TSLA Terathread - For the week of Feb 09

Good morning here is the link to last week's Terathread. https://www.reddit.com/r/RealTesla/comments/1qtr0n3/tsla_terathread_for_the_week_of_feb_02/

Leon has punted on going to Mars lmaoooooooo "For those unaware, SpaceX has already shifted focus to building a self-growing city on the Moon, as we can potentially achieve that in less than 10 years, whereas Mars would take 20+ years."

Does that mean they're abandoning the plan to land humans on Mars in 2024? Disappointing.

Are they still [working on taking CO2 out of the atmosphere and turning it into rocket fuel](https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-spacex-co2-rocket-fuel)?

What’s funny is about a year ago Elon tweeted that they were going to ignore the moon and focus on Mars. Why the pivot? I think it’s because SpaceX is worried (as they should be) that the government will award the Artemis 3 lunar lander contract to another company like Blue Origin as they threatened to last year. Losing this contract would be a huge embarrassment for them, so they now want to be “all in” on the Moon.

One concern I have about a SpaceX IPO is, in my experience, SpaceX fanboys are even more insufferable than Tesla fanboys. I fear an IPO will only make them worse.

I missed a 10 year Elonversary yesterday: Headline: Elon Musk explains how a Hyperloop would work on Mars >*"On Mars you basically just need a track,"* he said at the ceremony. *"You might be able to just have a road, honestly. It would go pretty fast."* This is because the air density isn't as high on Mars as it is on Earth. As Musk explained, the density of Mars' atmosphere is only 1% of Earth. That roughly translates to there being less air resistance to slow down a moving object. I'm a little confused as to why air density matters, since this fever dream allegedly operates in a vacuum tube? But that's his whole grift - get me thinking about "air resistance" and ignoring minor details like: traveling to Mars, hauling hyperloop components to Mars, surviving cosmic rays and bone loss on Mars...and most importantly of all: Contemplating why in the hell a few colonists surviving by a thread on another planet would even need high speed mass transit. Anyway, 10 years later, progress on hyperloop = zilch and progress on colonizing Mars = nada.

Welp. I have to post this 7 year Elonversary a day early: *"I’m* ***con****fident moving to Mars (return ticket is free) will one day cost less than $500k & maybe even below $100k. Low enough that most people in advanced economies could* ***sell their home on Earth & move to Mars*** *if they want."* \- Canadian Con Man, Feb 10, 2019

He called the moon a "distraction" like 13 months ago lol

I had to go to another corner of Reddit to see how his disciples feel about this. Surprisingly, they are starting to show doubt in their messiah. My favorite comment (not said ironically), as the xAI merger is discussed as being the reason why: "Imagine if humanity ends up losing its opportunity to go to mars because of fucking twitter." That's one of the most Branch Elonian statements ever made.

Does the shareholder vote to block investing in XAI extend to the new SPACEXAI? It's not like it prevented elon from doing it anyway.

I mean he's not factually wrong here. On mars you could skip the vacuum tube and just run ultra high speed magnetic trains on elevated tracks. But yeah all the other stuff you said is very true. Whole idea is extremely dumb.

I think some of them are at least having an existential crisis when they learned Mars was a grift all along an data centers is the new goal.

this is, quelle surprise, a grift . . . he wants NASA to use his stainless steel behemoth as the lander (a thoroughly retarded idea).

if there were like mayan or Egyptian-quality ruins on Mars I'd be the first on the boat. Otherwise, hard pass. I can go to Somalia or Burning Man for libertarian desert experiences.

yeah this is it, he wants NASA to pay him to re-purpose "Starship" as a lander, a truly idiotic employment of this platform.

From reading many stan posts over the years, it's clear to me that a lot of them invested money in $TSLA as kind of a proxy for investing in Elon's other scams, SpaceX chief among them. For years, Telsa's share price benefited from non-Tesla, fElon-related announcements. It'll be interesting to see how much more money these people will be willing to burn on SpaceX once it does IPO.

Seems like Tesla followed up on that no vote by shoveling $2 billion into the xAI furnace. It apparently didn't even affect their ability to "invest" in xAI, so they'd have no problem wasting money on SpaceX. Shareholder votes don't matter - TSLA is more of a "whatever the hell Elon wants" type of corporate governance.

All the SpaceX Elongelicals I know work in IT - Musk might have flown too close to the sun with "space data centers", as they know its bullshit. I'm sensing angst in the SpaceX social media sphere, as Branch Elonians worry their Mars dreams are about to go into the xAI furnace and fake space data centers.

Quick reminder - SpaceX has already secured a $2.89 billion NASA contract for the lander, in 2021, with an additional $1.15 billion added in 2022. This is a bargain, as its only 1 dollar perr data^(tm) point delivered so far.

