NEW YORK, March 23, 2026, 15:29 EDT
Tesla shares climbed 3.7% to $381.42 on Monday afternoon after Elon Musk revealed plans for Tesla and SpaceX to set up advanced chip plants in Austin. The project, dubbed Terafab, includes a facility focused on chips for vehicles and Optimus robots, and another targeting AI data center needs in space. “We either build the Terafab or we don’t have the chips,” Musk said during a weekend presentation. Reuters
The surge is notable—Tesla shares have lately been moving less on car sales, more on the promise of self-driving tech, robotics, and software. Back in January, Reuters pointed out that those future-focused wagers accounted for a big chunk of Tesla’s value, quoting Hargreaves Lansdown’s Matt Britzman: investors “largely looking past the near-term fundamentals.” Reuters
The AI storyline has gotten even denser lately. On March 19, Musk mentioned Tesla could “tape out” its next-gen AI6 processor this December—a move that means finalizing the chip’s design before it heads to manufacturing. Samsung, for its part, has volume production on the calendar for the back half of 2027. Reuters
Earlier this month, Musk flagged the looming supply crunch, warning that even if partners delivered at top capacity, it wouldn’t cut it. Last week, he confirmed Tesla and SpaceX would continue buying Nvidia chips in bulk. So, Terafab doesn’t quite signal a full pivot away from external suppliers—if anything, it looks like Tesla’s move to ramp up capacity for its autonomous and robotics ambitions.
Part of Monday’s action tracked the broader market. After President Donald Trump announced a delay in planned strikes on Iranian power facilities, risk appetite improved, U.S. indexes pushed higher, and oil prices retreated.
The upside, though, isn’t cheap. Back in January, Tesla warned investors it would rack up over $20 billion in capital expenditures this year—more than twice what’s planned for 2025. Thomas Monteiro at Investing.com called it a “transition phase” for the company, arguing that rollout numbers were set to take the spotlight from deliveries as the auto segment works through a recovery. Reuters
Regulatory pressure isn’t easing. On Friday, the U.S. auto safety regulator shut down a defect petition that had targeted roughly 2.26 million vehicles. But the spotlight on Full Self-Driving, Tesla’s driver-assistance tech, hasn’t dimmed. Officials are still running an engineering analysis, this time focused on 3.2 million vehicles, citing concerns about performance in low-visibility conditions.
The car business isn’t disappearing. Tesla ceded its global EV sales lead to BYD in 2025, and analysts have slashed their 2026 delivery growth forecasts this month—some are now expecting Tesla sales to fall for a third year running. Gene Munster at Deepwater Asset Management calls flat growth a “win” at this point, but flags any steeper decline as real trouble. Reuters
