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Palantir Tesla Drones Morgan Stanley Analyst
Elon Musk and Alex Karp (Bill Clark/Getty Images)

Maybe Tesla should be Palantir

A Morgan Stanley analyst has some suggestions for new businesses for the automaker struggling with a pronounced sales drop.

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Palantir CEO Alex Karp is probably blushing.

Meta has recently begun to dabble in the world of defense technology, a clear indication that Palantir’s surging share price is getting the attention of Silicon Valley’s elite.

And on Thursday, Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas — a longtime Tesla watcher — seemed to be suggesting that Tesla CEO Elon Musk try to mimic Palantir, writing that the EV company could expand its product portfolio to include some sort of autonomous drone division. (Palantir has been involved in developing AI software for drones.)

The total addressable market of electronic vertical take-off and landing drones could hit $9 trillion by 2050, “far bigger than cars,” Jonas said.

Of the opportunity, he writes:

TSLA’s skills transferability. Manufacturing, material science, navigation/autonomy, electric motor development, battery storage, supporting infrastructure and robotics… Tesla has a host of relevant skills to be a factor in the Low Altitude Economy from both a commercial and (potentially) non-commercial perspective.

Starlink the ‘connective tissue’ in the Low Altitude Economy. Anyone following the situation in Ukraine/Russia over the past 3 years understands the deterministic role of low latency, reliable, resilient/redundant satellite communications in the battlefield to conduct basic to sophisticated maneuvers and operations.

The DOGE Angle. While Elon Musk is no longer working directly with team DOGE, we suggest investors keep a watchful eye on incremental developments on actions and ‘suggestions’ that could prove influential to the reformation of US transportation.”

While Jones concedes that he has no information indicating that Tesla is pursuing an aviation division, his note is a reflection of the attention earned by Palantir, which sells a range of AI, intelligence, and data management software to both government and corporate clients. It’s the performance, stupid.

After last year’s 340% run-up, making it the top stock in the S&P 500, Palantir is up another 74% in 2025, neck and neck with NRG Energy for this year’s biggest gainer among the blue chips — thanks, in part, to a large and loyal base of retail shareholders.

But whether or not a Tesla turn to defense technology would connect with the market is an open question.

As we’ve written before, part of the reason that Palantir shares have exploded is the perception that the company’s connections with the Trump administration — influential right-wing political donor Peter Thiel is a cofounder and the largest individual shareholder in the company, with a stake worth roughly $9 billion — will translate to additional government contracts. The federal government is Palantir’s biggest single customer.

And while Musk has been arguably closer to President Trump himself in the early going of Trump 2.0, that relationship seems to be going off the rails quickly.

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Opendoor surges on bullish options bets as traders look to potential real estate tokenization

Opendoor Technologies is surging on Friday amid bullish options bets and social media posts referencing unconfirmed rumors about the company.

The stock moved higher in the premarket session after the soft inflation report boosted stocks and briefly pushed long-term bond yields lower (positive for a real estate company). But the real gains came after the opening bell rang and options demand picked up.

As of 12:11 p.m. ET, roughly 664,000 call options have changed hands versus a 10-day average of about 364,000 for a full session.

What seems to be galvanizing members of the “$OPEN Army” is the potential for the company to pursue the tokenization of real-world assets, with Robinhood often bandied about as a potential partner in this endeavor.

(Robinhood Markets Inc. is the parent company of Sherwood Media, an independently operated media company subject to certain legal and regulatory restrictions.)

Opendoor bulls have often pointed to signs that Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev appears to be fond of the company, from what appeared on-screen during a demo of a social trading feature at HOOD’s conference in Las Vegas in September to offering support to Opendoor CEO Kaz Nejatian in setting up an opportunity for retail shareholders to ask questions during the online real estate company’s next earnings call.

Opendoor is currently in a quiet period ahead of earnings, which restricts what type of announcements a company can make.

The call options seeing the most demand expire this Friday with strike prices of $8, $8.50, and $9.

Intel Earnings Researchers

Wall Street analysts see some issues with Intel’s earnings

Even with the US government as a partial owner, Intel’s turnaround has a long way to go.

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Beyond Meat gains amid slightly better-than-expected Q3 sales, positive commentary on legal issues

Shares of Beyond Meat built on their premarket gains after the plant-based meat seller reported preliminary Q3 sales a bit ahead of Wall Street’s expectations, before paring this advance after the market opened.

For the three months ended September 27, management said net revenue would be approximately $70 million. That’s in line with their guidance range of $68 million to $73 million, but Wall Street was expecting sales to skew toward the lower end of that range, at $68.7 million.

However, its anticipated gross margin of 10% to 11% is lower than analysts had been expecting (13.8%). That’s still the case even adjusting for expenses related to its downsizing of operations in China, which would have left margins around 12% to 13%, per Beyond.

Perhaps more importantly, the company provided positive commentary regarding arbitration discussions with a former co-manufacturer that appear to bring it closer to a resolution while limiting potential damages:

“As previously disclosed, in March 2024, a former co-manufacturer brought an action against the Company in a confidential arbitration proceeding claiming that the Company inappropriately terminated its agreement with the co-manufacturer and claimed damages of at least $73.0 million. On September 15, 2025, the arbitrator issued an interim award (the ‘Interim Award’) and found that the Company had a valid basis to terminate the agreement with the Manufacturer. The details of the Interim Award are confidential, and a final arbitration award has not been issued. Additional proceedings will be held to determine the award of attorneys’ fees, prejudgment interest and costs, if any, before a final arbitration award will be issued. On September 25, 2025, the Manufacturer filed a request with the arbitrator to re-open the arbitration hearing. On September 29, 2025, the Company opposed this request. On October 20, 2025, the arbitrator denied the Manufacturer’s request.”

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Softer inflation means higher conviction in Fed easing, per prediction markets

A cooler-than-expected inflation report is fueling more confidence in additional Federal Reserve easing through year-end.

CPI rose 0.3% month on month in September, while its core measure of inflation, which strips out volatile food and energy prices, rose 0.2%. Both increases were a tick less than economists polled by Bloomberg had anticipated.

Market-implied odds derived from event contracts offered on Robinhood show that the probability of the US central bank delivering exactly three cuts this year rose to as high as 85% in the minutes following the release, up from 77% beforehand.

(Robinhood Markets Inc. is the parent company of Sherwood Media, an independently operated media company subject to certain legal and regulatory restrictions.)

The Federal Reserve reduced its policy rate by 25 basis points in September to a range of 4% to 4.25%. It meets again next week and its final rate decision for 2025 is scheduled for December 10.

The central bank’s most recent “dot plot” showed that the median official thought 75 basis points of easing (or three 25-basis point rate cuts) would be appropriate for 2025 if the economy evolved in line with their expectations.

Stocks rose in the minutes after the CPI print, with the SPDR S&P 500 Trust gaining 0.3%, as of 8:50 a.m. ET, leaving it 0.6% higher than it closed last night.

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