Musk says 2026 capex will exceed $25B to fund Cybercab, reiterates HW3 limits
- Tesla said on April 22 that 2026 capital spending will exceed $25 billion as Elon Musk pushes Cybercab, Optimus, Megapack 3 and AI infrastructure. - The new plan is about $5 billion above Tesla’s prior forecast and nearly triple 2025 capex, while Musk said HW3 cannot deliver unsupervised FSD. - Analysts say the bigger spend raises near-term cash-flow pressure as Tesla leans harder into robotics and autonomy. (cnbc.com)
Tesla told investors on April 22 that capital expenditures in 2026 will exceed $25 billion as Elon Musk accelerates spending on Cybercab, Optimus, Megapack 3 and artificial intelligence infrastructure. (tesla.com) (assets-ir.tesla.com) Chief financial officer Vaibhav Taneja said the new capex target is up from Tesla’s prior forecast of about $20 billion, and CNBC reported the company spent $8.6 billion in 2025. (cnbc.com) (bloomberg.com) Tesla’s first-quarter update said it had already started ramping additional AI compute, new battery and materials factories, and lines for Megapack 3, Cybercab and the Tesla Semi. (assets-ir.tesla.com) (techcrunch.com) On the same earnings call, Musk said Tesla’s older Hardware 3 computer cannot achieve unsupervised Full Self-Driving, reversing years of assurances that many owners were waiting on. (theverge.com) (techcrunch.com) Musk said the bottleneck is memory bandwidth, and reports on the call said Tesla is weighing hardware retrofits or discounted trade-ins for affected owners. (teslanorth.com) (insideevs.com) That matters because Tesla is asking investors to fund a robotaxi and robotics buildout while conceding that a large installed base cannot get the unsupervised driving capability central to that pitch on current hardware. (reuters.com) (theverge.com) Tesla’s first-quarter report showed $3.9 billion in operating cash flow and $1.4 billion in free cash flow, but Taneja said the higher investment means free cash flow will likely be negative for the rest of 2026. (assets-ir.tesla.com) (techcrunch.com) Investors initially pushed Tesla shares higher after the earnings beat, then pulled back after the company raised its spending plan and outlined the cash demands of its artificial intelligence and robotics push. (cnbc.com) (reuters.com) Tesla also said it launched unsupervised Robotaxi rides in Dallas and Houston in April and received approval for Full Self-Driving Supervised in the Netherlands, giving Musk fresh milestones as he asks shareholders to absorb the heavier spending. (assets-ir.tesla.com) The thread running through both announcements is simple: Tesla is spending like an artificial intelligence and robotics company now, even as parts of its existing vehicle fleet still need new hardware to reach that future. (reuters.com) (theverge.com)