Some are excited about the possibility of a manufacturing plant on the moon lmao

I always ask: Why not do a trial run on Earth? We've got Antarctica, the Sahara, the bottom of the ocean, volcanos, etc. Start a civilazation/colony/mining operation/manufacturing plant there as a test case. Then 100x the level of difficulty.

I hate how reporting on "we're turning CO2 into fuel" grifts always ignores the H2O (and energy) part of that equation even though it provides more of the actual energy storage. Especially for Methalox fuel like SpaceX uses. It's not like these rockets are running on carbon monoxide fuel.

But on the other hand, don't dissuade them from going. Have them buy the tickets ("one way", of course) and head out.

No the vote was too approve investing in xai. And it passed

What confuses you about why air density matters? A vacuum tube is easier to achieve and maintain in a low pressure environment.

Artemis is the distraction

It didn't pass because they counted abstentions as no votes. But it was just "advisory" I guess.

Well according to TechnoMessiah, the vacuum tube is trivially "easy" ***on Earth***: *"Honestly I think its alot easier than people think...Its really not that hard...Its like a tube with an air hockey table...I swear its not that hard" -* Griftoking on CNN Money, September 2015 So I fail to Muskerstand why Mars is uniquely "easier" for the "Hyperloop" due to its low air density.

Remember Robotaxis and how they were Elon's crowning achievement and his sole focus? A $10T opportunity? Well Elon for one doesn't remember he ever worked on them. Next week he'll probably say, "autonomy is a distraction, the Moon has always been the real focus" or some such.

It's a weird move in general. I could see them saying that years ago actually do some of the longer term structure and module development but those contracts were awarded years ago. Seems like him just dangling something else in front of people as a shorter term goal for the IPO in addition to all the space data center nonsense.

I still don't understand the obsession with living on Mars. It reminds me of when I was a teenager and nerds were obsessed with living in Japan.

If I were more sentimental I would feel bad for all the Mars True Believers who just got rugpulled by their idol after all these years

Per Fred, TSLA has updated the semi specs on its website, and perhaps for the first time given out actual curb weights. Standard Range: 325 miles, less than 20k lb, 1.7 kWh per mile Long Range: 500 miles, 23k lbs, 1.7 kWh per mile Lets talk about the curb weights. Google tells me a semi weighs on the light end 15k for a "day cab", but on average are 17k lbs. Sleeper cabs can weight between 18k-25k lbs. The feds (not all states though, I'm sure) spot BEV trucks an extra 2k lb gross weight - so this means the Standard Range is comparable (in weight) to an ICE day cab. However, the long range will be limited in total freight. As far as I (and ChatGPT) can tell, the Tesla Semis are not sleeper cabs. Does it matter? Well, every commodity under the sun you can think of from wood to gasoline is shipped in max payload packages. So it limits the versatility, IMHO. Lets talk range. Google tells me at least 1,000 miles for ICE. So a big drawback there. Google tells me a semi truck driver must take a 30 minute nap after 8 hours - at a governed 65 mph, that's 520 miles. So, if (and this is a big if) the Tesla Semi can really deliver 500 miles range, its really not much of a handicap after all. Lets talk about fuel. ICE get 5-8 mpg (I'll use 6.5 mpg), right now its $4.83 per gallon in CA, so 500 miles would cost $371.50. At 1.7 kWh per mile and Tesla's current California rates (variable from 34 cents at night to 55 cents daytime - I'll use 34 cents), that's $289 for the trip. If they did charge during the day, it would cost $467.50. No word on pricing yet (other than what Musk promised a generation ago at the reveal). Competition: eCascadia has shorter range at 230 miles, with day cab weighing in at 16,350 lb and sleeper at 21,800 lb. Conclusion: I think the long range model doesn;t make sense. The sort range does (pending price), but Tesla will compete in a crowded field. I think fleets will buy a few dozen to evaluate and large orders would not come for several more years (assuming Tesla even delivers its current orders in some near term).

But wasn't SpaceX gonna land a human on Mars in 2024 or something? How can it take 20 more years to get to Mars? Was the problem a lot more difficulty than originally forecasted?

I had to waddle through his tweets to find the original: https://xcancel.com/elonmusk/status/2020640004628742577#m Fucker loves re-tweeting his sycophants, holy shit, I feel slimy.

