Donald Trump Watches SpaceX Launch Its Sixth Test Flight Of Starship Spacecraft

Then President-elect Donald Trump and Elon Musk watch a SpaceX launch in November in Brownsville, Texas (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)

Ives raises Tesla price target to $500 and declares the “golden age of autonomous growth”

The analyst is swallowing Tesla’s AI promises hook, line, and sinker.

Rani Molla

5/23/25 8:05AM

After a temporary detour, Tesla’s biggest bull is back to being bullish.

Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives today raised the firm’s price target for Tesla to $500 from $350, saying that the launch of Tesla’s robotaxi service next month will usher in the “golden age of autonomous” driving and a “key next chapter of growth for Musk & Co.”

“The $1 trillion of AI valuation will start to get unlocked in the Tesla story and we believe the march to a $2 trillion valuation for TSLA over the next 12 to 18 months has now begun in our view with FSD and autonomous penetration of Tesla’s installed base and the acceleration of Cybercab in the US representing the golden goose.”

Ives is taking CEO Elon Musk, known for immense exaggerations, outright lies, and repeatedly missed timelines, at his word.

What we know for sure is that Musk’s car business is struggling, no matter what he says to the contrary. And despite his emphasis on future business lines like autonomous driving and robotics, there’s reason to believe those won’t go as promised. As of last month, the company hadn’t tested a single driverless robotaxi. The parameters for the robotaxi launch in June are also a far cry from what’s been promised.

But Ives seems to have accounted for all that and is still exceedingly optimistic:

“There will be many setbacks... but given its unmatched scale and scope globally we believe Tesla has the opportunity to own the autonomous market and down the road license its technology to other auto players both in the US and around the globe. Waymo will also be a winner and Uber will benefit in autonomous... but we see the true autonomous winner as Tesla and over the coming year more investors will recognize this AI vision.”

Rani Molla18h

OpenAI’s models are officially coming to Amazon

Amazon is finally getting in on the hottest ticket in tech.

After Microsoft announced yesterday that it has agreed to give up its exclusive rights to sell OpenAI’s models, Amazon, as expected, will start offering them to customers — something Amazon Web Services CEO Matt Garman says users have been asking for “for a really long time.” Some models are available now in preview, and the most powerful GPT versions will show up “in the coming weeks.”

This is a big shift in the AI cloud wars. Microsoft’s early bet on OpenAI gave Azure an edge by locking up the most in-demand models. Now that exclusivity is gone, Amazon and other competitors can finally offer them too, closing a key gap and competing more directly for AI customers.

Amazon Set to Sell OpenAI Tech After Microsoft Cedes Exclusivity

Claire Yubin Oh21h

Ship-tracking app surges as Iran war continues

As Middle East peace talks stretch on, with Tehran reportedly offering to reopen the Strait of Hormuz if the US lifts its blockade and the war ends, the owner of shipping intelligence platform MarineTraffic revealed that the app has gained millions of new users since the conflict began.

MarineTraffic’s user count jumped to 8.5 million this April, up from 3.5 million a year ago, the cofounder of its parent company, Kpler, said in an interview with the Financial Times. Paid subscribers, often workers within companies and governments looking for more data on supply chains and commodities trading, rose 11,000 in the same period.

Kpler, which also owns shipping intelligence platform FleetMon, draws its data from a range of sources, including the Automatic Identification System, satellites, and more than 500 people on-site, like port terminal operators.

Per Appfigures data, MarineTraffic is estimated to have raked in almost $1 million across March and April in app revenue (through April 27), more than double the ~$346,500 from the same months last year. Across the full year, Kpler expects to earn between $300 million and $400 million in annual recurring revenues.

Rani Molla

pedal to the meta

22h

Meta could be getting ready to post its highest revenue growth since 2021

Meta’s outlook and analyst estimates suggest more than 30% revenue growth in Q1.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg visits U.S. Capitol for Senate meetings

Tom Jones4/28/26

Google will supply AI models to Pentagon in classified deal, per The Information

Google has become the latest tech company to ink an agreement to supply the Department of Defense (War) with AI, having reportedly closed a classified deal that allows the Pentagon to use its AI for “any lawful government purpose,” according to The Information.

The Information initially reported talks between the Alphabet-owned company and the US government around two weeks ago, following the messy breakdown of the relationship between Anthropic and the Trump administration — and the rushed OpenAI deal that took its place.

The move has reportedly sparked opposition among Google employees, with The Washington Post reporting that over 600 workers signed a letter to CEO Sundar Pichai to ask him to bar the Defense Department from using the company’s AI models for any classified work.