The number that killed Tesla's rally wasn't the earnings
The Daily Digest
Dark Bulls
Thursday · October 22, 2026
Tesla beat on earnings — and the stock is falling 5%. The number Wall Street couldn't get past: $20 billion in capex cuts. That's not a savings story. That's a slowdown signal.
Thursday. Tesla posted adjusted earnings of 48 cents per share against a 43-cent forecast. But revenue of $28.05 billion was flat year over year. Auto revenue fell 3%. And the company quietly announced it was cutting planned 2026 capital expenditures from more than $25 billion to roughly $20 billion. That $5 billion reduction — in robotics, AI, and manufacturing investment — hit harder than anything else in the report. Meanwhile, a drone struck the Shaybah oil field deep in Saudi Arabia's Empty Quarter, killing two workers. Brent crude is up 2.7% this morning, touching $111.80. Here's what matters today.
Flying cars are back in the headlines.
Elon Musk is talking about flying cars again, and the whole category is getting a fresh look.
But headlines don't fly. Aircraft do.
One company has been doing the hard part for years: designing, building, and flight-testing a personal electric aircraft.
It started in a South Florida garage with a 3D printer. Today its prototype has completed 70+ manned test flights.
Here is the company behind it.
It has been building an electric flying car in South Florida since 2019. Two seats. Home outlet charging. Two-car garage fit.
Elon Musk is talking about flying cars again, and the whole category is getting a fresh look.
But headlines don't fly. Aircraft do.
One company has been doing the hard part for years: designing, building, and flight-testing a personal electric aircraft.
It started in a South Florida garage with a 3D printer. Today its prototype has completed 70+ manned test flights.
Here is the company behind it.
It has been building an electric flying car in South Florida since 2019. Two seats. Home outlet charging. Two-car garage fit.
Its name is Doroni Aerospace.
Its Reg A+ share price is $3.30.
October 22 is the last day to invest at that price.
Invest in Doroni before October 22 →
Doroni is not a rumor. It's a company running a fully SEC-qualified Reg A+ round, and it looks like this:
• 70+ successful manned test flights logged since 2019
• 600+ pre-orders on the book, representing over $240 million in potential revenue
• Over $50 million raised from 16,500+ individual investors
• 8 patents filed on propulsion, safety, and aerodynamic systems
• FAA Special Airworthiness Certificate in hand
• $DRNI — Nasdaq ticker already reserved (not yet approved)
On July 24 of this year, the FAA opened the first-ever certification pathway for personally-owned electric flying cars. Doroni engineered the H1-X for that pathway from day one.
Right now, you can still invest at $3.30 a share.
That window closes October 22.
On October 23, the share price changes.
Lock in $3.30 before October 22 →
Here is why the timing matters.
The FAA's new pathway, a growing pre-order book, and a market Morgan Stanley projects could reach $1 trillion by 2040 are all pointing in the same direction.
Doroni has spent years getting ready for this moment.
The bonus tiers close with this round:
• Prior investors and H1-X pre-order holders: 10% bonus shares
• $2,500 to $9,999: 5% bonus shares
• $10,000 to $24,999: 10% bonus shares
• $25,000+: 20% bonus shares
The 20% tier does not carry to the next round.
Flying cars are earning the headlines.
Doroni is bringing the aircraft.
October 22 is your last chance to invest at $3.30 a share. On October 23, the share price changes.
Reserve Your Doroni Shares Before October 22 →
This is a paid advertisement for Doroni Regulation A offering. Please read the offering circular at https://invest.doroni.io/
Its Reg A+ share price is $3.30.
October 22 is the last day to invest at that price.
Invest in Doroni before October 22 →
Doroni is not a rumor. It's a company running a fully SEC-qualified Reg A+ round, and it looks like this:
• 70+ successful manned test flights logged since 2019
• 600+ pre-orders on the book, representing over $240 million in potential revenue
• Over $50 million raised from 16,500+ individual investors
• 8 patents filed on propulsion, safety, and aerodynamic systems
• FAA Special Airworthiness Certificate in hand
• $DRNI — Nasdaq ticker already reserved (not yet approved)
On July 24 of this year, the FAA opened the first-ever certification pathway for personally-owned electric flying cars. Doroni engineered the H1-X for that pathway from day one.
Right now, you can still invest at $3.30 a share.
That window closes October 22.
On October 23, the share price changes.
Lock in $3.30 before October 22 →
Here is why the timing matters.
The FAA's new pathway, a growing pre-order book, and a market Morgan Stanley projects could reach $1 trillion by 2040 are all pointing in the same direction.
Doroni has spent years getting ready for this moment.
The bonus tiers close with this round:
• Prior investors and H1-X pre-order holders: 10% bonus shares
• $2,500 to $9,999: 5% bonus shares
• $10,000 to $24,999: 10% bonus shares
• $25,000+: 20% bonus shares
The 20% tier does not carry to the next round.
Flying cars are earning the headlines.
Doroni is bringing the aircraft.
October 22 is your last chance to invest at $3.30 a share. On October 23, the share price changes.