Yeah it’s not really ideal for OTR trucking without a big charging network of Tesla Semi megachargers across the U.S. which don’t currently exist. Tesla could spend the money to build this but I’m not sure they will. BEV Semi truck chargers can put big strains on local power grids and local communities are therefore sometimes reluctant to approve them. It’s probably best for things like drayage (trucking to and from seaports) and back to base trucking. The weight of the long range Semi is lower than I thought. I’ll bet it was a lot higher at first but maybe they were able to reduce the weight substantially when they completely redesigned it. It’s not the best time to get into the BEV Semi business IMO. State laws like California’s law that requires all new drayage trucks to be zero emission have been effectively blocked by the Trump administration and federal laws Trump has signed. Plus the $40k federal tax credit for zero and low emission class 8 vehicles under Biden has basically been halted. There might still be some state level incentives, mostly funded by pollution fees and fines that could help but the climate for zero emission Semi trucks is not looking nearly as lucrative as before. Freight companies pay a lot of attention to cost including total cost of ownership and BEV Semi trucks are typically substantially more expensive than ICE trucks. Of course, Elon spent a lot of money to help get Trump elected and even once claimed that Trump would not be President if it wasn’t for him. And with Tesla’s pivot away from EVs in general as their car sales collapse, I am not too sure why Tesla is even bothering with the Semi at this point.

>(variable from 34 cents at night to 55 cents daytime - I'll use 34 cents Leon guaranteed $.07/kWh whole sale rate and he never lies.

Elon has no serious intention of making a self-sustaining city on the moon. He believes all manner of stupid things but there's no way he now sees this as attractive after decades of pushing Mars colonization with zero interest in trying it on the moon. What Elon's almost certainly after here is space tourism. The moon is worse than Mars in just about every way (not that there's any real value in Mars either) but today's elites with $100b+ valuations will pay huge sums to party on the moon that wouldn't extend to spending years on a trip to Mars (that would be decades away from viability anyway) Bottom line: Elon is desperate for big new revenue streams to throw in the AI furnace and this looks more accessable to him than rapidly scaling up robotaxis and Optimus.

I see a definite market for short route semi trucks. Brand names like Pepsi have an interest in "appearing green", and I think they and others will continue to buy enough BEVs to give a "try-out" to, for a long term look at TCO. And as you say, any intermodal activity from seaport to road to rail, etc is a prime candidate due to the limited distances and control over where the truck is always parked overnight. I'm very skeptical of the financial viability of a "Megacharger" network. An electrical engineer I respect has a saying, when he explains harsh realities to clients: You're not paying for *power*, you're paying for *demand*. Some remote station charging a sparse dozen trucks a week will rack up crazy demand charges...of course Tesla's solution would be to buffer demand with giant battery packs on the ground - but that cost money too. These trucks need to spend the night at a giant power sucking distribution center or factory - ie fixed mostly local routes. I think Tesla persists with the semi just to "keep up appearances", and that's about it. I can't imagine they'll ever make a profit off it.

Elon never lies, he just gets his dates (and decimal places) wrong.

>"A diesel truck will be 20% more expensive than a Tesla Semi per mile. This is from Day 1. This is a worst-case scenario." \-Person who knows more about manufacturing than anyone alive on Earth

Musk's first Moon tourism grift seems to have been forgotten to history. In 2018 he suckered a Japanese billionaire into believing he would take a trip around the moon. The headline: *"SpaceX: Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa to be first "private passenger" on moon mission...A Japanese art collector and billionaire fashion entrepreneur is paying SpaceX an undisclosed but "significant" amount to charter a flight around the moon as early as 2023 aboard the company's planned BFR rocket, a mission that will include a half-dozen other invited artists for what would be the first privately funded moon mission."* \- September 18, 2018 It was called the "dearMoon" project - a collection of paying customers along with "artists" and "influencers" riding free gratis. The "Everyday Astronaut" idiot Tim Dodd got picked - how exciting! In 2024, the whole thing was officially cancelled - translation: Maezawa closed his open checkbook: *"Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa canceled his planned flight around the moon on June 1 due to delays with SpaceX's Starship megarocket, which has yet to fly a single crewed test flight."* \- June 7, 2024 The magnitude of the con isn't known, but estimates are he was bilked out of $500 million for a totally real trip to the Moon.

This beats rail! \- -Person who knows more about manufacturing ***LIES*** than anyone alive on Earth

that titanic submarine implosion re-set a lot of decision trees I bet

the conman goes heliocentric: "The tech billionaire, who aims to launch an initial public offering for the newly combined company this year, argues that vast fleets of satellites powered by solar energy and cooled by the vacuum of space will become the cheapest way to generate AI computing power. Musk believes this will happen within the next three years."

instead of the stupid HSR California tried to build we shoulda just made a better I-5 just for trucks, with feeder roads from the valley corridor cities. We've got basically 1930s road technology between San Diego and Redding and it sucks.

>cooled by the vacuum of space That's not how vacuums work. The heat has to go somewhere once the chips get hot... Also they will need to be in the shade of the solar panels otherwise they are in the sun and won't be cold to begin with. None of this matters to elmo's followers tho.

