Tesla opened $30 billion in lines of credit according to a regulatory filing today. The loans come as company profits have dropped in recent years, and as Tesla guides for more spending in upcoming quarters.
For its first decade and a half of operation, Tesla sales and revenue basically did nothing but increase. The company grew and grew, at a rapid rate, and justified basically any money spent on chasing more growth with what seemed like near-infinite demand as it scaled.
That lasted until 2024, when Tesla went from 38% growth the prior year to a 1% drop in 2024.
Since then, profitability has been rough for the company, with it having to book some questionable one-time profits in order to eke out profitability. Even with that, profits have remained low.
One downward pressure on profits has been Tesla’s increased amount of capital expenditures as it chases various pie-in-the-sky ideas like cars without steering wheels, cars that don’t gain any performance benefit from flying, and the promise of one man controlling a trillion-dollar robot army.
CapEx more than doubled in the last quarter, and Tesla says that it will remain high in the current environment of extremely high spending by tech companies. The company expects to spend a total of $25 billion in 2026 (up from $8.5 billion in 2025), and analysts expect similar CapEx in 2027.
So, given falling profits and increasing capital expenditures, Tesla is now taking out a big loan to fill the gap.
Today’s regulatory filing shows that Tesla has taken out a total of $30 billion in loan facilities from Citi and Wells Fargo. The loans come in terms between one and five years, and replace a previous $5 billion credit line which Tesla had previously filed for (but had no current debt from).
its all a pump to roll the failure into spacex.
its all bullshit.
A few years back I’d have felt bad for Tesla. Now I feel good that Musk is finding out the repercussions of his rotten actions.
He’s not though. When Tesla merges with SpaceX he’ll unlock his trillion dollar (yes, really) pay package.
It’s probably for the best that Tesla is killing off the platform that NASA uses for manned flight. Once Musk combines everything into a single company, he won’t have anymore ways to stave off the eventual complete collapse of the companies. He’s have long since gotten his extreme payout though so maybe this was the plan all along.
He needs to keep Tesla separate to keep his circular funding model.
A lot of that initial growth was supported through gov programs/taxpayer money. (https://www.cnn.com/2026/06/13/business/musk-trillionaire-government-tesla-spacex) Don’t worry, I’m sure the gov will bail him out in the future.
Who is dumb enough to extend credit to Tesla? Likely SpaceX.
Well according to the abstract OP posted above, it’s Wells Fargo and Citi Bank
and how much of Space X did Musk have to promise to back it up?
1% drop in 2024.
2025 is the important number. After the Nazi stuff.
Basically, the only thing of value at Tesla is the charge network.
Do we have numbers for January 2026 yet? Because I suspect a bunch of people just forgot about it in a few months.
I don’t have them handy, but things had improved by start of 2026, but they’re still down compared to their peaks. Q2 2026 was one of their best quarters ever delivery wise, which isn’t traditionally the strongest quarter. If that continues for q3/q4 they might reach an all time high quarter this year.
Edit: It’s also worth pointing out, some of those dramatic drops, are partly because they were transitioning from their old Model Y to the new Model Y at all their factories and ramping production. While the nazi salute without any doubt impacted sales, those big drops weren’t entirely because of it.
Couldn’t, all his businesses are leveraged on their own debt, if Tesla fails space x goes with it.
Elon is chasing that rush of creating a wildly profitable company again. And he’s willing to sacrifice the car and energy company in pursuit of an AI and robotics company.
Elon is taking lessons on the cost of promoting racist politics, insulting Canada, and whatever else he did to alienate the customers who used to trust him.
One little innocent sieg heil and all of a sudden nobody likes you any more, what is this world coming to…
The $45B Twitter/X owner knows the weight of his communications and memes full well.
Now we can have memes of elon doing the Nazi salute with an overlay of Tesla debt.
