Tesla Shares Climb Ahead of Earnings as Musk Confirms Board Committees to Weigh SpaceX Merger

Tesla shares rose Tuesday after Elon Musk told investors on SpaceX's own third-quarter earnings call that both companies have formed special board committees to study a possible merger between them. Tesla reports its own third-quarter 2026 results Wednesday after the market close.

Musk said the committees, made up of independent directors at each company, were formed "at the request of shareholders," with Musk himself excluded from the deliberations because of his conflicting ownership stakes in both firms. He cautioned that no merger terms have been agreed and that any deal would require approval from more than 50% of all of Tesla's outstanding shares. SpaceX, which only began trading publicly earlier this year, posted third-quarter revenue of roughly $14.6 billion, well ahead of analyst expectations, with net income of $4.4 billion.

The merger discussion lands just ahead of a closely watched earnings report. In a preliminary filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission earlier this month, Tesla disclosed it produced 464,391 vehicles and delivered 486,532 in the third quarter, along with 13.7 gigawatt-hours of energy storage deployments, all ahead of Wall Street's prior estimates, though the filing cautions that delivery figures alone are not a reliable indicator of financial performance. According to market tracking from FinanceFeeds, shares closed around $374 Tuesday as investors weighed both storylines heading into Wednesday's report. Tesla has missed per-share earnings estimates in each of its last three quarterly reports, raising the stakes for Wednesday's numbers beyond the merger talk.

Both companies describe the board committees' work as exploratory, with Wednesday's earnings call expected to focus primarily on Tesla's own quarterly results rather than merger specifics.