Tech billionaire and Tesla founder Elon Musk attended the meeting.
Johannes Neudecker | Picture Alliance | Getty Images
above space x Earnings conference late Tuesday, CEO Elon Musk (and CEO) teslatook a break from talking about financial results to tell investors it was a “good idea” to merge the two companies, and said the boards of both companies had formed a special committee to discuss a possible partnership.
Musk will make another public appearance after the market closes on Wednesday, this time to discuss Tesla’s earnings.
Here’s what Wall Street expects, according to estimates from analysts surveyed by LSEG.
Earnings per share: Estimated 43 cents Sales: Estimated $27.9 billion
If Tesla doesn’t beat expectations, the company’s revenue would decline slightly from $28.1 billion in the year-ago period. Tesla posted double-digit growth in each of the previous two quarters, but sales declined in three out of four quarters in 2025 as Chinese EV makers like BYD and Xiaomi gained popularity in Asia and Europe with their affordable, innovative EVs. Tesla also took a hit last year when the federal government ended the EV tax credit.
Earlier this month, Tesla reported third-quarter deliveries of 486,532 vehicles, about 2% below the same period last year. Deliveries are the closest thing to Tesla’s reported sales, but they are not precisely defined in shareholder communications.
Tesla still relies on car sales for most of its revenue, but Musk sees the company’s future in robotaxis and humanoid robots. Therefore, the focus is on capital investment, which is expected to exceed $25 billion this year, up from about $8.5 billion in 2025, based on advance forecasts.
Tesla unveiled its long-delayed Roadster at a launch event in Waco, Texas, on October 15, 2026, nearly a decade after it first unveiled the next-generation version of its original electric sports car. In this still image taken from a distributed video, the Roadster uses rocket thrusters to land.
Tesla | via Reuters
One of Tesla’s big investments is a semiconductor factory it is building in collaboration with SpaceX. intel Located in Grimes County, Texas. The partnership with SpaceX, along with other areas of overlap, such as Tesla’s recently announced refresh work on its Roadster, has fueled speculation that Musk’s two companies are on the verge of merging in what would be a historic deal.
“I feel like I’m tap dancing in a minefield,” Musk said during SpaceX’s earnings call, responding to a question about a possible merger.
“Do you think that’s a good idea? Yes,” Musk said. “But at the end of the day, shareholders have to support this.” For Tesla’s part, this means it would need 50% of all shares to vote, which “is a pretty high bar,” he said.
Musk noted that the companies may collaborate in AI software, chip design, Terafab, and robotics. Tesla is already using Grok AI technology developed by SpaceX to power AI assistants in customers’ cars and help control its Optimus humanoid robot currently in development.
After rising Wednesday, Tesla stock is down 14% since the beginning of the year, underperforming all of the big-cap tech companies. SpaceX went public in June and has since seen its IPO price rise from $150 following its earnings release.
Tesla Chief Financial Officer Vaibhav Taneja told investors during the company’s last earnings call in July that auto profit margins have been challenged this year due to rising interest rates and energy costs.
But he also highlighted revenue growth from Tesla’s partially autonomous driving system, Fully Self-Driving (Supervised), also known as FSD, which Tesla sells for $99 a month. FSD does not allow Tesla cars to be used safely without a human driver, and the company sells the system as a driver assistance in Europe. Taneja said Tesla reached nearly 1.5 million FSD paying customers worldwide as of the end of June.
Investors submitted questions online ahead of Wednesday’s conference call, and one of the top requests on the ballot was for an update on FSD and when customer vehicles could become fully autonomous and safe to use, like robotaxis, in an “unsupervised” state.
Shareholders also want to know updates about Tesla’s CyberCab, a bronze two-seater designed to be used as a robotaxis but not yet sold to individuals.
Tesla is testing CyberCab and deploying driverless vehicles in a limited fleet in the United States. But the company still lags far behind of the alphabet Waymo in America, Baidu’s China’s Apollo.
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