unico gruppo da 3.600 miliardi di dollari di capitalizzazione e circa 155mila dipendenti con attività che spaziano dalle auto elettriche ai razzispaziali, dai satelliti all’intelligenza artificiale. E con un fabbisogno finanziario altrettanto imponente. Il progetto di fusione tra Tesla e SpaceX, i due gioielli dell’impero del multimiliardario Elon Musk, potrebbe ridisegnare gli equilibri dell’industria tecnologica e finanziaria. Per chi possiede direttamente azioni delle due società, ma pure per i risparmiatori esposti indirettamente attraverso fondi comuni, Etf e fondi pensione.
L’uomo più ricco del mondo ha definito l’unione una “buona idea” e ha annunciato la creazione di comitati ad hoc nelle due società per valutarla: lui non ne fa parte essendo in conflitto di interessi. L’obiettivo sarebbe riunire sotto un’unica struttura Tesla, impegnata nelle auto elettriche, nella robotica e nella guida autonoma, e SpaceX, protagonista dei lanci spaziali e dei servizi satellitari, con importanti contratti pubblici negli Stati Uniti. Quotata a giugno, quest’ultima ha archiviato il terzo trimestre in grande spolvero, con ricavi in crescita del 161% a 14,6 miliardi di dollari e utile in salita a 4,4 miliardi, più del doppio dei due miliardi attesi dagli analisti e in forte accelerazione rispetto al rosso di 1,1 miliardi dello stesso periodo dello scorso anno. Ma anche le spese in conto capitale per sostenere i progetti spaziali e quelli legati all’intelligenza artificiale sono salite a 19,6 miliardi dai 18,4 miliardi del secondo trimestre.
Secondo il Financial Times, che cita le stime degli analisti raccolte da Visible Alpha, il nuovo gruppo avrebbe ricavi per 153 miliardi di dollari ma un flusso di cassa negativo per almeno 54 miliardi. Vuol dire che gli investimenti e le altre uscite di cassa potrebbero superare le risorse generate dalla gestione, rendendo necessario finanziare il buco con liquidità disponibile, debito o nuovi capitali.
Il primo nodo per gli investitori sarà il prezzo attribuito alle due società e il rapporto di cambio con cui le azioni verrebbero convertite. Se il mercato giudicasse SpaceX sopravvalutata o temesse che Tesla si accolli rischi e investimenti eccessivi, l’operazione potrebbe penalizzarli. C’è poi la questione del controllo. Musk dispone di circa l’84% dei diritti di voto di SpaceX grazie alle azioni con supervoto, mentre in Tesla la sua influenza è inferiore. La fusione rafforzerebbe ulteriormente il suo potere. Questo mentre già da tempo, nota il Ft, “gli investitori si interrogano sulla capacità di Musk di concentrarsi su tutti i suoi progetti” e “gli azionisti non riescono a capire dove stia investendo la maggior parte delle sue energie o del suo denaro”.
L’operazione dovrebbe inoltre superare l’esame delle autorità regolatorie e ottenere il consenso degli azionisti. Oltre agli Stati Uniti, servirà il via libera di giurisdizioni come Unione europea, Regno Unito e Cina. Pechino è un ostacolo particolarmente delicato: secondo il Ft Tesla ha generato nel Paese 21 miliardi di dollari di ricavi nel 2025, circa il 22% del totale, mentre SpaceX è un importante contraente della difesa americana.
Le conseguenze della fusione potrebbero toccare anche chi non ha mai comprato un’azione Tesla. Il titolo è presente in numerosi indici azionari e può quindi entrare nei portafogli di fondi comuni, Etf e gestioni patrimoniali. Raggiungendo anche chi investe per la pensione integrativa. I possibili caveat, al netto dell’eventuale oscillazione del titolo, comprendono anche la concentrazione del rischio in un gruppo sempre più legato alle scelte di Musk, alle aspettative sull’intelligenza artificiale e alle politiche industriali e militari statunitensi.
