Aniket PujariSpaceX, and by extension, Tesla had a good weekend.
Battered Tesla investors could use one of those right now.
On Friday evening, SpaceX launched NASA’s Crew-10 mission carrying Commander Anne McClain, Pilot Nichole Ayers, Mission Specialist Takuya Onishi, and Russian cosmonaut Kirill Peskov in a Dragon space capsule to the International Space Station.
Dragon successfully docked with the ISS on Saturday evening, about 28 hours after takeoff. SpaceX has now carried 60 crew members to the ISS.
SpaceX is the only U.S. company that can make the trip.
The mission will also facilitate the return of astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams. In June, they traveled to the ISS on a Boeing Starliner, but technical difficulties prevented Boeing from bringing them home. Williams and Wilmore will return in the Dragon capsule currently docked at the ISS. The ship that just docked will stay.
It’s another impressive event for SpaceX. What SpaceX has to do with Tesla is a valid question, though. There are a few things to consider.
For starters, Elon Musk, of course, runs them both. (At current prices, Musk’s Tesla stake is valued at about $170 billion. His SpaceX stake is closer to $150 billion.)
Next, a SpaceX success is good for Musk, and Tesla investors will take any good Musk news these days. For weeks, investors have worried that Musk’s political activities in the Trump administration are turning off core Tesla buyers—politically left-leaning people wanting to go green.
Tesla sales in the U.S., Europe, and China were weak to start the year. It might not all be Musk. RBC analyst Tom Narayan points out that the Model Y changeover explains part of the weakness. Tesla recently updated its most popular model and is ramping up production of the new Y. There is typically an air pocket when sales of an old car model fall as buyers wait for the upgrade.
Finally, there is a robot angle.
Musk tweeted about SpaceX on Saturday morning before the docking, saying that his rocket company will be headed to Mars in 2026, “carrying Optimus,” adding “if those landings go well, then human landings may start as soon as 2029.”
Humans can only target Mars every two years or so. That’s when the planets’ orbital paths are relatively close.
Optimus is Tesla’s AI-trained humanoid robot, which Tesla wants to start selling as early as this year.
Musk, and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, believe that an age of useful AI-trained robots is just around the corner. It’s a new business for Tesla, and a robot assisting with a trip to Mars, in any capacity, would be quite a feat, demonstrating substantial progress developing the robot.
Narayan rates Tesla shares Buy. The nascent robot business represents only 1% of his $440 price target, which could move higher if Optimus successfully helps SpaceX reach the red planet.
AI-trained self-driving cars represent about 57% of his price target. Tesla is slated to launch a robotaxi service as soon as June.
Robotaxi hype helped Tesla hit almost $489 a share in mid-December. Coming into Monday trading, shares were down 49% from those highs. What’s more, Tesla shares have dropped for eight consecutive weeks, losing 41% over that span. The S&P 500 is down about 6% over that span.
Painful declines like that are why Tesla investors will take any good news, even tangentially good news, right now.
Write to Al Root at allen.root@dowjones.com