Reserve Your Doroni Shares Before October 22 →
This is a paid advertisement for Doroni Regulation A offering. Please read the offering circular at https://invest.doroni.io/
— Sponsored —
| In Focus |
Tesla beat the number. Then it told investors it's spending $5 billion less next year — and the market heard "slowdown."
October 22, 2026 · Markets / Technology
The headline was a beat. Adjusted earnings of 48 cents per share came in above the 43-cent consensus. Revenue of $28.05 billion was at least in line with expectations, although flat year over year. The cash flow story was better than the market had feared — free cash flow of $1.53 billion was sharply lower than the prior year's $2.74 billion, but analysts had been modeling something closer to negative $5 billion given the scale of investment Tesla has telegraphed for Optimus and its AI infrastructure. By that measure, it was a relief.
But the automotive business told a different story. Auto revenue fell 3% year over year, as deliveries of 486,532 vehicles continued a trend of year-on-year declines. Operating margin came in at just 2.6%, still near multi-year lows. GAAP earnings per share of 22 cents were 44% below the prior year. The energy storage business — Megapack, the "mystery crates" now shipping to Air Force bases, utilities, and city infrastructure — deployed a record 13.7 GWh in Q3 and is increasingly carrying the company's growth narrative. Musk spent much of the earnings call discussing Megapack's trajectory and the $23 trillion opportunity Blackstone has identified in grid-scale storage.
Then came the capex announcement. Tesla said it planned to reduce 2026 capital expenditures to approximately $20 billion from prior guidance of more than $25 billion. That $5 billion reduction landed hard. Investors who had priced in aggressive spending on Optimus humanoid robots, full self-driving infrastructure, and AI compute read the cut as a deceleration signal — not fiscal discipline, but a company pulling back from the ambitions it had sold. The stock had briefly rallied 1–2% premarket on the earnings beat; it reversed and is down approximately 5% Thursday morning, giving back most of the week's gains. The broader market is following: Nasdaq-100 futures are off 1.8%, S&P 500 futures down 1.1%.
"
We expect to offer unsupervised full self-driving to a portion of our customer base in approximately Q2 of next year. This is not a feature update. It is a fundamental shift in how the product is delivered.
— Tesla earnings call, October 21, 2026
This man just got inside a Cybercab, Elon Musk's new car that has no steering wheel or pedals.
What happens next will shock everyone.
Click here to see this exclusive footage.
What happens next will shock everyone.
Click here to see this exclusive footage.
— Sponsored —
The one genuinely new detail from the call was on full self-driving. Tesla said it expects to offer unsupervised FSD — where the driver does not need to supervise or intervene — to a portion of its customer base in approximately Q2 2026. That would be a meaningful milestone if it arrives on schedule; FSD has missed delivery timelines repeatedly over the past several years. Whether it moves the stock depends on whether investors believe the timeline this time.
Meta's results, reported alongside Tesla's, were cleaner on the surface. Revenue of $64.60 billion grew 26% and beat the $63.4 billion forecast. Q4 guidance of $73–76 billion came in above consensus. But two details complicated the picture. The company took a $9.89 billion legal charge to settle with attorneys general in 52 states over social media's effects on minors — stripping that out, earnings would have been $7.40 per share rather than the reported $3.83. And Meta announced it would create a new Class C non-voting share structure, distributing the new shares as a dividend in January 2027 in what amounts to a two-for-one split. The purpose is explicit: fund AI infrastructure without diluting Mark Zuckerberg's voting control. Shares had rallied as much as 7.4% after hours; they gave back most of that gain by Thursday morning.
| Today's Digest |
Venture capitalists call a private company worth over $1 billion a unicorn.
$10 billion and it's a decacorn.
$100 billion is a hectocorn.
But what do you call a private company worth over a trillion dollars?
Anthropic is there, right now.
The first of its kind.
It's worth more than every American airline — combined.
It's even bigger than the U.S. defense budget…
Anthropic's annualized revenue grew by 80 times in the first quarter.
They've already filed the paperwork for an IPO…
Some estimates say they are going public as early as November.
Now, here's what's really exciting.
You can take a stake in this IPO…
Right now.
Today.
Before it goes public.
For a chance to see gains on day one.
Click here to find out how.
All the best.
$10 billion and it's a decacorn.
$100 billion is a hectocorn.
But what do you call a private company worth over a trillion dollars?
Anthropic is there, right now.
The first of its kind.
It's worth more than every American airline — combined.
It's even bigger than the U.S. defense budget…
Anthropic's annualized revenue grew by 80 times in the first quarter.
They've already filed the paperwork for an IPO…
Some estimates say they are going public as early as November.
Now, here's what's really exciting.
You can take a stake in this IPO…
Right now.
Today.
Before it goes public.
For a chance to see gains on day one.
Click here to find out how.
All the best.
Michael Robinson
Director of Tech Strategies
Weiss Ratings
Director of Tech Strategies
Weiss Ratings
— Sponsored —
— David
Dark Bulls
Published Monday–Friday
