New York, Feb 8, 2026, 09:51 EST — The market is now closed.
- Tesla shares finished Friday with a 3.5% gain, eating into their loss for the week.
- Tesla, in a recent job listing, set its sights on developing 100GW of U.S. solar manufacturing before 2028 closes.
- Tesla is running an AI training center in China that’s geared toward assisted driving, according to a separate report.
Tesla ended Friday up 3.5% at $411.11. After the closing bell, shares barely moved in the electronic session. Still, the stock wrapped the week with a roughly 4.5% loss.
Tesla’s rebound didn’t change much for 2026. It remains a high-beta stock, hanging on bold promises, aggressive outlays, and the open question of whether its future stretches past just selling cars.
Monday brings a split focus: Tesla is pushing hard to scale up domestic solar manufacturing, while also trying to advance its assisted-driving technology in China. Key question—can Tesla avoid the same bottlenecks that have tripped up rivals rolling out similar features?
Tesla is aiming to put 100GW of solar manufacturing capacity in place using raw materials sourced in the U.S. by the end of 2028, according to a job listing for a solar manufacturing position on the company’s careers page.
Tesla executives keep pitching for new hires to meet that goal. “This is an audacious, ambitious project,” Seth Winger, a senior manager focused on solar products at Tesla, said in a LinkedIn post. But Empire State Development, the New York state agency, was blunt: “We have not yet engaged with Tesla.” Over at TD Cowen, analyst Jeff Osborne wasn’t convinced, calling the company’s solar goals “aspirational rather than likely,” and pointing back to Musk’s tendency for bold targets that end up missing their mark. Reuters
Chinese media outlet Cailianshe has reported that Tesla is running an artificial intelligence training center in China, with a focus on local use cases and assisted driving, citing comments from Tesla Vice President Tao Lin.
Tesla jumped on Friday, joining a broader rally that lifted U.S. stocks and sent the Dow sailing past 50,000. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq also moved higher, fueled by investors piling back into tech and chip names.
Yet the risks are obvious. Moving solar manufacturing up to the speed suggested in the job listing spells big upfront costs and plenty of execution risk. Progress on China’s assisted-driving stack? That depends on approvals and the regulatory winds. Any misstep goes straight to margins — and hits a stock already swinging with every move in rates.
Macro triggers take the spotlight next. Investors will be watching the U.S. Employment Situation report for January, which lands Wednesday, Feb. 11 at 8:30 a.m. ET, followed by the Consumer Price Index report for the same month on Friday, Feb. 13 at 8:30 a.m. ET. Both have the power to shake up Treasury yields—and that can hit high-growth stocks such as Tesla.
