💰 Flying Cars Were Just The Start

THE MAIN EVENTFlying Cars Were Just The Start 🤯

Musk wanted everyone to know who helped build the Roadster that flew over a Cybertruck last night.

Twitter tweet

The show was staged at SpaceX's test site in Texas, and Musk called the car "the culmination of incredible work by Tesla and SpaceX Engineers working closely together."

That comment got extra attention because Wall Street was already wondering if these two companies are about to become one.

The Merger Whispers 🤫

This week, Barclays analyst Dan Levy said a Tesla-SpaceX deal could be announced by December 6. He expects SpaceX to buy Tesla with SpaceX stock.

Musk hasn't confirmed anything, but he hasn't ruled it out either. Last month, asked at the All-In Summit why Tesla and SpaceX are still separate companies, he said, "With all this collaboration, on so many levels, who can imagine what action one might take."

A merger wouldn't be that wild, given his track record. Musk folded SolarCity into Tesla in 2016, merged X into xAI in 2025, and then merged xAI into SpaceX this February.

What It Would Look Like 🧩

SpaceX is worth about $2.02 trillion. Tesla is worth about $1.43 trillion. Together, that's roughly $3.45 trillion, enough to make it the fifth-largest company in the world.

1. Nvidia ($5.25 trillion)

2. Apple ($4.99 trillion)

3. Alphabet ($4.27 trillion)

4. Microsoft ($4.01 trillion)

5. SpaceX + Tesla ($3.45 trillion)

That's about $700 billion more than Amazon, today's number 5.

It's Not The Paycheck 💰

When these rumors started swirling, my first theory was money.

Last year, Tesla shareholders approved a pay package of about $1 trillion if Musk could drive Tesla's market value from $2 trillion to $8.5 trillion (and hit a few other outrageous goals). So bolting on SpaceX felt like a shortcut, as it would get him almost halfway there overnight.

Except his contract closes that door.

It says that if Tesla buys a company for more than $20 billion, every target he hasn't hit yet "will be increased by" the purchase price.

In other words, if Tesla buys SpaceX for $2 trillion, his first $2 trillion goal becomes roughly $4 trillion.

And if SpaceX buys Tesla instead? Then the pay package mostly ends. Musk would only collect on the market value goals Tesla's sale price has already cleared, and at $1.43 trillion, it hasn't cleared any.

So if a merger happens, it's not for the paycheck.

So Why Do It? 🤔

Musk has spelled out the first one himself.

In 2024, he posted that he was "uncomfortable growing Tesla to be a leader in AI & robotics without having ~25% voting control." He owned about 13% of Tesla then and owns 19.9% today.

At SpaceX, his super-voting shares give him about 82% of the vote. Barclays estimates he'd control about 56% of a combined company.

There are other plausible reasons, too:

• Convenience. Musk would run one company instead of two.

• Integration. Tesla's robots and robotaxis would get their chips and AI from inside the same company.

Stay On For The Ride? 🎢

Musk would sit on both sides of the deal, with a say in what Tesla shareholders get paid.

When Tesla bought SolarCity in 2016, the last time Tesla shareholders voted on a deal with another Musk company, some of those shareholders sued.

They argued Tesla overpaid to rescue a struggling company that Musk chaired and his cousins ran. A court sided with Musk but called the process "far from perfect."

The stakes are bigger now.

Tesla shareholders would be swapping into a company that lost $4.8 billion in the first half of this year as it poured money into AI. Plus, investors in both companies would have even more of their money riding on one person.

Personally, I won't bet against a guy who catches rockets in midair, makes cars fly, and beams internet from space.

But if you'd rather not own a bigger piece of his empire, your options are thinner than in the SolarCity days. Tesla now requires a 3% stake, about $43 billion of stock, before you can file that kind of suit.

So the choice is simple. Stay on for the ride, or get off before it leaves.

MARKET MOODThe Nasdaq Lost Its Memory 💾

Winners

Intuit

$INTU  ·  Cap $88.2B  ·  Week to date ▲ 9.1%
TurboTax maker Intuit agreed to buy Sequence, a startup that automates billing for businesses. Even after this week's jump, the stock is still down about 50% this year.

Medtronic

$MDT  ·  Cap $122.1B  ·  Week to date ▲ 7.9%
Medtronic finished divesting its diabetes unit by letting shareholders swap Medtronic stock for MiniMed stock. The swap shrank its share count by about 4%, so each remaining share owns a slightly bigger slice of what’s left.

UnitedHealth Group

$UNH  ·  Cap $365.0B  ·  Week to date ▲ 7.2%
After medical bills squeezed its profits last year, UnitedHealth is now keeping more of every premium dollar. That gave it room to raise its full-year earnings target to $20.50 a share.

Losers

Hewlett Packard Enterprise & Dell

$HPE / $DELL  ·  Cap $77.8B / $301.0B  ·  Week to date ▼ 20.2% / ▼ 19.2%
Barclays cut its ratings on both server makers, arguing Dell's sales are up because memory chips cost more, not because more businesses are buying AI. If memory prices fall, those sales could too.

Micron Technology

$MU  ·  Cap $1.05T  ·  Week to date ▼ 9.5%
China's CXMT unveiled a more advanced memory chip for data-center servers, due by year-end. That puts a new rival in Micron's most profitable market, taking about $100 billion in value off the stock.

Bank of America

$BAC  ·  Cap $361.5B  ·  Week to date ▼ 4.8%
Bank of America's quarterly profit fell 17%, partly because of a $1.2 billion fine over weak money-laundering checks. Revenue also came up short, mostly because its trading desks earned less than expected.

FAST FACTSRaises, Refunds, And Red-Eyes ✈️

👴 Social Security Gets A 3.6% Raise: The average retiree gets about $75 more a month in January, the biggest bump in 4 years. [Read]

📦 Amazon Settles Over Botched Returns: A $309.5 million deal covers refunds since 2017, and some shoppers must file a claim by Dec 1. [Read]

✈️ Plane Tickets Cost 22% More Than Last Year: Airline fares rose another 1.2% in September alone, the latest inflation report shows. [Read]

👵 Americans Over 75 Are Now The Richest: Their median net worth hit nearly $505,000, while families under 35 slipped 23% to $33,000. [Read]

💵 I Bonds Could Pay Over 5% Next Month: The inflation piece resets to 4.08% on Nov. 1, and one tracker puts the full rate near 5.4%. [Read]

🥬 Shipping Lettuce Now Costs More Than Lettuce: With diesel up 30%, a grocery chain told the Fed trucking costs more than the produce. [Read]

🤖 AI Ran 180 Hours Of Job Interviews In 2 Days: A staffing firm told the Dallas Fed it hired new recruiters to help manage its AI. [Read]

THE ODDSWill Elon Merge His Empire? 🚀

CHART OF THE WEEKDon't Leave The Party Early 🎉

Four years ago this week, stocks hit bottom. Since then, the S&P 500 has more than doubled, climbing about 116% as of Thursday's close. To enjoy that ride, the hard part was staying invested.

The market's best days tend to arrive when things feel worst. Historically, 76% of the best days occur during a bear market or a bull market's first two months.

In fact, over the last 30 years, missing just the 10 best days would have cut your returns in half.

So when we get a shaky week like this one, with stocks' worst day since July, don't rush for the exit unless your long-term plan has changed.

After all, 6 of the last 7 bull markets that reached four years old made it to at least five.

WORDS TO REMEMBERGetting Rich Means Not Going Broke 🧠