“Sì, credo che sia una buona idea”. Elon Musk rimanda il giudizio finale agli azionisti ma per lui non c’è motivo di discussione. La potenziale fusione tra SpaceX e Tesla è uno scenario che stimolerebbe chiunque, figurarsi il suo proprietario. Musk detiene la maggioranza nell’azienda aerospaziale, mentre in quella automobilistica circa il 20%. Basta solo la notizia a far schizzare in Borsa le azioni delle due società: +10% SpaceX, +2,5% Tesla. Messi insieme, i due colossi – parliamo della settima e undicesima azienda più ricca al mondo – avrebbero una capitalizzazione di 3.500 miliardi di dollari, superando le Big Tech rivali. La nuova creatura entrerebbe di fatto nella top 5, insieme a Nvidia, Apple, Alphabet e Microsoft. “Unirle presenta molti vantaggi, poiché ci troviamo davanti alla superintelligenza”, aggiunge Musk chiamando l’intelligenza artificiale con il nome coniato da Donald Trump. “C’è molto da guadagnare dalla cooperazione nello sviluppo di software”.
L’istituzione di due comitati speciali, chiamati a studiare la fattibilità dell’operazione, è solamente il primo passo. Se la loro valutazione dovesse essere positiva, bisognerà capire cosa ne pensino gli azionisti. Niente di semplice. Per l’approvazione finale è richiesta infatti una maggioranza favorevole di tutti i detentori delle azioni, non solo di quelli che hanno votato. Va da sé che raggiungerla è tutt’altro che una passeggiata. Per cui, frena Musk che non può prender parte alle discussioni per un evidente conflitto di interessi, “non credo che dovremmo dare una fusione per scontata. Alcuni lo fanno, ma penso sia un’esagerazione”. Lui ovviamente spera che alla fine la barca entri in porto. L’azienda ipotetica vanterebbe 155.000 lavoratori e genererebbe un fatturato complessivo di 153 miliardi di dollari.
Ci sono diverse ragioni per cui Musk sogna di vedere una sintesi tra le due società che ha fondato. Da una parte SpaceX, con il suo enorme know-how in materia spaziale, tra missili e connessioni satellitari; dall’altra Tesla, con le sue conoscenze dell’automotive. La prima collaborazione tra le due società ha prodotto la macchina volante Roadster, presentata la scorsa settimana. L’auto, marchiata Tesla, è dotata di razzi riutilizzabili Falcon di SpaceX, gli stessi che portano in orbita i satelliti di Starlink.
In futuro la partnership continuerà a prescindere dall’esito di una fusione. SpaceX ha infatti già acquistato le batterie Megapack e Cybertruck di Tesla per 1 miliardo di dollari. Viceversa, l’azienda automobilistica ha comprato delle azioni di quella aerospaziale nel momento in cui xAI si è fusa con SpaceX. E poi c’è Terafab. la joint venture tra le due aziende. Musk ha svelato a marzo il mega impianto di produzione di chip in Texas (costo stimato: 119 miliardi di dollari) che dovrebbe alimentare tutti gli altri progetti delle aziende. E non intende di certo abbandonarlo.
Una cosa però è collaborare, un’altra è unire le proprie forze. I dubbi su una effettiva fusione sono tanti e leciti. Le due aziende dovranno essere abili nel presentare l’operazione come un successo win-win, senza che qualcuno possa insinuare che una delle due venga sfavorita. Bisognerà anche capire come l’unione verrebbe recepita al di fuori dagli Stati Uniti. Non soltanto in Europa, che sta diventando un territorio ostile agli occhi delle aziende americane. “Sarebbe troppo pericoloso per noi”, confida un funzionario al Financial Times. L’ostacolo principale è rappresentato dalla Cina e dalle sue stringenti regole sulla sicurezza nazionale. Tesla vanta già una presenza consolidata, con un fatturato di 21 miliardi registrato lo scorso anno. Pechino però guarda con grande sospetto a SpaceX, primo competitor nella guerra spaziale. E non è un dettaglio di poco conto.
That's an even more ambitious timeframe than Musk has previously given. He said in August that SpaceX was internally projecting $1 trillion of revenue in 2030, and there was a "non-zero" chance it could reach that amount in 2029.
Musk made his latest pronouncement within hours of saying on SpaceX's third-quarter earnings webcast that annual recurring revenue could reach between $500 billion and $1 trillion by the end of 2027.
In a post-earnings note, JPMorgan forecast SpaceX would generate $254 billion of revenue in 2027.
If SpaceX were to generate $1 trillion in revenue in 2028, that would represent a 53-fold increase in three years. It earned just under $19 billion in 2025. It shared its historical financials prior to going public this summer.
