NEW YORK — Tesla stock steadied on Tuesday, closing essentially flat near $359 as fresh Tesla-SpaceX merger speculation gave the tape something to chew on after a soft start to the week. On the Nasdaq, NASDAQ: TSLA finished little changed following a roughly 2 percent slide on Monday, with the recovery tracking Elon Musk's latest comments about a possible combination of his two flagship companies.
The move — or lack of one — tells its own story: a market that dipped on broad risk-off trading Monday found its footing Tuesday as merger chatter reintroduced a bullish narrative traders have been waiting on for months.
The catalyst: Musk won't rule out a merger
At the All-In Summit in Los Angeles, Musk was asked directly why Tesla and SpaceX remain separate given how closely they already work together. Rather than deny it as he has before, he said: "With all this collaboration, on so many levels, who can imagine what action one might take when there's so much close collaboration in so many areas." SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell, on stage beside him, added that SpaceX personnel have already moved into xAI and that the businesses are integrating "faster than I thought." As Teslarati reported from the summit, that non-denial is what caught Wall Street's attention.
The Street has been modeling this for a while. JPMorgan has called a tie-up "strategically coherent on paper," citing overlapping ambitions in AI, robotics, energy, transportation and space, while Jefferies estimated Musk could retain roughly 55.3 percent voting control in a premium-free structure — a scenario that could still leave Tesla shareholders better off. On the prediction market Kalshi, traders now put the odds of a merger before 2028 at about 66 percent.
The market data
At Tuesday's close, $TSLA sat near $359, essentially flat on the session after Monday's roughly 2 percent decline, and within a 52-week range of about $297.38 to $498.83. SpaceX, which trades as $SPCX and now includes xAI following their combination, firmed about 0.4 percent, trading in the mid-$140s against a 52-week span of roughly $104.83 to $225.64. Neuralink and The Boring Company remain private, with no ticker. Live quotes are available on Yahoo Finance (https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/TSLA), Google Finance (https://www.google.com/finance/quote/TSLA:NASDAQ), WSJ (https://www.wsj.com/market-data/quotes/TSLA) and Nasdaq (https://www.nasdaq.com/market-activity/stocks/tsla); for SpaceX, see the matching $SPCX pages at Yahoo Finance (https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/SPCX) and Nasdaq (https://www.nasdaq.com/market-activity/stocks/spcx).
Beyond the merger
There were other reasons for optimism underneath the flat close. Tesla and SpaceX are jointly building Terafab, an Austin chip facility meant to serve Tesla's AI computing needs and SpaceX's satellite ambitions, and the operational momentum keeps building — from a humanoid-robot program ramping toward its 15,000-unit Optimus target ahead of 2027 sales to SpaceX's Starship Flight 14, cleared for its first orbital attempt. Adding to the intrigue, Tesla's October 1 Roadster reveal is set near SpaceX's McGregor test site under a "Go for launch" banner — another sign of how tightly the two companies are already intertwined.
What to watch
For now, Musk stopped short of confirming anything is in motion, and both stocks are likely to trade on merger headlines in the near term. A combined Tesla-SpaceX would rank among the largest companies on earth, and even hints of movement can swing sentiment. With the Roadster event, Starship's next flight and continued Optimus progress all clustered into the coming weeks, $TSLA has no shortage of potential catalysts — and Tuesday's steady close suggests buyers are willing to look through short-term dips toward that bigger picture.
This article does not constitute financial advice. Readers are advised to do their own research before investing in the stock market. Prices cited are point-in-time snapshots and may be stale — always confirm on a live financial source.