That rivian R2 looks amazing and will eat the Tesla Ys lunch.

Tesla quoting $290k for its long range 500-mile Semi

>cooled by the vacuum of space Hopefully this is not something Elon actually said? This is just the journalist misunderstanding heat dissipation, right?

I can’t help but wonder if they’d lose money at that price point.

There's a lot of asterisks with trucking, especially when it comes to how the Semi is designed and what it needs to actually achieve those numbers. BEVs and trucking efficiency depends very heavily on aerodynamics and by extension what they're hauling. For anything that the Semi can haul at anywhere near its quoted specs newer more efficiently designed ICE trucks are probably getting 9+ mpg and by extension the Semi is going to be terrible at hauling anything that can't fit into the aerodynamically optimized trailers its always pictured with. Similarly infrastructure costs for the semi are going to be significant too. Charging at 1.2MW is going to take really expensive equipment and make some locations completely non-viable due to their lack of proximity to high capacity electrical infrastructure. Pretty much the only users so far have been sucking up extensive subsidies in California to offset a lot of those costs for highly tailored routes and frankly I don't see that changing going forward. As usual I'd also be very skeptical about the claims about the lifespan and maintenance requirements of the vehicles too. Trucks work for hours on end, every component is under load and hauling is if just far tougher mechanically on the vehicles. These things will break down and require maintenance and serviceability is going to be a massive concern. Furthermore to date Tesla has dealt with a ton of issues basically trying to double dip on its prior designs and essentially under engineering a lot of components on the Semi too. Some of that is probably for weight reasons and some is just Musk being cheap. I'd also be very curious what battery degradation ends up looking like just given the size of the packs and speed that they're hoping to charge them at. Keeping all that in mind I think the TCO claims might as well be another Elon Musk fairy tale at this point. All things considered I think Rivian and GM targeted the cargo and logistics market way better by focusing on large delivery vans and last mile delivery.

Well that and the reality that Starship is still in the infancy of Data^(TM) Collection mode.

Agreed. I've just learned that California limits trucks to 55 mph...wanna bet the range claims are at just 55 mph?...instead of a more reasonable 65 mph trucks can travel at in other states. And you make a very good point about the trailer aerodynamics. Any type of tanker or flat bed load will suffer range loss. I especially agree Rivian is travelling down the right path - there is a very real possibility (and to some degree it already happening in China and UK) that ICE vehicles will face time window restrictions in large cities across the world. BEV for local deliveries makes a ton of sense. As a general rule, Tesla's products have a reputation for very poor initial quality and lead the pack when it comes to failed inspections. And every story of a high mileage Tesla comes with an asterisks for drive unit replacements and battery swaps - so no, there's no way anyone can take their longevity claims seriously. Intuitively its absolutely the worst market for TSLA to dip its toe into - reputation, responsiveness, service, and parts availability rule the day - and Tesla sucks at all of that.

Yeah it's all 55mph from what I've heard, which again would make ICE truck fleet stats look better too. I'm sure Tesla will tout a lot of things as being completely novel and innovative but the fact of the matter is the DOT and major truck manufacturers are very well aware of what impacts fuels efficiency and have been doing research and designs to improve it for ICE vehicles via the various iterations of the SuperTruck program for over a decade now. I agree this is just one of the worst industries for Tesla to dip its foot into and I think all the puffery about building a world class semiconductor fab would be a similarly terrible idea given the lack of an emphasis on QC and process yields for similar reasons.

SpaceX, September 27, 2016: > We'll start a cadence of sending Dragons to Mars in two years. Will be like a train leaving the station

Remember when he called his rocket 'big fucking rocket'... It's just embarrassing

It's such a shame that we have a low emissions (even a diesel train has significant savings on diesel trucks) way to transport a lot of freight, but because it's not cars the infrastructure has been allowed to decay to the point where it is barely viable

Go live at the south pole, and any time an emergency happens, we just won't send people for 6 months. And the supply can be no more that one shipping container when help does come.

^(this fucking stock)

It is propped up by a daily cadence of call option buying. Elon has a stock pumping budget in the tens of billions. You are betting against the house.

Reminds me of tunnel boring - Branch Elonians seem to be under the impression that nobody in the existing tunnel industry ever thought: "Hey, we should try to tunnel faster". Thank goodness Elon came along and revolutionized the industry!

I think rail still gives trucking stiff competition. Its all privatized and in general is fairly well maintained - there is a notable exception in Hunter Harrison, who made a name for himself by cutting maintenance, favoring short term profits over long term...but he's gone and the railroads are back to value building. There's ebbs and flows tied to the economy and crop yields, but in general the tonnage graph goes up over time.