After the bell on Tuesday, SpaceX — the company behind Falcon rockets, Starlink satellites, X, and AI chatbot Grok — posted close to $15 billion in revenue last quarter, up 161% from the same period of 2025.
The key driver was its super-intelligence division, where revenue surged 830%, from around $800 million to $7.6 billion. SpaceX attributed the growth to new cloud services agreements, around $600 million of revenue from its recent Cursor acquisition, and increased Grok adoption by enterprises.
To put Musk's $1 trillion revenue figure in context, Amazon and Walmart, the two highest-revenue companies on the planet, both generated a little over $700 billion in net sales last financial year.
Musk is floating the possibility that SpaceX could generate more than 40% more revenue than either of them did last year, in about two years' time.
It's unclear whether Musk is including Tesla, which generated about $95 billion of revenue last year, in his newest revenue figure. He revealed on Tuesday that Tesla and SpaceX have formed committees to explore a potential merger.
Susannah Streeter, Wealth Club's chief investment strategist, told Business Insider by email that a tie-up could "combine expertise in AI, chips, robotics and connectivity."
But she added that "bringing two enormous businesses with very different operations and capital demands under one roof would be a hugely complex undertaking."
Streeter said that notching $1 trillion in annual revenue in 2028 would be a "very tall order" and require an "extraordinary leap in the scale of the business."
"Moving the goalposts from 2030 to 2028 suggests he is increasingly confident that several growth drivers could accelerate at once, but there is a difference between a target that is technically possible and one that is commercially realistic," she added.
Neil Wilson, UK investor strategist at Saxo Bank, told BI by email that Musk's latest revenue figure is "pushing it" and "would imply such an enormous pull-forward in demand as to defy credibility."
Wilson added that he'd "never say never" about SpaceX hitting $1 trillion of revenue, "but by 2028 I'd say the chance is zero, whatever Elon says!"
Tesla accounted for more than half of US electric-vehicle sales in the third quarter.
Its quarterly sales increase exceeded the entire market's gain, Cox estimates show.
High gas prices are helping EVs compete, though sales remain below last year's levels.
Tesla is taking a bigger slice of America's electric-vehicle market as high gas prices give drivers another reason to consider ditching the pump.
The company sold an estimated 144,094 vehicles in the US in the third quarter, up from 124,800 in the previous three months, according to Cox Automotive's latest sales report.
That increase was bigger than the gain for the rest of the US EV market. Put another way: Tesla drove the recovery. Everyone else, taken together, went backward.
The figures offer a new twist on the EV comeback I wrote about in July. Back then, sales had finally improved after the slump that followed the end of federal incentives in the US. Several manufacturers were benefiting, but only those withthe fortitude to stick with EVs after federal government support waned.
While recovery continued in the third quarter, it became more dependent on Tesla.
Americans bought 262,649 new EVs during the period, about 6% more than in the second quarter. Sales outside Tesla fell roughly 3%, based on a comparison of Cox's latest counts with its second-quarter report.
Tesla's own sales rose about 15% from the second quarter. It supplied 54% of the country's new EVs in the third quarter, extending its lead from the previous period.
High gas prices help make the case for going electric, according to Cox.
"With gas prices well above $4 a gallon, electric vehicles look better than ever," Stephanie Valdez Streaty, Cox's director of Industry Insights, said in the company's analysis of the quarter.
Expensive gasoline and diesel make running a conventional vehicle more painful. For drivers who can charge cheaply, particularly at home, an EV offers a valuable alternative to repeated trips to the pump.
There's an important caveat to the comeback story: Sales are improving from a depressed level.
Total US EV sales were down almost 40% from a year earlier. Last year's third quarter was unusually strong because buyers rushed to claim federal incentives before they disappeared.
Tesla's sales were down about 20% against that comparison. The company remains heavily dependent on two vehicles. The Model Y and Model 3 accounted for roughly 97% of its US sales in the latest quarter.
The Cybertruck sold over 4,300 units, and Tesla has stopped making the Model S and X. (There's a Roadster, though not until 2028).
So Tesla's growing dominance isn't a story of every model flying out of showrooms, or of selling more cars than a year ago.
For now, it is winning a larger share of a smaller market. As Americans return to EV shopping, Tesla is capturing more of their business.
During SpaceX's Tuesday earnings call, Elon Musk said both of the companies had created "special committees of independent directors" to discuss a potential merger.
