Hey everyone, Hirokichi here. This time I want to focus less on a single stock and more on a person: Elon Musk. As CEO of Tesla and the head of SpaceX and xAI (an artificial intelligence company), pretty much everything Musk does moves not just the stocks directly tied to him, but market sentiment more broadly. So let’s take a look at what’s happening around Musk heading into the second half of 2026, from an investor’s point of view.
Tesla’s Q2 earnings, Robotaxi, and the Optimus 3 reveal
Tesla actually reports its second-quarter earnings today, July 22, 2026 (U.S. Eastern time). The market is expecting revenue of $25.86 billion, up 15% year over year, with adjusted EPS (earnings per share) of $0.49, up 22.5%. Deliveries are expected to hit a record, but the key question is whether price cuts have pushed automotive gross margin below expectations.
The stock is down roughly 7% so far in 2026, and it still trades at a lofty valuation of about 373 times trailing earnings (PER, or price-to-earnings ratio). Competition from Chinese rivals like BYD remains fierce, and plenty of analysts still call the stock overvalued. Musk’s goal of covering 50% of the U.S. population with robotaxi service by year-end also looks unlikely to be met, and his track record of missed deadlines is keeping investors cautious.
On the other hand, there’s real excitement building around Optimus 3, Tesla’s humanoid robot. The reveal and start of production are expected between late July and August, with a body reportedly standing 173 cm (5’8″) and weighing 57 kg (125 lb), featuring hands with 22 degrees of freedom and 50 actuators. The long-term ambition is to eventually produce a million units a year — if that happens, it could become a whole new growth engine for Tesla.
SpaceX and xAI merge, then list on Nasdaq at a trillion combined valuation
In February 2026, Musk announced he was folding his AI company xAI into SpaceX, the space company he also leads. xAI had raised $20 billion in a January 2026 Series E round at a $230 billion valuation, with investors including Nvidia, Cisco, Fidelity, the Qatar Investment Authority, MGX, and Tesla itself.
The combined SpaceX-xAI entity was valued at $1.25 trillion at the time of the merger, and SpaceX went public on Nasdaq in June 2026 under the ticker SPCX. Today, the combined market cap sits at roughly $2 trillion. As the chart above shows, that’s already larger than Tesla’s own market cap of about $1.5 trillion. It’s a striking shift: a space company that wasn’t even publicly traded a year ago now carries more market value than Tesla.
Grok 4.6, the AI arms race, and Musk’s bet on AGI
On July 18, 2026, Musk said training on xAI’s next model, Grok 4.6 — reportedly a 2-trillion-parameter model — was entering its final stage, with initial training expected to wrap up within the week. The goal is apparently to outperform the Chinese model Kimi K3, and the broader AI race involving OpenAI, Google’s Gemini, and others keeps intensifying.
Musk has also claimed that true AGI (artificial general intelligence) — AI capable of thinking, judging, and learning autonomously the way humans do — will arrive sometime in 2026. That’s a bold prediction, and given Musk’s history of pushing back his own deadlines, I think it’s wise for investors to treat this as an aspirational target rather than a sure thing.
Starship’s push to Mars, and whispers of a Tesla-SpaceX merger
On the space side, SpaceX’s new Starship V3 vehicle had its first test flight in May 2026, with another test (Flight 13) expected in July. Musk has also stated that Starship will head to Mars by the end of 2026, carrying Tesla’s Optimus robot along with it. I touched on SpaceX’s push into communications infrastructure in an earlier post, [Explainer] NTT’s IOWN Optical Communication Is Heading to Space, Aiming to Beat SpaceX’s Speed – What It Means for Investors, so it’s worth a read if you want the bigger picture on space-related stocks.
CNBC also reported on May 26, 2026, that Musk had been discussing a plan with close aides to merge Tesla and SpaceX into a single entity. If it happens, the combined company could be worth more than $3 trillion — a conglomerate spanning EVs, AI, and space. It’s still just a concept at this stage, but if it moves forward, it would meaningfully reshape what individual investors are even choosing between, so it’s worth keeping an eye on.
What investors should watch going forward
Putting all of this together, here are three things I’d keep in mind as an investor.
(1) For Tesla itself, automotive gross margin and progress on Robotaxi and Optimus 3 are what will really drive the stock. With a PER of 373, price swings around earnings and major events are likely to stay large.
(2) SpaceX x xAI is now a new investable entity thanks to its Nasdaq listing, but both space and AI are high-risk businesses. Rather than getting caught up in the size of the $2 trillion valuation, it’s worth watching how monetization actually plays out.
(3) The Tesla-SpaceX merger talk is still just speculation for now. If it happens, it would create a massive conglomerate, but there would likely be plenty of hurdles to clear, from antitrust questions to sorting out shareholder structures. I wouldn’t get too far ahead of the story, but given how much market impact this could have, it’s worth checking the news regularly.
Let’s keep at it, slow and steady. See you next time!
日本語版はこちら → 【解説】イーロン・マスク、次の一手は？時価総額2兆ドルのSpaceX×xAIとテスラ決算から読む2026年後半の動向
* This article is for informational purposes only and does not recommend any specific investment. Please make investment decisions at your own responsibility.
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