Tesla Stocks Edge Lower as Refunds Blur the Margin Beat

SpaceX's SEC filing reveals that Elon Musk, who controls 85% of SpaceX's voting power, will have final approval on any merger with Tesla, despite recusing himself from talks. Both companies formed special committees to evaluate a potential deal, estimated to create a $3.5 trillion entity. Tesla shareholders must approve the merger with a 50% threshold. Tesla's annual meeting is December 3.

Tesla's stock dropped 2% after it canceled Cybertruck sales in Australia and New Zealand, citing engineering and economic challenges. The company will refund $150 deposits and offer incentives for switching to other models. Cybertruck sales in the U.S. fell 63% year-over-year to 5,400 units in Q3 2025, according to Cox Automotive data.

Tesla has begun mass-producing its Optimus robot at its Fremont factory, with plans to deliver units to external companies by late 2024. The company aims to ramp up production to 20,000 robots per week and has established an 'Optimus Academy' for AI training. Tesla also secured tax incentives for a $10.1 billion solar cell factory in Texas, pending final approvals. Additionally, Elon Musk disputed NASA's estimate of Starship launches needed for lunar missions, suggesting a lower number.

Tesla (TSLA) shares fell 3.08% after cutting its capital expenditure forecast, despite an earnings beat. Analysts are divided, with Wedbush targeting $600 (60% upside) based on AI/robotics growth, while others remain cautious. TSLA trades at $374.58, down 24.9% from its 52-week high. Peers GM, Ford, and Rivian also saw declines but offer higher consensus upside.

Tesla announced during its Q3 2026 earnings call that unsupervised Full Self-Driving (FSD) and Robotaxi network participation for customer vehicles are expected in Q2 2027. The update, FSD v15, will feature a significant increase in neural network parameters. Over 75% of new North American deliveries in Q3 included a paid FSD subscription, with 1.7 million paid customers worldwide.

Rivian Automotive RIVN acquired Third Dimension AI, a startup specializing in AI-powered 3D spatial generation and simulation. The acquisition aims to accelerate synthetic data generation and full-world simulation for Rivian's driver-assistance and self-driving systems. Rivian plans to use simulation to train autonomy models for rare or dangerous driving scenarios. Third Dimension's team will join Rivian's autonomy research and engineering teams.