Given the cheaper EVs from many other manufacturers now, I don’t think Tesla is ever going to see the same growth again unless they are successful in entering another market. But even those options are likely to be more competitive than cars were by the time they get there.
Tesla could aim to be sustainable, but I don’t know how their stupidly overhyped shareholders will feel about that.
Now we can have memes of elon doing the Nazi salute with an overlay of Tesla debt.
that’s old by now:
Insane infinite growth is priced into their meme stock now. It’s why they’re pivoting to robots and “”””ai””””.
CapEx more than doubled in the last quarter, and Tesla says that it will remain high in the current environment of extremely high spending by tech companies. The company expects to spend a total of $25 billion in 2026 (up from $8.5 billion in 2025), and analysts expect similar CapEx in 2027.
AI isn’t free.
Its a mix of AI datacenters and multiple new massive factories, but some of those factories will be AI related (e.g Optimus requires AI)
If those factories succeed in making something profitable, itll be a good investment. If they fail, itll be a lot of money lost.
Edit: E.g In the past year they’ve brought the following new factories / facilities online
- Lithium refinery (not AI)
- Semi Factory (not AI)
- 40GW/y megapack battery factory (not AI)
- Cybercab (AI)
- An AI datacenter (AI)
As well as expanding their own 4680 cell production lines to be able to support the semi/cybercab that use them. The semi line alone if it reaches its peak will require over 34 GW of 4680 cell production a year if you go for a 50/50 split of long/standard range vehicles. That would be more GW of in house produced cells than GM used in their EVs this year or last year.
They’re also building more battery factories, and a big solar factory which won’t be AI only.
Honestly, if they’re opening battery manufacturing in the US then they’re set for decades. US knows it needs internal battery manufacturing and there aren’t a lot of them in the US.
Their investments in cells/batteries is definitely going to have huge pay offs, but if they blow it all on AI stuff that doesn’t pan out in the end, things can still get pretty rough for them.
This is genuinely surprising to me. I feel like I see teslas everywhere now. Might just be cause I notice the.
Just because they’re selling cars doesn’t mean they’re making money on them. It’s ran by Elon Musk, 'nuff said.
I see a lot of older models with the badge removed. I guess some people bought them before he went full nazi and this is a form of protestation. Good thing it’s shitty ameritrash and they glued the badge on like a sticker.
That’s pretty much standard these days for an emblem, and has been for decades.
There are a lot of cheaper EVs available and right now the EV market is growing fast.
As cars are sold over decades most of them tend to stick around and their overall number increases.
True, and I notice them specifically cause I have to hold myself back from throwing pennies a their car.
Use batteries!
Turds pile up on the lawn.
They’re still selling a lot of cars each year, 1.6 mil last year, more this year. Thats a decline though from peak.
So yes you’re going to keep seeing more of them.
And if you decide to spend 25 billion building new factories, becoming unprofitable isnt really surprising. Those are investments in the company. Although given how large a % of those investments are AI related, their value is very uncertain.
Edit: pre AI - historically Tesla has some of the best CapEx spending to profit making in the industry. The cybertruck is the only huge spend that has flopped so far. Cybercab will be next if it fails.
There is a lot of dumb people out there.
Indeed. Some even blanket-dismiss an entire group of tens of millions of people solely based on the brand of car they drive.
I will always dismiss those that support a Nazi.
Most people DGAF about Musk’s politics when they buy a car.
Don’t assume they support Nazis. Some can’t afford to get out of their car payments.
Ours is paid off, but we’re in a different financial position than we were 8 years ago when we bought it, because of… well everything. We’d sell it but then we’d have to replace it and probably have a new car payment, which we don’t want.
If it’s any consolation, we basically never wash it.
also, might as well keep it, because it has no value used or on trade in.
Tesla won’t even accept Cybertrucks on tradein…how many future customers will that net?
That’s still supporting a Nazi.
I try not to, but I definitely do.
They should try putting a heads up display in the cybertruck
