Reuters: Tesla's AI transition under pressure, 2026 full-year spending target cut by about 20%
Reuters, citing Tesla's third-quarter financial report, reported that Tesla's capital expenditure for the quarter was $4.73 billion, below market expectations of about $7.7 billion to $7.95 billion, and that it lowered its full-year 2026 capital expenditure target from more than $25 billion to about $20 billion, a reduction of about 20%. On the earnings call, Musk acknowledged that Optimus still faces challenges including the supply chain, training data, and robotic hand design, and that the related issues may not be resolved until the end of 2027, after which it will take about another year to deliver to customers.
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Reuters: Tesla's AI transformation under pressure, 2026 full-year spending target cut by about 20%
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Financial data shows that Tesla's third-quarter capital expenditure was $4.73 billion (about 31.641 billion yuan at current exchange rates), more than double the same period last year, but about $1 billion (about 6.689 billion yuan at current exchange rates) less than the second quarter, and also significantly below the average analyst expectation of $7.95 billion (about 53.18 billion yuan at current exchange rates) compiled by Bloomberg.
Tesla also lowered its full-year 2026 capital expenditure target from more than $25 billion to about $20 billion (about 133.787 billion yuan at current exchange rates), a reduction of about 20%. Despite the slowdown in spending, Tesla still achieved about $1.53 billion (about 10.235 billion yuan at current exchange rates) in free cash flow in the third quarter, significantly better than the negative value originally expected by the market.
Reuters believes that Tesla has sent a signal of "spending less," which can improve short-term cash flow but has also raised concerns about the pace of Tesla's transformation investment. Musk had previously hoped that Tesla would no longer be just an electric vehicle manufacturer and would shift toward higher-growth, higher-investment fields such as artificial intelligence, autonomous driving, the humanoid robot Optimus, and chip manufacturing. Related investments include the Optimus production line, AI computing power, Cybercab mass production, and the Terafab chip factory in cooperation with SpaceX.
However, the transformation to AI and robots is highly dependent on large-scale, sustained capital investment. Although capital expenditure below expectations is beneficial to financial performance, if it means project delays, slower capacity ramp-up, or lagging technological breakthroughs, market confidence in the core of Tesla's future valuation could be shaken.
Musk acknowledged on the conference call that Optimus still faces challenges such as the supply chain, training data, and robotic hand design, and estimated that related problems may not be resolved until the end of 2027, after which it will take about another year to deliver to customers.
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