Tesla (TSLA) traded around $332.81 on Wednesday morning, up about 0.2% in premarket action and on track for a fifth consecutive daily gain. The stock has risen 4.2% over the previous four sessions, but remains down 26% for 2026. Analysts attributed the move more to seasonal dip-buying in thin summer trading than to a clear fundamental catalyst.
Valuation remains a key concern. Tesla trades at roughly 308 times trailing earnings and 197 times expected 2026 earnings, more than 10 turns above its five-year average. Wall Street’s consensus is a “Hold” with an average price target of $401.74. Cantor Fitzgerald trimmed its target to $485 from $510, JPMorgan lowered its target to $445 from $475, and Morgan Stanley said it needs concrete evidence on Robotaxi deployment and improving unit economics.
Tesla’s Q2 earnings per share came in at $0.33, missing the $0.50 consensus, while revenue of $28.24 billion beat the $26.42 billion estimate. Net margin was 3.67% and return on equity was 3.82%, reflecting pressure on automotive profitability. The company also recalled 20,349 Model 3 and Model Y vehicles in the U.S. over excessively bright low-beam headlights, and China retail sales fell 32%.
Institutional activity was mixed. Hyperion Asset Management increased its Tesla position by 6.2% in Q2, adding 72,118 shares to hold 1.23 million shares valued at about $516.6 million. Tesla is now Hyperion’s largest position at 13.7% of its portfolio. CFO Vaibhav Taneja sold 2,606 shares in June at an average price of $402.20, tied to tax obligations. Separately, SpaceX purchased nearly $300 million in Tesla Megapacks, highlighting demand from AI data centers for energy storage.
SpaceX (SPCX) shares surged more than 9% on Wednesday to around $145.87, climbing back above the June IPO price of $135. The rally followed three catalysts: a successful Starlink launch, a bullish Morgan Stanley outlook, and the release of Grok 4.6.
SpaceX launched 24 Starlink satellites aboard a Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The Starlink 17-49 mission was the company’s 51st West Coast flight of 2026, and booster B1103 completed its fifth mission. Starlink reached about 12 million subscribers at the end of Q2, double the level from a year earlier, while connectivity revenue reached about $4.3 billion.
Morgan Stanley reiterated an Overweight rating and a $300 base price target on SpaceX, with a bull case of $600 per share. Analyst Adam Jonas argued the market is undervaluing SpaceX’s AI platform, estimating the AI business is being valued at only about $12 per share. The firm also described the SpaceX lock-up as a buying opportunity.
SpaceXAI released Grok 4.6 on Wednesday, aimed at long-running AI agents, coding, research and interactive projects. The model scored 61 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, matching GPT-5.6 Sol Max. It also scored 1,753 on GDPVal-AA v2 versus 1,728 for GPT-5.6 Sol Max, and reached 69.9% on CursorBench v3.2 compared with 67.2%. API pricing starts at $2 per million input tokens and $6 per million output tokens.
For crypto markets, the developments are primarily an equity-market story involving Elon Musk-linked companies. While no digital asset was directly named, Musk’s business moves frequently draw attention from crypto participants because of his historical influence on meme assets and broader digital asset sentiment. Still, the direct crypto impact from this Tesla and SpaceX price action appears limited.
