Yep, they are inseparable in this moment so pretty hard to figure what has been baked in the cake.
well I mean we’ve already had people on mars for 3 years now 
I never said they were true stories. I loathe the guy but I’m not going to deny his PT Barnum like promotional genius.
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there are a certain percentage of people you can literally say anything to and they’ll buy in. Congrats to him and others for realizing what they could accomplish with it.
I just wish the wealthiest were actually better people, but I wonder if the only way to get there is to be a piece of shit.
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Show me the incentive and I’ll show you the outcome - Charlie Munger
We need to restructure society’s incentive structure to reward we centric more and me centric less. We badly need to do that and we need to do it yesterday.
Mods if I’m stepping in it please let me know. Trying to be on the right side here.
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He is a great storyteller because he has been correct more often than not. People tend to believe him because he delivers over time. Many people refuse to acknowledge this because they conflate their political feelings with the products and solutions he delivers. They can’t separate the man they think they know from the technology being created.
TSLA is down large today after their earnings report. Like a lot of tech companies recently, they are spending cash on the tech buildouts. The market doesn’t like that short term. Long investors like this move. Today is a great day to buy TSLA.
Notes from $TSLA
Transcripts: Elon Musk: “I think Optimus will be the biggest product ever” from Q2 earnings transcripts. Even from Q1, Elon Stated: “I think Optimus will be our biggest product. Not just Tesla’s biggest product ever, but probably the biggest product ever.And I remain convinced of that conclusion”.
”Elon tends to be directionally correct on where the future is heading, such as with EV or Space. He seems extremely bullish on humanoids.”
Is that your understanning of what was predicted? If so, that is incorrect.
In September 2024, he described plans for about five uncrewed Starships launching in ~2 years (around the 2026 window), with crewed missions possible in 4 years if those land successfully (or delayed another ~2 years if not).
In March 2025, he stated that Starship would depart for Mars at the end of the next year (2026) carrying Optimus robots, and that “human landings may start as soon as 2029, although 2031 is more likely” if those landings go well. He also noted humans occupying Mars on the 2nd or 3rd launch window (~5–7 years from then).
In August 2025, he said there was a slight chance of an Optimus-crewed flight in late 2026, but it was more likely the first uncrewed flight would be in ~3.5 years, with a human flight ~5.5 years out, and a self-sustaining Mars city in 20–30 years.
In January 2026, he said that if civilization keeps advancing, “humans will reach Mars in 5 to 10 years,” with a self-sustaining civilization taking another 20–30 years after that.”
It depends on how granular you are looking at things. His timing predictions for FSD have famously been ridiculous. He still has people’s deposits from as far back as 2017 for a Roadster that was supposed to start production in 2020 and even the unveiling keeps being pushed back (last broken promise there was April 2026). The thing is going end up in production a full decade after his clients were initially promised. If it ever does.
Then there is the question of delivering. For early investors and VCs there is no doubt about that. As you pull things forward it becomes murkier especially when you consider the old adage “in the near term the market is a voting machine and in the long term it is a weighing machine.” Elon has been masterful at maintaining the moonshot growth narratives and that has allowed his companies to maintain unprecedented multiples. If the adage is proven true and the weighing machine takes over then we can all expect a historic valuation haircut. But for now he’s onto the next pump with robotics and that seems to be enough to discourage the investment class from reacting to the eroding business fundamentals of Tesla’s core business.
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Delay noted but that’s just one product area of the Musk umbrella. Does anyone really think Musk took those early order reservations just to make some easy chump change? No, the risk in tarnishing the TSLA name would not be worth such a small payout. It’s delayed because of shifting necessity, engineering challenges, and supply windows. TSLA should refund all deposits; maybe they did and maybe they didn’t. I cant find a tracker that reports that.
Yeah, “it depends on how granular you are looking at things.”
Volume and revenue growth, but weaker profitability: Record deliveries (480,126 vehicles, +25% YoY) and revenue ($28.24 billion, +26% YoY, first time exceeding $100 billion trailing twelve months). Automotive revenue rose ~23%
If Tesla has eroding business fundamentals, then every other car company is screwed, because they all perform worse when using the same metrics.
Again, Tesla is spending cash on technology diversification.
Analysis
Tesla is generating solid top-line growth and cash from operations in its core automotive and energy businesses, but near-term margins are being deliberately sacrificed for scale (volume over price) and heavy investment in robotaxi, Optimus, and AI. This has pushed operating leverage negative in the short term—higher fixed/R&D costs are not yet offset by new high-margin revenue streams (robotaxi/Optimus remain early-stage and not material).The pattern is consistent with a transition phase: automotive margins have normalized lower in a more competitive EV market, while the company leans on its balance sheet and narrative of future high-margin software/AI/robotics profits. Sustainability depends on execution—if autonomy and robotics ramp successfully with strong unit economics, margins could expand significantly later; persistent delays or higher costs would prolong pressure. Compared with traditional automakers, Tesla’s gross margins remain relatively healthy, but its operating margins currently look more compressed due to the investment intensity.
