A car that jumps over trucks. A rocket company that might absorb its electric sibling. A chip factory meant to power the AI ambitions of both. Inside the most audacious gamble in Musk’s empire. Welcome back to CWEB. Today we are stepping into a story that feels less like a corporate update and more like a science fiction script that somehow found its way into a shareholder meeting. Tesla, the company that put electric cars on the map, has just unveiled a Roadster that can fly. Not metaphorically. Not in a promotional render. An actual demonstration, held at a SpaceX rocket testing facility near Waco, Texas, in which a white two-seater drove upside down on a ramp using a suction system, turned in mid-air, and landed using built-in thrusters. Later in the event, it used those same thrusters to jump over a truck and other vehicles, twisting in the air during the maneuver.
Elon Musk, never one to understate, said earlier this year that the Roadster debut “might be one of the most spectacular demos ever.” He was not wrong. But the flying car is only one thread in a much larger story—a story about a company that is simultaneously reinventing itself, exploring a merger with its sibling, building its own chips, and showing the market that its future extends well beyond cars.
Let us begin with the Roadster itself.
The new Roadster is a revival of Tesla’s first product, originally launched in 2008 and discontinued in 2012. A next-generation version was first announced in 2017, and it has been subject to numerous delays since. Now, nearly a decade later, it has finally been shown—and it will not enter production until 2028. Musk has claimed the car will reach 60 miles per hour from a standstill in under two seconds and have a top speed exceeding 250 miles per hour.
But that is not really the point. The point is the spectacle. The point is to remind the world that Tesla is still the company that pushes boundaries, that does not accept the ordinary, that builds things other companies only dream about. Andrew Rocco, a stock strategist at Zacks Investment Research, put it plainly: “It’s going to be an exciting product. Likely, it’s going to build a lot of hype, but I don’t think that it’s going to be a needle mover. Musk loves to build hype around the brand.”
That hype is part of a bigger strategic shift. Tesla is deliberately moving beyond a traditional auto lineup. It has ended production of the Model S and Model X so the factory space can be used to build robots. Its consumer focus now centers on the Model 3, Model Y, and Cybertruck while the company pours resources into autonomy and robotics.
That pivot brings us to the second, and arguably more consequential, thread: the potential merger between Tesla and SpaceX.
Analysts at Barclays, led by Dan Levy, have published research suggesting that a merger between Musk’s two largest companies could be announced as soon as this fall—possibly before Tesla’s annual shareholder meeting, which is expected to be held no later than December 6. The analysts view artificial intelligence as a central driver of a potential deal. A merger would vertically integrate both companies’ AI platforms, including Tesla’s physical robotaxis and humanoid robots, with SpaceX’s AI models and software. A combined company would also simplify governance of Terafab, Musk’s planned massive chip manufacturing project, which he sees as central to powering both companies’ enormous computing needs for years to come.
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