Ex-Tesla President: Roadster Delay Is SpaceX Merger Play
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- Jon McNeill, Tesla's president from 2015 to 2018, said the upcoming Roadster demo may show "hovering" via SpaceX cold-gas thrusters and predicted Tesla and SpaceX "are going to come together, probably sooner rather than later."
- Tesla unveiled the next-gen Roadster in November 2017 with 2020 production promised; reservations required up to $50,000 deposits, and Founders Series buyers wired the full $250,000.
- The Roadster has been delayed at least nine times; the demo alone slipped from April 1, 2026 to late April to "maybe in a month" on the Q1 earnings call to August 2026.
- The A71 thruster system, developed by SpaceX, points toward the ground to lift the car; the demo will be remotely operated because the thrusters are loud enough to damage hearing.
- Earlier demo plans — racing up a magnetized ramp, driving upside down, righting itself, and hovering — were cut after being presented to Musk, who said the show "will be hard to pull off and could go wrong."
- TSLA is down roughly 25% year-to-date, making it the worst performer among the Magnificent Seven, against which McNeill framed the Roadster as a morale play to "inject some energy and excitement back into the car business."
Why it matters: Tesla has held back a car buyers paid for nearly a decade — and a former president frames the thruster-gimmick delay as a deliberate attempt to "knit Tesla and SpaceX's futures together." The original 2017 Roadster specs (1.9-second 0-60, 620-mile range) needed no SpaceX hardware, and TSLA is now 25% down YTD as the worst Magnificent Seven performer.
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