New York, January 31, 2026, 09:43 EST — Market closed
Tesla shares rose 3.3% on Friday to $430.41. The move followed reports of merger talks involving SpaceX and Elon Musk’s AI startup xAI, along with chatter about a possible tie-up between Tesla and the rocket-and-satellite company. “A single entity would help to further align his attention and ample resources to one company,” said Andrew Rocco, stock strategist at Zacks Investment Research. Reuters
With U.S. markets shut for the weekend, the issue for Monday is simple: was Friday’s pop just deal heat, or the start of a new trade. Tesla has been moving on big-picture bets — autonomy, software and robots — more than on the day-to-day grind of selling cars.
Bloomberg News reported late Thursday that SpaceX is weighing a merger with Tesla, alongside an alternative combination with xAI, citing people familiar with the matter. Tesla shares rose about 3% after the bell following that report, and Tesla and SpaceX did not respond to a request for comment.
After-hours trading — the session after the 4 p.m. close — was little changed on Friday, with Tesla off about 0.2% from the close. The stock had dropped about 3.5% a day earlier.
Tesla also picked up a legal win on Friday when the Delaware Supreme Court cut shareholder lawyers’ fees in a director-pay case to $70.9 million from $176.1 million. The dispute centered on claims Tesla directors overpaid themselves.
The bounce came as Wall Street sagged on Friday after Donald Trump nominated Kevin Warsh to lead the Federal Reserve when Chair Jerome Powell’s term ends in May. “Markets are calibrating to Trump’s pick … and the outlook for monetary policy,” said Michael Hans, chief investment officer at Citizens Wealth. Reuters
But folding Tesla into any Musk-company combination would be messy. John Streur at Boston Common Asset Management said combining Musk’s empire into Tesla involves “a number of complexities” and could be seen as dilutive — meaning it could reduce the value of existing shares — if private-company valuations come in too high. Some Tesla investors argue the industrial logic is there — “these things all fit together,” said Arthur Laffer Jr. of Laffer Tengler Investments — but even supporters see a smaller first step as more realistic. Reuters
Analysts have also been framing Tesla less as an auto name and more as an AI-and-autonomy bet, with robotaxi execution doing much of the work for the stock. Deutsche Bank has pointed to Tesla’s roughly $20 billion capital spending plan for 2026, while investors continue to compare Tesla’s ambitions with Waymo, the robotaxi operator owned by Alphabet.
On Monday’s open, traders will be watching for any follow-up from Tesla, SpaceX or Musk on the deal chatter and whether it shows up in filings or formal statements. The next macro date on the calendar is Friday: the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics is due to publish the January employment report on Feb. 6 at 8:30 a.m. ET, a release that can move rate expec
tations and, by extension, high-growth stocks like Tesla.
