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Big Jump

Ives raises Tesla price target to Wall Street high of $600

The Wedbush analyst said investors are “underestimating the transformation underway at the company” regarding AI.

Wedbush Securities analyst and Tesla bull Dan Ives raised his price target for the company to a Wall Street high of $600 from $500 “to reflect our view that an accelerated AI path for the company is now on the horizon and investors are underestimating the transformation underway at the company.” He added, “We believe Tesla is taking major steps in advancing its AI Revolution path with autonomous and robotics front and center heading into 2026 that will be a game changer and define Tesla’s future.”

Tesla is up 1.5% premarket to $429.55 a share, so shares would have to rise roughly 40% to reach that price target.

Just a week ago, Baird analyst Ben Kallo raised his price target for Tesla to $548 (from $320), which was the previous Wall Street high.

Ives said he expects Tesla’s robotaxis to quickly roll out to more than 30 US cities within the next year. On Tesla’s last earnings call, CEO Elon Musk said he expected autonomous ride-hailing to be available to half the US population by the end of this year. Currently, Tesla is operating about 30 autonomous taxis with human safety monitors in the passenger seat in Austin. The company has expanded a more general ride-hailing service, where a Tesla driver sits in the driver’s seat and engages supervised full self-driving, in the Bay Area. It’s currently testing autonomous vehicles in California and Nevada.

Ives is also forecasting that Tesla, which currently has a market cap of $1.3 trillion, will reach a $2 trillion market cap early next year and join the $3 trillion club by the end of 2026 “as full scale volume production begins of the autonomous and robotics roadmap.”

Of course, for Musk to receive his full $1 trillion pay package, he’ll have to push the company’s market cap to a whopping $8.5 trillion in 10 years, making $2 trillion or $3 trillion feel more realistic.

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T-Mobile and Verizon are seeing strong iPhone sales, too

T-Mobile and Verizon are seeing strong demand for the latest iPhone, according to a note today from Bank of America Global Research:

“As per T-Mobile mgmt., iPhone activations are up double digits (new and existing customers). Verizon mgmt. commentary also suggests strong upgrade activity in its existing base during the quarter.”

This is one of several indicators pointing to a strong upgrade cycle for the redesigned iPhone.

Early this month, a survey of iPhone users found that a higher percentage intended to upgrade than did last year. BofA and Wedbush Securities’ Dan Ives have both cited longer shipment times for the latest model than last year, suggesting relatively higher demand. The Information said that Apple asked suppliers to boost production of the iPhone 17 following strong preorder activity. Bloomberg reported long lines and sold-out phones when the devices went on sale last week. BGR noted today that the iPhone 17 and iPhone 17 Pro are still sold out online in the US.

Last week, Sherwood News reported that web traffic to Apple for the iPhone event and for the preorder period were elevated compared with the past few years, though we suggested that might have more to do with a natural upgrade cycle than features on the iPhone 17.

The AI infrastructure debate’s heating up, as spending on data centers set to outpace office construction

Multiple gargantuan data center projects got announced this week — some people see huge risks of fruitless spending, while others, like Sam Altman, think the build-out could be too slow.

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Waymo Recalls Over 1200 Driverless Cars After Collisions Related To Software

Waymo, Lyft, Tesla: Who’s behind the wheel of the US robotaxi industry?

When it comes to autonomous ride hailing, no company is an island — except maybe Tesla. We mapped out the relationships.

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Report: Meta has discussed using Google’s AI to help with ads

Meta has a huge advertising business, and it wants it to get even bigger with the help of AI, with ambitions to create tools that will help businesses create, place, and track ads with just a quick conversation with an AI chatbot. But it seems the social media company, whose AI models have lagged its competitors and which is spending gobs of money to fix it, might need some help getting there. The Information reports that Meta has been in talks with Google to use the latter’s AI models to improve its ad business.

It may be an interim step for Meta, but it’s a big deal, as The Information notes:

“The fact that Meta is considering using Google’s technology for advertising is striking. Advertising is the engine behind Meta’s $164.5 billion revenue empire, and Meta executives have highlighted improvements to advertising as a top opportunity coming out of the company’s investments in AI.”

Meta in Talks With Google to Use Gemini to Improve Ad Efforts

It may be an interim step for Meta, but it’s a big deal, as The Information notes:

“The fact that Meta is considering using Google’s technology for advertising is striking. Advertising is the engine behind Meta’s $164.5 billion revenue empire, and Meta executives have highlighted improvements to advertising as a top opportunity coming out of the company’s investments in AI.”

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Tesla asks Trump not to repeal legal underpinning for carbon emissions rules

Electric vehicle company Tesla would prefer that the government didn’t roll back long-standing emissions rules, according to new comments from Tesla on a proposal to reconsider 2009 findings that said greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles contribute to air pollution and could endanger the public.

Tesla wrote:

“The Endangerment Finding — and the vehicle emissions standards which flow from it — have provided a stable regulatory platform for Tesla’s extensive investments in product development and production. This clear regulatory structure has provided incentives for continued innovation in motor vehicle technology and is vital to continued global competitiveness by companies based in the United States.”

Tesla relies heavily on regulatory credit revenues it receives from other automakers that don’t build enough electric vehicles. President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act signed this summer essentially eliminated the marketplace for such credits, which will cost Tesla about $255 million in revenue each quarter going forward. If the EPA proposal goes through, it would dismantle the foundation for tailpipe emissions rules in the first place.

Tesla urges Trump not to repeal vehicle emissions rules, climate finding