Key Takeaways
- Elon Musk said on X that Optimus and Cybercab will make up most of Tesla’s value. Tesla reports third-quarter results after the close on Oct. 21.
- Tesla trades at 189x forward earnings, so the stock is priced on those two bets, since profits from the car business have shrunk.
- Tesla’s operating margin fell from 16.8% in 2022 to 4.6% in 2025, then to 1.4% in the second quarter of 2026 as spending on AI and research climbed.
- Wednesday’s report matters most for proof that Cybercab and Optimus are becoming real businesses.
Tesla (TSLA) unveiled its new Roadster last week, and the stock fell 3.1% that day, more than the Nasdaq-100’s 2.3% drop.
Gary Black, managing partner of The Future Fund, saw that coming. He estimates the car adds $0.06 a share to Tesla’s 2029 earnings, or about 1.1% of the $5.40 consensus.
Some Tesla bulls didn’t care. One longtime holder who posts as Teslaconomics wrote on X that anyone tallying the Roadster’s sales and margins was missing the point. He told his followers to picture Tesla and SpaceX (SPCX) merging, talk the Roadster had already brought back.
Musk replied on Sunday:
“Optimus and Cybercab will be the vast majority of Tesla’s value.”
He also listed what he thinks can grow to “incredible size” economically: superintelligence, robots, solar power and “mass to space,” which is SpaceX’s business. Cars didn’t make the list. (The Roadster, he said, is “super cool, so we’re doing it anyway.”)
That’s quite a thing for a carmaker’s CEO to say days before earnings.
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The numbers back him up on the cars
Tesla’s own results make Musk’s case for him. Its operating margin has fallen every year since its 2022 peak.
And it got worse in the second quarter of 2026. Operating margin sank to 1.4%, from 4.1% a year earlier, as operating expenses jumped 47% to $4.35 billion on spending for AI and other research. At least part of that is the bill for Optimus and Cybercab.
Earnings followed margins down.
Normalized EPS fell from $3.12 in 2023 to $1.66 in 2025. The 31 analysts covering the stock expect $1.74 this year and $2.17 in 2027. Even the $3.21 estimate for 2028 only gets Tesla back to about where it was in 2023. And Black expects those numbers to keep falling: “TSLA earnings revisions are negative.”
Still, the stock trades at 188.7x forward earnings, well above its five-year average of 107.7x.
(That’s still below the 243.1x peak it hit in December 2025.)
Nobody pays 189x for a carmaker with a 1.4% operating margin. Investors are paying for the robots and the robotaxis.
What the robots have to deliver
Some bulls see that payoff coming soon. On the latest episode of Moonshots with Peter Diamandis, Stability AI founder Emad Mostaque said, “Elon is building a million Optimuses for next year, going up to 10 million. At 1.7 million, it overtakes Tesla.”
You won’t find anything close to that in the consensus yet. Anyone buying at 189x is paying today for robot sales that analysts haven’t put in their models.
Cybercab may not have the road to itself
The robotaxi half of Musk’s claim has its own problem. Black argues “unsupervised autonomy is about to be commoditized.” If several companies can run driverless fleets, rides become a price war, and what Cybercab is worth to Tesla shrinks with it.
Cybercab also still has work to do. A Tesla fan account posted that rider support had confirmed Cybercab “has many limitations causing it to take ridiculous routes.” Short seller Jim Chanos replied: “Any year now…”
What Wednesday has to show
Musk says Tesla’s value comes down to Optimus and Cybercab, and the earnings and margin trends agree with him. That’s why Tesla’s report after the close on Wednesday, Oct. 21, is really about those two bets. Investors will want to know how many Cybercabs are carrying paying riders and in how many cities, when Optimus production really ramps, and when all that AI spending starts to pay off. Better car margins would help, but they won’t do much for a 189x multiple.
My take: Musk is right about where Tesla’s value has to come from, and that’s exactly why the stock looks expensive to me. With earnings still below 2023’s level and Black expecting more cuts, I’d want to see Cybercab running as a real fleet before I paid up.
Of course, Tesla has proven skeptics wrong before, and one strong Optimus update could change the math fast.
So what is Tesla stock actually worth?
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Disclaimer:
Please note that the articles on TIKR are not intended to serve as investment or financial advice from TIKR or our content team, nor are they recommendations to buy or sell any stocks. We create our content based on TIKR Terminal’s investment data and analysts’ estimates. Our analysis might not include recent company news or important updates. TIKR has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading, and happy investing!
