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Tesla CEO Elon Musk spent months — years? – is trying to position his company as something more than a maker of electric cars. When Tesla acquired Solar City in 2016, he (and his comms team) positioned it as a sustainable energy company. Last year, he pushed the idea of ​​Tesla as an AI and robotics company.

Musk’s aspirational branding has run up against financial reality: Most of its revenue comes from selling EVs. Its latest earnings support it.

The company has generated $94.8 billion in revenue by 2025. Of that, $69.5 billion will come from sales and leasing of EVs as well as related regulatory credits. The remaining $25 billion is split almost halfway between the energy generation (solar) and storage business and “services and others,” which includes revenue from Superchargers, parts sales, and Full Self-Driving subscriptions. That reliance on deliveries means that as EV sales decline, so does Tesla’s entire balance sheet. Its revenue in 2025 is 46% less year-to-year.

Tesla has been trying to boost its non-EV businesses to offset declining sales, and its Q4 and full-year earnings report (and accompanying call) signaled a shift beyond continued AI-robotics talk and toward action. Currently, that action involves spending money, not making it. Musk has always emphasized that 2026 will be a big year for CapEx, more than doubling spending. to $20 billionwhich would put them in negative cash-flow territory.

For example, Musk announced that Tesla ending production of the Model S and Model Xwhich is more symbolic than material. Those two models represent about 2% of Tesla’s sales volume, a point Barclays analyst Dan Levy also made in his latest note. However, it was a notable end to an era for Tesla and the wider automotive industry, which changed forever when the Model S went on sale in 2012.

More material movement is what Tesla plans to do now.

Tesla plans to fill the production void left by the Model S and X with Optimus humanoid robots, which will be manufactured at the factory in Fremont, California. Musk also intends to scale Tesla’s robotaxi operations in several cities by 2026 and has even floated the need for Tesla to build a TerraFab factory to increase chip supply.

But the thing that really fascinates me – and is a real economic deal with Elon Inc – is Tesla’s plan to invest $2 billion to another Musk company, xAI, and signaled plans to more closely align the two companies. Meanwhile, other outlets report Talks are ongoing to possibly merge (in some combination) three of Musk’s companies: SpaceX, Tesla, and xAI.

But let’s come back down to earth for a moment and examine Tesla’s current business. the sales are low year-on-year, while the smaller energy saving business made positive gains.

A small bird

We’re not ready to share the full details yet, but we’ve heard from a little bird that there’s been some activity on the fundraising front for Waymo. You may have seen report last month about Waymo raising up to a $15 billion round led by its parent company Alphabet. Based on my conversations, it is still in the “realm” of $15 billion and a large part from Alphabet, and there is high interest from external investors to participate. A little bird told me that one of the other investors will be an OEM (original equipment manufacturer.

Stay tuned for more on this.

Got a tip for us? Email Kirsten Korosec at [email protected] or my Signal at kkorosec.07, or email Sean O’Kane at [email protected].

Deals!

Guar earns my “deal of the week” badge – and not just because of the dollar figures involved. Autonomous vehicle start has raised $750 million in a Series C round led by Khosla Ventures and G2 Venture Partnersand another $250 million in milestone capital from Uber to support the deployment of 25,000 or more Waabi Driver-powered robotaxis exclusively on its platform.

Uber is already a Waabi backer, participating in one of the first raises in 2021. But it’s about more than money. When Waabi first launched, it focused on using autonomous vehicle technology in self-driving trucks. The Uber deal is a declaration that it intends to scale its tech across multiple self-driving verticals with a single technology stack.

Can Waabi do it? Some tried and backed off. Waymo shut down the self-driving truck program to focus on robotaxis; Aurorathat you are one too guarantee investorworked on trucks and robotaxis, too, before deciding to focus solely on big rigs.

Other deals that caught my attention…

Because AIa startup developing autonomous trucks focused on the “middle mile,” has signed a deal with a major (unnamed) consumer-goods company. Here’s why: The contract will deliver $600 million in revenue more than five years. And this is for driverless transportation, meaning there is no safety driver behind the wheel. These Gatik trucks, which run 24 hours a day moving around, refrigerated, and frozen goods between distribution centers and stores, have been operating without a driver since mid-2025. According to the company, it has completed 60,000 fully driverless orders without incident.

said Luminar The lidar business was sold for $33 million to the Redmond, Washington-based MicroVision. The company, which develops its own sensors, beat out Quantum Computing in an auction for the assets. Sean O’Kane of TC interview MicroVision CEO Glen DeVos about his plans for Luminar. The sales process has a little last-minute intrigue if a mystery bidderwith a larger offer, making a play for Luminar’s lidar business.

Rad Power Bikeswhich started the bankruptcy process about a month ago, reached a deal to sell itself to Life Electric Vehicles Holdings (or Life EV) for $13.2 million. When Rad Power’s debts are accounted for, the total bid amount is $14.9 million. History lesson: Rad Power has raised $329.2 million since its founding and was previously valued at $1.65 billion.

Material Redwood raised $425 million in a Series E round that included Google as a new investor. The round was led by venture firm Eclipse and included a strategic investment by Nvidia’s venture capital arm, NVentures, as well as existing investors Capricorn and Goldman Sachs. Read the full story to find out what Redwood plans to do in the capital.

Great reads and other tidbits

sweet potatoa company that aggregates real-time pricing and pickup times for multiple ride-hailing services, has shared new data on ride-hailing and robotaxis in the San Francisco Bay Area. There are a few takeaways – so please read the full story – including that the price gap between Waymo and rides provided by Uber and Lyft is narrowing.

Uber launched a new division called Uber AV Labsthat is not – as pointed out by senior reporter Sean O’Kane – a plan to restart its own robotaxis. This is a data sharing game; Uber’s sensor-equipped cars will collect and then share data with partners like Lucid, Waymo, and Waabi. Important note: No contract has been signed yet.

Waymo is now authorized to operate robotaxi service to and from Airport is San Francisco International Airport (SFO). The company will begin offering access to SFO to a select number of riders before offering it to all customers in the coming months. That victory comes with a bit of tarnish, though. Waymo is under investigation National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and National Transportation Safety Board after the company reported one of its robotaxis beaten by a child near an elementary school in Santa Monica on January 23.

the San Francisco Police Departmentis the investigated an incident involving a Zoox autonomous vehicle crashes into the driver’s side door of a parked vehicle.

One more thing…

It’s been a few weeks since we had a poll and here’s a fun one: What’s the name or ticker of Musk’s supercompany merger?

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