Woah, woah, phrasing! The CEO of Tesla and a member of Tesla's BOD are in the Epstein Files and that's how they talk about underage women.

You're right, I shouldn't discount bulk freight. More inter-modal freight would be nice though

I just hope Rivian can survive the transition into more mass production. It will probably be a couple years of growing pains.

Tomorrow is a 1 year Elonversary, from the Oval Office: Q: "How can we make sure that all the statements that you said were correct so we can trust what you say?" TechnoRiddler: *"Some of the things that I say will be incorrect and should be corrected."*

Edward Niedermeyer published a blog about Elon Musk's and Epstein's relationship in 2012 and 2013 based on the information from the Epstein files https://niedermeyer.online/2026/02/10/musk-epstein-year-one/ And the Guardian published one about Kimbal and Epstein https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/10/jeffrey-epstein-tesla-kimbal-musk

Wait a second... so the healthcare industry somehow adding 82,000 jobs in the phony jobs report, which will almost certainly be revised down, just like all of last year was revised down, isn't a justification for the stock price popping by 3% in an hour? I'm shocked!

Now Elon's directing xAI employees (not even SpaceX ones) to develop AI data center factories on the moon complete with rail guns to catapult them into earth orbit. It amazes me that no major media outlets ever seem to report on how ridiculous his plans are no matter how bad he gets.

damn Eppie was running a textbook spy op LOL . . . each member of the 1% really needs a 'counter-intel' security advisor to vet incoming connections like this.

He really has lost touch with reality completely now. I must work out how to buy long-term puts here in the UK; it is only a question of when it all collapses.

This is the part where close family members start putting extra chairs in the living room and nervously wait for a tough conversation about life choices when Elon walks through the door.

I wonder if he's doing it earnestly or just as a way to push a stock-pumping narrative. His projects are always ambiguous in this way.

I'm not super worried about that. Unlike Tesla they have partnerships and working relationships with companies that have been doing this for decades.

300,000+ boomers per month are hitting medicare age now. its a helluva influx, 2011 - 2029.

https://www.almanacnews.com/technology/2026/02/10/battery-tests-sparked-two-fires-at-tesla-lab-in-palo-alto/ Some actual Tesla engineering news

No wonder the former founding engineers are bailing out.

You know, the only thing stupider than building AI data centers in space on earth. . . Is thinking we can build AI data centers on the moon, and then rail gun them to earth! While the rail gun idea is cool and totally possible . . . Well, possible in the since that if we can build a city with tons of people living on the moon with all the food, life support, healthcare, agriculture, manufacturing to build the AI data center. . . One we figure all that out, the rail gun is honestly a non-issue. (Just in case, I am being sarcastic. . . Elon Musk is about 100 feet over his skis.)

Looking at the price list from Volvo I do not think so. But then comes the flest maintenance and support…

xAI has experienced an [exodus](https://www.businessinsider.com/xai-key-departures-list-elon-musk-startup-cofounders-exodus-2026-2#simon-zhai-7) of at least 8 key figures in the past few days, including 2 co-founders. I wonder what’s going on. Something to do with the Space merger perhaps?

It’s interesting how bad that merger had to be if that was the breaking points, but not undressing minors in public.

Many possible reasons, but I can imagine equity compensation being absolute shit compared to the alternatives.

I, too, like to jump ship right before a lucrative IPO where I'd receive many shares of stock.

Really looking forward to trading in my Model Y for the new Rivian. Kinda regret trading in my 2018 LEAF for the 2023 Model Y, Rivian revealed the R2 like 4 months later . . . looks like I'll take a $15,000 total depreciation hit on the Model Y this year. Loving the NACS on the R2, too. It's basically what the cybertruck should have been, until Elon got involved.

Ooooooof. Tesla sales in China down 45% in January YoY.

This moon stuff Elon is now pitching would be an extremely capital intensive effort. It will probably also be the hook for getting Tesla to merge with SpaceX, as he argues that autonomous robots are indispensible to lunar development (and probably something about ruggedized lunar vehicles) But Elon doesn't have access to unlimited capital. His companies have burned less than the biggest AI plays and investors and banks are probably going to start pulling back on these existing multi trillion dollar AI efforts. To say nothing of the prospect of shoveling trillions more into the moon. Bottom line: if Elon is serious about persuing this moon vision and in Elon fashion tries to make the ridiculous happen as soon as possible by shoveling money at it I predict he completely ruins himself and his mega-company. And no the US government won't bail him out, not if JD Vance loses in 2028.

Tesla getting obliterated from a revenue standpoint and market is like ho hum, Elon is gonna build a data center on Mars. It is literally one of the craziest things I’ve ever seen.