Data is drawn from Tesla’s Q2 2026 update, earnings materials, and related reports as of July 23, 2026. Margins can fluctuate with mix, FX, one-time items, and accounting (GAAP vs. non-GAAP).
Part of this is that it’s a artifact of a long held shittiness of media appealing to the worst impulses of man. Good billionaire lifts up people donates money creates prosperity doesn’t sell. So f*** that guy we’re going to go find the ones that are going to get people all riled up
Never made such a claim. Was just one of many examples of his prediction timelines being way too aggressive. You seem to follow his career so you are of course aware of this trait of his.
Looking at a larger picture of society or just the automotive business or maybe in between their business in general, it may be that it’s necessary to have aspirational goals that are aggressive in their time frame and scope in order to create environment for those goals to be achieved.
Anyone else doing diddly squat with EVS at scale? No. Not the Legacy ice automakers, not the new startups rivian is about to file for bankruptcy. That’s a Chinese automakers if they had to actually compete without Catholic markets and directed investment directly from the government as a strategic goal of their society.
Anyone else building Rockets that’s done jack s*** so far? No same story. Amazon boy jumped in the game but so far not very impressive.
How about Enterprise scale battery storage? Same answer.
How about vertically integrated full self-driving robot taxi Network? Well you have one competitor there who is arguably richest and deepest tech company in the world, and they have had a nice story and jump out of the gate but it sure looks like they’re about to get past and lapped, big time over the next few years.
Anyone else building congestion relieving Transit tunnels in 1/10 a time and 1/10 the cost?
How about brain computer interfaces that let paralyze people to all sorts of fun stuff with each other on the internet and now blind people to see. Wow sounds like a real piece of s*** human back that kind of project.
When I see anyone who a quarter as well and double the time has any one of those projects then I’ll know that they’re a very capable person. To do them all and jump into all of the social media AI platform Wars oh and that’s right provide satellite internet connection to anywhere on Earth, incredibly quickly and reasonably. Yeah we should totally be pissed off at this guy
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Again these are all reality right now every single one of. But I wish he would take on is how f****** s***** my voice to text has gotten in the last 10 years
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I wasn’t implying you did. Thats why I stated “anyone”, and not you or Curious guy.
Your comments are flavored with charges of malfeasnace though. My point is, delivering emerging technology far in front of any of your peers or governments, one is going to miss some targets. And these misses are inevitable at times when launching new products and solutions. And if being way too agressive with prediction timelines is a sin, then we could put 90% of all CEO’s under the micirsocope (like Pfizer CEO for example) for that, not just Musk. Being agressive is a huge part of being a leader. See Dan Campbell.
Free cash flow by year.
Perhaps 2026 is an inflection point but that is typically not what free cash flow charts look like for trillion dollar hyper growth companies. Admittedly he has been on a CapEx rampage though much of that was in XAI and should be on SpaceEx’s books.
As for the comparison to other car companies Ford’s MC is 1/20th that of Tesla and according to Gemini Ford generated 12b of free cash flow in 2025 compared to 6B for Tesla. So I’m not sure how you are defining screwed but depending on that definition I’m not sure that I agree with you.
Also. I’m not sure why you are copy and pasting Zacks.com. This is a message board. I’m interested in Pdono’s opinion not Zacks.com.
As for SpaceX I know that Starlink is a great business. I have several friends including my brother that live in rural settings and absolutely love it. And though replacing satellites as they lose orbit will be costly it is my understanding that the business can absolutely sustain that. I think that the rocket business will in time be a good one but that may be a long way out. Personally I think Frontier labs are going to go through some things due to open source alternatives and my belief that AI will end up being commoditized. I think XAI will remain a headwind. What does that all mean? No clue, way above my pay grade. I do think it will pay off long term but it’s expensive so it could be a while for folks to see massive gains. Though I could be wrong about that. I often am.
That’s it. Not only in automotive but in just about every sector. An environment has to be created and then spread though out the organiztion and then to the marketplace.
Sure, starting and continuing to run a car company is a real challenge, but if investing 100k today in any of these companies, what do I think has the most bang for the buck 20 years down the road? I’m giving my kids Tesla stock first, followed by GM, and then Ford.
GM and Ford are what, 110 years older than Tesla?
If I’m in an AI company then I would much rather be one that has an established customer base and their models integrated into already successful products and services, and building my own fabrication plant, and already leasing out compute then hyperscaling and praying for a killer app but somehow starts to monetize this capability to the mass Market of individuals and not just rely on b2b.
Vertical integration literally to Mars. This is the whoppingly gigantic difference between capex spend and praying versus capex spend to create more immediate and Broad cash flow
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Seriously? The same reason I look at Google before discussing other issues on any board or page. I dont have a photographic memory of every technical measurement through out time on every tech company. I like to try and check myself before I post. Plus, references are a good thing.
This is just applying the lessons from the business’s Tesla is already in and SpaceX is already in automotive and Aerospace to the AI business which is
own the supply chain
Now those businesses may not literally own the tier two and tier three suppliers or say Lockheed Etc but you get the drift don’t leave your supply chain vulnerable