For Tesla investors, a new reason to believe
Summer heatwaves spark talk of just how bad it can get in coming years
Tesla TSLA 0.00%↑ shares have been on a roll lately and after a surprise beat in second-quarter sales late last week, investors have a new reason to believe in Elon Musk’s original dreammaker. But it’s not just the potential that the Musk political cloud has moved on from Tesla’s brand name. It’s the potential for his latest gambit — the newly debuted AI and satellite company SpaceX SPCX 0.00%↑.
Tesla stock leaped ahead of its sales report last week and on Friday investors found out why. The company reported a 25% gain in sales for the second quarter, with good gains in both Europe and China as its slimmed-down vehicle offerings attracted new buyers. Sales of 480,000 vehicles exceeded analyst estimates of 400,000, though they were still short of China rival BYD’s sales for the quarter.
Still, Tesla shares are up 18% in the past three months, a welcome rally after a tough year in 2025 due in part to Musk’s political explorations. The sales showed the company is still chugging along despite a slowdown in total electric vehicle sales worldwide.
Tesla also continues to plug along with plans for its fleet of robotaxis. The company announced this morning that it had begun testing vehicles in Miami, its fifth U.S. city. Most investors believe Tesla is behind in its robotaxi plan but with every expansion the speculation that Tesla could be a viable competitor to Google’s GOOGL 0.00%↑ Waymo picks up again.
Tesla is also quietly building its energy storage business into a beast, especially its Megapack business for industrial storage systems for utility grids and for large cities and towns. The results from the energy business have been spotty because of the seasonal impacts of the grid business but Tesla continues to announce large energy storage deals, including one in India recently.
But it’s really SpaceX that is driving the renewed investor interest. Musk has hinted strongly that SpaceX might buy Tesla at some point, to combine its electrification and power capabilities with SpaceX’s AI offerings and Starlink satellite business to develop data stations in space.
With such a promise hanging over the stock, it’s hard for Tesla loyalists to not own shares, sales gains or not. At some point, the premium offer will come. Until then, any potential gains in Tesla vehicle sales or energy storage deals are simply gravy.
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