> This moon stuff Elon is now pitching would be an extremely capital intensive effort. It just makes zero sense. The cost of moving uninvented sci-fi factory complexes onto the Moon is ridiculous. Building your wasteful data center next to oceans for cooling like a nuke plant on earth makes much more sense. Better yet, how about not building them at all to create more AI slop?

Chinese auto sales are pretty irregular for random reasons even beyond seasonal patterns so I won't call it a sure sign of collapse just yet... but Tesla probably is screwed there. Like I don't see how they have any real long term value whatsoever.

True, but Tesla’s sales declined significantly more compared to its major competitors.

I have come to the conclusion it’s all fake and manipulated through option buying programs. I don’t even think meme stock explains this

Dayum... Tesla is dumping today. This level's held quite a few times going back about 6 months. If it breaks, look out below.

It is heavily overweighted in index funds and manipulated through both stock buying and options, along with a lot of buy and hold forever investors who limit the amount of tradeable shares. So... if index funds hold up or rise, and people keep throwing money into those funds, those funds automatically but the underlying assets based on weighting. If there aren't many shares to buy, then any purchases can push the stock price up. Combine that with the resulting short squeezes, and big call options purchases (resulting in the options writers buying the underlying stock as a hedge), it can keep the share price inflated or even going higher. If Tesla then outperforms the index, the weighted index funds automatically increase Tesla's weighting, forcing those funds to rebalance their accounts; selling other stocks and buying more Tesla... resulting in Tesla beating the market. The problem for Tesla is when the entire market corrects. At that point, everything I just said happens in reverse, and still has a major impact on Tesla... but to the downside. Which is exactly why in Q1 2025, the S&P 500 fell 21%, but Tesla fell 56%.

It won't go below 400, the believers won't allow it. Also I won't consider it "dumping" until -10% Any given day can see TSLA +/-5%

That makes sense. I understand the index funds and major holders. But some of the price movements seem like major manipulation. End of day jumps in stock price in last five minutes of the day as an example

It went below 400 a week ago. This is not a rosy looking chart. Not necessarily saying we'll get an exact repeat of last year, but anything similar could be a big drop. Also, I'm noticing the chart going back to April 2025 sure seems to look similar to January - October 2023. That would mean less of a drop, but still a drop from current levels before a rally, and another big drop later in the year.

The only way TSLA dumps meaningfully below 400 is if there's a broader market pullback. As long as QQQ is flat or only down slightly, Elon's call buying program can keep TSLA rising. Forever, independently of any Tesla related news, independently of earnings, etc. The PE ratio will keep rising as well (now over 400, will be well over 500 after Q1 earnings, will eventually reach 1000, by the end of 2026). In case of a general market crash though, expect TSLA to crash far more than the market.

He wants to build an entire satellite manufacturing supply chain on the moon, complete with mass drivers to fling them into earth orbit. There has been a lot of research into the viability of manufacturing solar panels and power distribution on the moon and beaming it to earth. The absolute best case scenario is that it'd be 50+ years away and would take astronomical investment (before even determining if it actually makes sense economically) What Elon wants basically includes that plus far, far more and he thinks he can do it in just a few years. No amount of money and vision would actually make that plausible but if he's really serious about it he's sure to run out of money trying.

Elons depending on other peoples money, I imagine.

It'll run out.

Unless the promised AI utopia actually comes the market is pretty sure to crash eventually. But longer term I think the inevitable combined Tesla/SpaceX (and I do think there's very clear signs of Elon making that happen by the next year or two) will crash out when they're no longer able to fund his wild ambitions. I know for years and years he's gotten away with just talking while not really doing anything but his grandiose space plans are getting a lot more specific in terms of scope and schedule. The market is going to start calling his bluffs and demanding meaningful milestone achievements, which Elon is going to have to respond with massive cash burns.

Bullish

Most of those key figures are pure ML researcher types. This merger and the push for "space data centers" are clear signs to abandon ship for the ML people. So many better uses of their time.

Musk watched someone playing Doom Eternal where they shot the Slayer out of a rail gun to a planet and realized it was totally possible and the future guys.

Remember when 4680s were the next magical revolution?

Tesla isn't even longer in the top 8 market share: [https://eu-evs.com/marketShare/ALL\_DAILY/Brands/Bar/Year-by-Months/2026](https://eu-evs.com/marketShare/ALL_DAILY/Brands/Bar/Year-by-Months/2026)

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/feb/12/elon-musk-posts-january-white-supremacists

Tomorrow's 9 year Elonversary: *"The most near term impact from a technology standpoint is* ***autonomous cars*** *… That is going to happen* ***much faster than people realize*** *and it’s going to be a great convenience"*

Bullish

It's crazy to me that people on the right still don't understand the facism and Nazi accusations when they're pretty much verbatim following the textbook for it. I mean you literally have them drawing deportation ideas from an Austrian man at this point after Musk gave multiple Nazi salutes during a political rally a year ago. Could it be any more on the nose? I swear to god Musk could post tomorrow that he's focused on the moon simply because it's whiter than Mars and that makes it better and 50% of US voters somehow still wouldn't be convinced he was some form of white supremacist.

he's also pushed the anti-Jewish "Replacement Theory" thing to his followers. He's a real piece of work and now that the R2 is coming out this year I really, really wish I'd just waited for it instead of getting a Model Y in late 2023 . . . it's going to cost me ~$15k to de-nazify my life now.

