#tesla

SpaceX shares fell about 9% and Tesla about 11% on Thursday afternoon, November 5, and by the close the two companies had lost about $456 billion in combined market value since Tuesday's election, CNBC reports. The drop came alongside a broad tech selloff.

Elon Musk was the biggest donor to Republican candidates and causes in the midterms, with more than $470 million, according to the Financial Times, and most of the candidates he backed lost. In Texas, where both companies are headquartered, Democrats won the Senate and governor races; Governor-elect Gina Hinojosa campaigned on a moratorium on new data center approvals. Deutsche Bank analysts wrote that SpaceX could face 'incremental headwinds' and that its Texas compute capacity, including the planned Terafab chip and data center site in Grimes County, could be delayed.

CNBC also reports that, citing CNN, Musk and SpaceX have been told to preserve records on Starlink restrictions in Ukraine, and that regulatory scrutiny could complicate Musk's idea of merging the two companies.

SpaceX (Nasdaq: SPCX) reported third-quarter revenue of $14.6 billion, up 161% from $5.6 billion a year earlier, with net income of $4.4 billion against a $1.1 billion loss, according to its earnings release on October 20.

CNBC reports that the AI unit, which SpaceX calls "Super Intelligence," is now its largest business: revenue rose about ninefold to $7.56 billion, helped by renting computing capacity to Google, Anthropic and others and by the Cursor acquisition. Starlink subscribers reached 13.6 million, and the launch business grew only slightly, to $1.77 billion. CFO Bret Johnsen guided first-quarter 2027 revenue to $33 billion to $37 billion, far above the roughly $22 billion analysts expected, per LSEG.

On the call, Elon Musk said a merger with Tesla would be a "good idea" and that both boards have formed special committees to discuss it. The shares climbed about 8% in extended trading after the release, CNBC reports.

Tesla reported third-quarter adjusted earnings of 48 cents a share on revenue of $28.05 billion, both above LSEG estimates, on October 21. Automotive revenue fell 3% to $20.56 billion and energy revenue fell 16%, while services and other revenue rose 33%. Tesla cited lower average prices and trouble securing battery supplies.

Net income attributable to shareholders fell 29% to $787 million. CNBC reports capital spending more than doubled to $3.73 billion, driven by Optimus robots and other AI work, and free cash flow fell 62% to $1.53 billion. Active FSD subscriptions rose 67% to 1.74 million.

Musk said the driverless Robotaxi fleet should start contributing to results in 2027, and declined to add to his SpaceX merger comments from the day before. Shares slid more than 3% after hours and ended about 3% lower on October 22, per Yahoo Finance.

Tesla's European websites now call its driver-assistance software "Tesla Assisted Driving" instead of Full Self-Driving, days after Germany's transport ministry said the old name was misleading because the system never takes over the driving task, The Next Web reports. The U.S. site still sells Full Self-Driving (Supervised). Electrek found the new German page is otherwise a translation of the U.S. one. The bigger obstacle to EU approval is speed tolerance: Germany wants a cap at 10% over the limit.