This is today’s The Takeaway from Morning Brief, which you can he signs to receive in your inbox every morning along with:
Many investors have danced around a growing debate about Tesla ( TSLA ) and its stock for the better part of two years.
Should Elon Musk’s EV creation still be considered a car company? Or, should it be seen as a pure technology play whose future will depend on humanoid robots, robotaxis, and advanced chip manufacturing?
An argument can be made that Tesla’s large valuation already reflects the view that the company is not a car maker. The stock’s forward price-to-earnings ratio of 196 times is more tech-growth stock-oriented than the single-digit multiples seen at traditional automakers General Motors ( GM ) and Ford ( F ).
But I’m here today to officially call it quits.
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As of February 1, 2026, I believe that Tesla should no longer be considered a car manufacturer. Stop sweating these monthly delivery reports, which will suck for 2026, as they did in 2025.
In fact, I think it’s reasonable to assume that in less than three years, Tesla will no longer make passenger cars and SUVs.
I can see the company making Tesla semitrucks and maybe a few custom iterations of the new Roadster for rich people.
Using the Yahoo Scout AI (below), you can see the key drivers of Tesla’s future valuation will be very different from how it derived value in the past.
The entire company will be humanoid production, robotaxi production, power production, chip, and whatever else Musk cooks up that ties back to high-margin software.
Where does this call come from? Musk’s tea leaves fell this week on his earnings call.
Now, let me say this: I loved the most emotional Musk on the Tesla earnings call, I love that he thinks we are entering an era of amazing abundance, and I appreciated that he got bored when he talked about scrapping the Model S and Model X to reduce costs and use their factory lines to make those humanoid robots mentioned above.
Maybe it should be the next Cybertruck — who doesn’t hate trying to park a car next to one of those monsters?
So why did investors like the quarter in which total shipments fell 16%? Because people don’t want electric cars?
He told us that Tesla is about to embark on a major reinvention – potentially more profitable:
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He changed the company’s mission statement to “amazing abundance.” He started the call off with this one.
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He said he wants to build chips from something called TerraFab. It will cost billions to do so, but Tesla fans see this as the ultimate bullish indicator in the long run.
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He scrapped the Model S and X to build robots.
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This is the year of the robotaxi production ramp.
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I haven’t heard anything about new Tesla models for passenger ownership, although the company is looking to debut the new Roadster in April.