He just pivoted from Mars to the moon saying it would take 20+ years to go to Mars, which is a waste of time, therefore SpaceX should focus on going to the Moon instead. The same SpaceX that he claimed was gonna send people to Mars by 2024. I don't see anyone calling his bluffs. :-(

Drawing or painting 🤔😬

The thing is no ever believed that merely putting people on Mars had any economic value, and Elon's absurd Martian city building ambitions were always billed as decades away. Now he's pivoted to promising SpaceX space based datacenters as the most economically efficient option in just three years at most. He's pulled SpaceX deep into an AI bubble that's probably going to collapse catastrophically and which will hit the most outlandish players the hardest. And he's pushing the market stakes a lot higher. Until recently SpaceX was valued at a few hundred billion using highly gamed and opaque private offerings. Soon he'll be looking at valuation based on IPO north of $1.5 trilliom, which will be a lot harder to manipulate.

Even if this becomes technology achievable tomorrow, I still don't see the business case. Slightly cheaper taxi service with a heavy initial investment? Who is the customer, rush hour commuters and then the majority if the fleet is idle? And this only applies to major cities. So expect at least half of the population to be outside the service network.

So what happened to the robotaxi expansion?

Agreed. The current taxi/rideshare market doesn't justify the valuation, so the valuation anticipates people will ditch their cars in favor of using robotaxis for day to day driving. I just don't see that happening. And as you say, a very basic tenant of traffic engineering is the concept of the "Peak Hour" - one in the A.M. and one in the P.M. We all travel at the same time. Imagine wondering whether or not you'll be to work on time, depending on robotaxi availability, in a world where everyone else competes for the same taxis. There's also a very basic concept seemingly lost on Branch Elonians. Why do I choose to buy a car, and not just ride taxis?...Answer: Its cheaper and more convenient to own my car. There is no way is hell riding around in a paid taxi Tesla would be cheaper than just going out and buying my own Tesla. And allegedly I can robo my self to work in my own personal chariot, sans the cum and vomit.

> Its cheaper and more convenient to own my car. Exactly this - I live outside of Nashville. Currently the average Uber is $45-60 from my home to Nashville. SO even if a Robotaxi service cuts that cost in **HALF** it will still be a $45-60 round trip, do that 5 times a week to get to work? So $1000 a month??? While losing the convivence of leaving for work or lunch or daycare at a moment's notice? Oh yeah...daycare having a child seat that is set up for my child and not for another kid would be great, I'm sure the robotaxi will not provide that - Elon wants us all to be parents.

They have had 50% of the US covered since last year, what more do you want?

The cheapest robo-fare I've seen tossed around is $2.00...to be split evenly between the Branch Elonian owner and TSLA. This is somewhat clouded by the advent of the two seater that would presumably be owned by Tesla, but the best guess I can make on the grift is $2/mile. Google tells me that collectively we all drive around $14k miles per year...so are we really going to shell out $28k/year for taxi service?...With no ownership, nothing to re-sell? It makes no sense at all. Adding to your car seat example - what about a stroller? A box of baby wipes? Fido's travel kennel? A phone charger? There's a reason public transit is poorly utilized in the US - we're very fond of having our personal chariots and storage spaces.

It became too real for Musk to pump on it. People could actually go out in the street and definitively prove the things he was saying were false, so he's moved on.

The what? Didn't you hear about Moon City? No one ever seriously thought robotaxis were going to matter for the company. We're all glad Elon is deprioritizing autonomy to refocus on the bigger picture. Tesla was always meant to be a space exploration robotics company. It will produce 10B Optimus bots to build cities on the Moon. Smart investors understand this, and that's why Tesla is a $1.5T company today, which is insanely cheap, we are so early. It's your last chance to get in before space colonization starts!

Q1 earnings will be a better test. If those are as bad as I expect them to be and the stock stays over $400 just accept the casino is rigged.

Elon is a super spoiled out of touch weirdo who is used to being chauffeured. He thinks ordinary people really hate driving themselves and will leap at an opportunity to not own their own cars even if it costs them more. He also thinks people should work 100 hours a week and have lots of kids.

