New York, January 29, 2026, 04:51 ET — Premarket
- Tesla shares were up about 0.1% premarket as investors digested a $20 billion-plus 2026 capex plan
- Tesla disclosed a $2 billion investment in Elon Musk’s AI startup xAI and reiterated Cybercab production plans
- Focus is shifting to autonomy and robotics, raising questions on timing, regulation and cash use
Tesla shares were up about 0.1% in U.S. premarket trading on Thursday at $431.46, after the company laid out a more than $20 billion spending plan for 2026 and disclosed a $2 billion investment in CEO Elon Musk’s AI startup xAI.
The sharp jump in capital spending — cash for factories, equipment and computing capacity — underlines how much Tesla is leaning on autonomy and humanoid robots to carry the next leg of growth, even as its core car business faces tougher demand and pricing pressure.
That matters now because Tesla’s valuation has increasingly been tied to Musk’s promises on Full Self-Driving and robotaxis, while the company just logged its first annual revenue decline and said it would wind down its Model S and Model X lines.
Tesla closed on Wednesday at $431.16. The stock jumped about 3.5% in after-hours trading before trimming gains as investors absorbed the scale of spending; in Frankfurt, Tesla shares were up 1.8% on Thursday.
In the fourth quarter, Tesla posted revenue of $24.90 billion, down 3% from a year earlier, and GAAP net income of $840 million. Non-GAAP earnings were 50 cents per share; full-year revenue slipped 3% to $94.83 billion, Tesla’s update showed.
Chief Financial Officer Vaibhav Taneja told analysts the company expects 2026 capital expenditures — or capex, money spent on long-term assets such as plants and equipment — to top $20 billion, more than double last year’s roughly $8.5 billion. He said most of the spending will go to production lines for the Cybercab robotaxi, the long-promised Semi truck, Optimus humanoid robots and battery and lithium projects, and noted Tesla had more than $44 billion in cash and investments.
Tesla said the xAI investment supports its autonomous-driving push. On the earnings call, Musk said Tesla would end Model S and Model X production and use the factory space to build robots, and reiterated that Cybercab production plans were on track for this year.
In the core vehicle business, Tesla reported fourth-quarter deliveries of 418,227 vehicles, down 16% year on year. Automotive gross margin excluding regulatory credits — a profitability gauge that strips out sales of zero-emission credits to other automakers — was 17.9%, while energy generation and storage revenue rose to a record $3.84 billion, Tesla’s results and update showed.
Tesla is “entering a transition phase” where investors are being asked to underwrite self-driving and robotaxi revenue before car sales recover, said Thomas Monteiro, senior analyst at Investing.com. “Rollout metrics — not deliveries” will be the key signal, he said. Reuters
Scott Acheychek, chief operating officer of REX Financial, said Tesla’s car business is no longer the main focus. “The bigger story,” he said, “is the business model transition now underway” as Tesla leans into autonomous driving. Reuters
But the plan puts more weight on products that still face regulatory and technical hurdles. Tesla’s Cybercab concept — which Musk has described as having no steering wheel or pedals — runs up against current federal design standards, and Musk warned on the call that a looming memory-chip shortage could constrain Tesla’s plans.
Traders will be watching for follow-on detail on how quickly Tesla can ramp Cybercab lines and expand its robotaxi service beyond its limited Austin operation, and whether regulators move on Full Self-Driving approvals abroad. In Europe, the Dutch vehicle authority RDW said it expected to decide on supervised FSD in February.
