tech

Rani Molla3/10/25

UBS throws cold water on Tesla’s “return to growth” this year

As monthly reports of Tesla sales around the world keep dropping, so do analysts’ estimates for Tesla’s first-quarter sales. Today, UBS lowered its Q1 delivery estimates to 367,000 from its previous estimate of 437,000. Last week, Goldman Sachs lowered its estimate to 375,000 from 400,000. Currently the analyst consensus for Q1 deliveries on FactSet are a bit higher at 435,000.

More importantly, UBS’s full-year delivery guidance for Tesla is now at about 1.7 million units, down 5% from 2024. That means Tesla’s expected “return to growth” in car sales is off the table for the investment bank.

“While we do expect the Model Y refresh (Juniper) to help, we believe orders are somewhat muted,” UBS wrote today.

As I noted last week, analyst estimates for Tesla’s deliveries this quarter have taken a nosedive recently after rising rapidly following the election of President Donald Trump.

Tesla has now lost all its gains since Trump’s election, trading lower than it did at market close on November 5. The stock is down more than 5% this morning.

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Reuters: Amazon to cut 30,000 corporate jobs

Amazon is planning on cutting as many as 30,000 corporate workers starting on Tuesday, nearly 10% of its 350,000-strong corporate workforce, to “pare expenses and compensate for overhiring during the peak demand of the pandemic,” Reuters reports.

Last week, The New York Times reported Amazon’s plans to automate 75% of its operations in coming years, a move that could lead to 600,000 fewer hires.

Exclusive: Amazon targets as many as 30,000 corporate job cuts, sources say

Exclusive: Amazon targets as many as 30,000 corporate job cuts, sources say

“Without Elon, Tesla could lose significant value”

Tesla Chair Robyn Denholm sent shareholders a letter today pleading with them to approve CEO Elon Musk’s $1 trillion pay package — which is tied to the company’s performance over the next decade — or risk losing him.

“If we fail to foster an environment that motivates Elon to achieve great things through an equitable pay-for-performance plan, we run the risk that he gives up his executive position, and Tesla may lose his time, talent and vision, which have been essential to delivering extraordinary shareholder returns,” Denholm wrote. “Without Elon, Tesla could lose significant value.”

Many have long tied Tesla’s success to retaining its longtime CEO, even Musk himself. Musk used Tesla’s earnings call last week to plea for approving his pay package, saying that it’s the voting control more than the money that’s important.

“If we build this robot army, do I have at least a strong influence over that robot army?” Musk said.

COMMERCIAL ROUTE

Apple is planning to put advertising in the Maps app by 2026

Boosting its Services division with a few extra ad dollars sounds nice — but it could drive users away.

Apple Maps, Google Maps, Uber and other Apps on iPhone screen

Meta is expected to spend a bigger share of its revenue on capex than ever before

Capital expenditures could represent 37% of Meta’s revenue in Q3, according to analyst consensus estimates.

Meta's Facebook data center

tech

Rani Molla10/24/25

After Tesla earnings, prediction markets think unsupervised FSD is less likely than ever to be rolled out this year

Tesla’s unsupervised full self-driving technology, which would autonomously ferry passengers around without a human driver having to pay attention, is supposed to help catapult the electric vehicle company’s valuation further into the stratosphere. It was also supposed to be available this year, but prediction markets participants, as well as former Tesla self-driving leaders, no longer think that will happen.

On Tesla’s earnings call this week, CEO Elon Musk said the company now had “clarity” on achieving unsupervised full self-driving — something he’s repeatedly said would be available at least in some markets this year.

The comments seemed to give Polymarket prediction markets participants some clarity. There, the market-implied probability that Tesla will release unsupervised FSD this year reached its lowest point since the event contract was opened in May.

The odds of it happening had been pretty high up until late June, when Tesla’s long-awaited robotaxi launched with a safety driver in the passenger seat. The unsupervised FSD event contract specifies the feature can have “no requirement for human intervention.”

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