We're already at 420.69% of US covered.

The name isn’t Moon City. It’s Little St James Moon Branch

On a serious note, it is getting pretty obvious that Tesla 2026 Q1 deliveries will be below 2025 Q1 deliveries (336k). In January, compared to January last year: US -17%, China -45%, Europe -20%. I am still betting on \~300k deliveries this quarter. Maybe 290k. The numbers will recover a bit in February and March.

Anthropic tweeted that they just raised $30 billion at a $380 billion valuation. This caused the [richest man in the world to go into a jealous rage](https://xcancel.com/fredlambert/status/2022050489182171435). His own AI company, xAI was sold to SpaceX at the likely inflated price of $250 billion, way below what Anthropic is worth. So he started accusing Anthropic of having an AI that hates whites, Asians, heterosexuals and men. Funny how everything is about race to him, and the main metric he judges an LLM by is what it says about race. Also you’d think that once you become the richest person in the world, you’d stop getting jealous about money. But I guess not Elon.

I only use my kitchen 5% of the time. I should just share it with 20 others so we're not being wasteful.

He's probably on a triple dose ever since everyone of note bailed out of xai.

Yeah things must be going great at xAI. lol

Anthropic is actually one of the few companies that are somewhat successful in this AI world. They dominate enterprise market and their coding tools are widely adopted by many (most?) of tech companies. That's why Leon is mad.

Painted in an amatuerish fashion.

Yes, but Grok can... *checks notes* Generate CSAM on demand.

Do you think we will see >1.2M units in 2026? It would be fantastic if they trend down to less than 1M next year. That would leave them with more capacity for the real products like Robotaxis, Optimus, and GigaGrift.

SpaceX is apparently considering a dual share class to make sure Musk can retain control of the company. Link: https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/spacex-considering-dual-class-shares-ipo-bloomberg-news-reports-2026-02-13/ Not shocking obviously, but these usually allow founders to maintain control of a company even if they don't actually own most of the economic value of it. It's probably what Musk wanted to do in retrospect for Tesla so he could just literally do whatever he wants without any kind of challenge from other shareholders.

Yeah, dudes literally mad that competitors exist and investors didn't just pour money into his boat anchor xAI + Twitter's corpse play and lashing out. It's easy for him to do with OpenAI because Sam Altman is far from a great guy and he has a personal beef with him, but Anthropic is actually run by a sane person who's an actual intellectual with the formal qualifications to prove and on some level Musk instinctively fears that.

Why not give more control to the person actively destroying their own empire? Just accelerate the inevitable.

Anthropic and Claude are absolutely what he wishes xai and grok were. Claude has a firm grip and respect in technical circles while grok is a joke.

I would expect about 1.3M deliveries in 2026. However there's one scenario in which the decline could be much steeper: if competition in China accelerates past a certain threshold where suddenly all Chinese buyers flip to seeing Teslas as outdated clunkers. In this case Tesla demand in China could collapse by 90% over just a few months. It may not happen in 2026, but it will definitely happen by the end of 2027. Meanwhile demand in the US will fall by maybe -15% in 2026 compared to 2025. Demand in Europe will keep declining a bit and start stabilizing soon at around -60% from 2023 peak.

Curious number! 😆😆😆

He's got control now but this would let him maintain it even if he starts liquidating shares too. It's a big banner that he wants to leave the door wide open for him continuing to screw up with expensive side projects and huge political donations going forward as well. I mean even for the fan boys who think he's still some linchpin genius holding it all together it's a signal flare that he fully intends to continue screwing up going forward.

Yes, but have you heard about white genocide in South Africa. Did you know "Kill the Boer" is used to stir up violence against white farmers?

A new top contender for /r/agedlikemilk. : [linus tech tips gassing hyperloop](https://youtu.be/QhpkpQqitSQ?si=839hfr2I24F4Ps3p)

That gives their factories more capacity to pump out moon colonies. Soon half of the moons population will have access to a Robotaxi

That clip isn't really a new contender - thunderf0ot has used it multiple times

Isn't that exactly what companies like Google did?

Google and Meta are probably the two best known examples. Meta in particular as of late because Zuckerberg blew so much money on the whole metaverse project. I'd say Meta is probably the better example overall in this case because the Google guys have largely retired while and in theory are there largely to keep the company from turning into Flock Safety. Whereas Zuckerberg maintains tight control of the helm of Meta and everything it does to this day.

Tesla are already ahead of the game. There isn't a single person on the moon that doesn't have access to a Robotaxi right now!

2024: -1.07% 2025: -8.56% 2026: hard to say, because of the changing tax credits and incentives. I think down 10-13% is reasonable, especially when you factor in the S&X are going away. I'll go with 1.45m for FY2026.