Musk, who helms both companies and owns billions of dollars in stock of each, said he can't be part of those exploratory groups.
"Do I think it would be a good idea? Yes," he said on the call. "But at the end of the day, the shareholders have to be supportive of this, and particularly on the Tesla side, we will need a 50% vote of all shares, not just those who vote, but of all shareholders."
He said clearing that bar would be "quite a high hurdle."
It's the most detailed update investors have received yet on the idea of a tie-up, which has been the subject of much chatter since SpaceX went public earlier this year. If the companies ultimately decide to merge, it would further consolidate Musk's business empire, often referred to as Musk Inc.
His businesses have been on a consolidation kick. In 2025, xAI acquired Musk's social media company, X (formerly Twitter), and in February, SpaceX acquired xAI.
Musk also runs the brain-chip startup, Neuralink, and the tunnel-building firm The Boring Company. Both operate independently, but have had business collaborations within Musk Inc.
Tesla and SpaceX's stocks were up in after-hours trading following the news. SpaceX was up around 6.6% and Tesla 1.6%.
Musk sees clear benefits in tying the knot
"I do think there's a lot of merit to combining the companies as we are pretty much in the superintelligence singularity," Musk said during the call.
The most recent result of that partnership: On Thursday, Tesla demoed its long-awaited Roadster, which includes a version with SpaceX technology. The high-powered sports car's top trim will include cold-gas thrusters. The car launched, hovered, and flipped in the air during the demo.
While Musk is for the two companies tying the knot, he said investors shouldn't think it's a sure thing.
"I don't think we should necessarily assume that a SpaceX and Tesla merger is a certainty," he added. "That would be overstating it."
Elon Musk says his descendants might have a "tiny fraction" of his wealth.
Jae C. Hong/AP
Elon Musk says "money becomes irrelevant" if he's right about what the future holds.
The Tesla and SpaceX CEO said AI and robots will be better than humans at everything.
The world's richest man said his fortune could be virtually gone within a few generations.
Elon Musk says money could be meaningless one day, and the vast majority of his wealth will likely be gone within a few generations.
The world's richest person predicted that advances in robotics and space travel will create a multiplanetary economy, at which point "money becomes irrelevant" and "conventional currency will not matter."
Value will be measured in mass and power or energy, he continued. "So that's my guess," he said, adding that it seemed a "pretty obvious" outcome to him.
The Tesla and SpaceX CEO shared his vision of a post-money future and his outlook on his personal fortune with his biographer, Walter Isaacson, on "The Builders" podcast. The interview was taped in early August and released on Tuesday.
Musk recommended earlier this year that people stop saving for retirement in 10 or 20 years, as he expects AI and other technologies to supercharge productivity and usher in an age of abundance where people can have "whatever stuff they want."
He made a similar argument to Isaacson, saying "there won't be anything that humans can do that the AI and the robots can't do better." People will likely turn to hobbies like growing their own fruits and vegetables, or making art, to find purpose in life, he said.
Musk's plans for his own money
Musk, who briefly became a trillionaire after SpaceX went public in June, topped the Bloomberg Billionaire Index at Monday's close with an estimated $920 billion net worth.
He defended his personal wealth on the podcast, saying that it mostly reflects his ownership of SpaceX and Tesla, and he needs large stakes in both companies to retain voting power and remain in charge.
His fortune is "going to be taxed quite heavily," Musk said, adding that there isn't "some magical way to avoid taxes" because "if there were, I would know about it."
Musk said his wealth will "get whittled down and a few generations from now — if money still matters, which I don't think it will — my descendants would have a tiny fraction of what I have."
He also outlined what he hopes his foundation will spend his fortune on after he's gone: "Continue the goals. Make life multi-planetary, extend consciousness to the stars, improve sustainable energy on Earth."
Notably, Musk pledged on Monday to gift a share of SpaceX to every child in the US next year, a contribution worth over $10 billion today.
His announcement has won praise from President Donald Trump, who hailed Musk's "incredible generosity" and labeled him a "legendary friend" in an X post.
Musk teased a charitable pledge in late July after Nobel economist Daron Acemoglu publicly challenged him over his prediction of a post-money future.
"If money won't matter in 2036, why don't you pledge to donate your current wealth of approximately $1 trillion to charity no later than 2036," Acemoglu wrote on X.
"I am actually going to do something along these lines!" Musk responded.
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