❓Two Musk companies, one big question

Elon Musk has found another way for his two companies to collaborate, leaving some wondering whether a more formal union could be next.

On Thursday,  CEO Elon Musk unveiled the long-awaited second-generation Tesla Roadster, a sports car developed with the help of his rocket company SpaceX. During a demonstration in Texas, the vehicle drove upside down, flipped through the air, and jumped over a row of other Teslas using rocket-style thrusters powered by compressed air.

The company says the Roadster can accelerate from zero to 60 mph in less than a second, reach speeds exceeding 230 mph, and travel more than 300 miles on a single charge.

“You’re going to see some crazy stuff tonight,” said Musk, who is CEO of both companies. “You’re going to see the results of what happens when you have a collaboration with the world’s best car company and the world’s best rocket company.”

Deliveries for the long-delayed vehicle aren't expected until 2028. (The second gen Roadster was first announced by Musk in 2017 with delivery slated for 2020. Tesla's reservation agreement explicitly says the company cannot guarantee when the Roadster will be delivered or whether it will be delivered at all.)

Musk also said he was "not sure it's necessarily legal in all jurisdictions." It will almost certainly spark some sort of regulatory review from the Federal Aviation Administration, Wired points out.

But the Roadster's biggest significance may have less to do with its ability to fly than with the company helping it get off the ground.

The unveiling has added fuel to speculation that Musk could eventually combine Tesla and SpaceX, bringing his electric-car business and rocket company under one roof. Prediction market traders increased the odds of a merger being announced by early next year. One Barclays analyst predicted that such a merger could happen before the end of this year.

The Takeaway:

The Roadster is unlikely to do much for Tesla's bottom line. Musk has previously described the Roadster as a "small potato situation" that would not "move the needle in a major way financially."

Tesla reports earnings this week, with analysts penciling in $19.6 billion in quarterly automotive sales, a 7.5% decline from the same period last year. As Tesla's traditional car business faces pressure, Musk is increasingly pitching investors on a future built around AI and robotics — areas where his companies' ambitions overlap.

Veteran tech analyst Gene Munster put it best in an X post:

“Two takeaways from tonight’s Roadster event.

1. It was an engineering flex with no commercial value beyond embarrassing traditional car makers.

2. Elon can’t wait to bring $TSLA and $SPCX together.”

— J. Edward Moreno

The cumulative market capitalization for quantum computing companies IonQ, D-Wave, and Rigetti is virtually unchanged from where it was in early September 2025, right before those companies ramped in part on speculation over US government support.

The fundamentals of the industry at large really haven’t meaningfully improved over the past year, nor have they deteriorated. And quantum computing is not a space where most traders were looking for hockey-stick growth now, it’s more about the prospect for technological breakthroughs that have the potential to spur parabolic operational improvements further down the road. 

The key underlying factor may be that the speculative energy just is not there anymore for this part of the market. Major pure-play quantum computing companies that have been around for a few years (like IonQ, D-Wave, and Rigetti) have seen call volumes drop precipitously from their 2025 peaks. While there are some nascent signs of potential risk-defined falling-knife-catching in some of these names via options lately, it’s nothing to write home about yet.

— Luke Kawa, read the rest in EntryPoint

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• 🏈 NFL: The Washington Commanders take on the undefeated San Francisco 49ers, and they’ve got their work cut out for them, with the Niners a 79% chance to win. 

• 📊 Election: Just two weeks left to go until the 2026 midterms and the race continues to get interesting as the contours of the Senate map change. Markets are pricing Democrats Mary Pelota with a 76% chance of winning Alaska, James Talarico a 63% chance of pulling off the upset in Texas, and even Adam Hamilton with a 36% chance of flipping Kansas to the Democrats. 

*Event contracts are offered through Robinhood Derivatives, LLC — probabilities referenced or sourced from KalshiEx LLC or ForecastEx LLC.

Consulting giant Accenture has told some employees that the company will now only spend $29 a month per person on Claude, according to 404 Media, sending some working scrambling.