Oppenheimer: Tesla's $25B+ Capex Tracks AI Progress
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- Oppenheimer analysts, led by Colin Rusch, told clients Thursday that Tesla's capital investments will serve as a "leading indicator of Physical AI success," urging investors to track spending rather than headlines.
- Tesla expects to book more than $25 billion in capex in 2026 and record negative free cash flow for the remainder of the year, according to CFO Vaibhav Taneja.
- Rusch estimates Tesla's 2026 capex will actually reach $29.4 billion and 2027 capex $30.4 billion, with roughly $20 billion alone going to build out the Cortex data-center cluster in Texas — a figure he called "the key variable for the stock."
- Tesla's Terafab chip-making project, a joint effort with SpaceX and Intel, could absorb roughly $2 billion in capex per Oppenheimer's estimates; Musk said on Tesla's April earnings call that Tesla will spend $3 billion on a Texas research facility producing "a few thousand wafers" per month.
- Tesla is testing 54 Cybercab vehicles across eight regions, per a crowdsourced robotaxi tracker, but only four U.S. cities — three in Texas — currently permit commercial ride-hailing operations using self-driving Model Y SUVs.
- Tesla pushed back its planned Optimus humanoid robot showcase to late summer, with Musk saying he fears rivals might "copy everything they possibly can" if the technology is shown too soon.
- Piper Sandler analyst Alexander Potter last week called a series of Tesla developments evidence the company has "solved the self-driving puzzle," though he conceded Tesla's plan to launch robotaxis in five more U.S. cities by mid-2026 "might be unrealistic."
Why it matters: Tesla's projected $25B+ in 2026 capex, with $20B going to the Cortex data center alone, gives investors a concrete quarterly metric for whether Musk's AI bets materialize — or just deepen the cash burn. Oppenheimer's Rusch calls Cortex capacity "the key variable for the stock," meaning every spending update becomes a verdict on Tesla's AI thesis.
