Tesla Inc (TSLA)

Investing.com -- Tesla stock is sliding 5.5% in pre-open trading today to reach $365.18, as the market digests a sharp post-earnings reversal driven by a surprise cut to the company's capital expenditure guidance and growing uncertainty around the proposed Tesla-SpaceX merger. Tesla reported Q3 2026 adjusted earnings per share of $0.48, topping the $0.44 consensus estimate, and delivered positive free cash flow of $1.53 billion against expectations for a significant outflow — yet the stock fell after management announced it was reducing its full-year capex target to approximately $20 billion from a prior forecast of more than $25 billion, without specifying which projects would receive less funding.

The capex cut proved to be the central concern for investors, given that Tesla is valued primarily as an AI and robotics platform rather than a conventional automaker. Gene Munster of Deepwater Asset Management argued that the reduction left investors wanting more spending, not less, since capital expenditure is the primary hard metric the market uses to gauge how quickly Optimus and Cybercab are actually being built. Compounding the selling pressure, Reuters reported exclusively today that Musk's public endorsement of a potential Tesla-SpaceX merger — which had lifted the stock more than 3% during Wednesday's regular session — has unsettled people close to the discussions, who worry the disclosure could delay the process by several weeks, effectively turning a recent tailwind into a fresh headwind.

The broader market offered no support. U.S. equity futures were broadly lower in pre-market, with the Nasdaq and S&P 500 both under pressure as Tesla's capex pullback contrasted sharply with Meta Platforms' decision to raise its own AI capital spending guidance — a split verdict on the AI buildout that weighed on technology sentiment across the sector. Tesla's decline is also outpacing the Nasdaq's pre-market weakness by a wide margin, underscoring how company-specific factors are dominating the move.

The combination of a capex cut that signals slower-than-expected AI and robotics investment, a merger narrative that has shifted from catalyst to complication, and a broadly risk-off pre-market environment has created a confluence of pressures that are driving Tesla sharply lower today, even as the underlying Q3 financial results were better than feared on several key metrics.