Tesla (TSLA) is all in on AI

Tesla reported Q4 earnings on January 28, delivering $24.9 billion in revenue as the company balances legacy automotive production with its growing robotics and energy divisions.

While Tesla continues to scale its mass-market Model 3 and Model Y production, the Q4 report confirmed a major shift in the product roadmap with the discontinuation of the Model S and Model X. 

The S/X lines at the Fremont factory will be decommissioned by the end of Q1 2026 to make room for Optimus Gen 3 production. Management is positioning this retooling as a move toward physical AI, though automotive manufacturing still accounts for the vast majority of the top line for now.

Post-Earnings Highlights:

• Revenue: $24.9 billion total, with an 11% decline in automotive revenue offset by record energy storage growth.

• Profitability: Adjusted EPS of $0.50 beat consensus, with gross margins recovering to 20.1% due to lower logistics costs and energy segment scale.

• Energy Storage: 14.2 GWh deployed in Q4, establishing energy as a primary stabilizer for margins.

• xAI Investment: A $2 billion Series E commitment was signed on January 16 to acquire preferred stock in xAI, with the transaction expected to close in Q1 2026.

• Fremont Pivot: Retooling of the legacy luxury lines targets a manufacturing capacity of 1 million Optimus units annually.

• Robotaxi Validation: Austin pilot removed chase cars on January 27, moving the FSD fleet into true unsupervised testing on employee routes.

• Future Roadmap: Expansion of the robotaxi pilot to Dallas, Houston, Phoenix, and Las Vegas is scheduled for the first half of 2026.

This shift in focus is also anchored by the $2 billion stake in xAI, which grants Tesla preferred equity and priority access to Grok 5 logic. By integrating xAI’s large-scale digital reasoning with Tesla’s real-world video datasets, the framework agreement aims to give FSD and Optimus the semantic understanding required for complex decision-making.

These ties have intensified reports from Reuters and Bloomberg that Musk is moving toward a single holding company structure—the Muskonomy—that could merge SpaceX and xAI ahead of a planned mid-June SpaceX IPO. Such a merger would theoretically trade xAI equity for SpaceX shares, consolidating Starlink’s orbital data centers with Tesla’s Dojo compute to create a unified AI and space infrastructure.

Google (GOOGL) AI is taking off

Google executed a massive architectural overhaul to the Chrome browser this week, embedding the Gemini 3 model directly into the software to enable native agentic capabilities.

The core of this update is a new auto browse feature that allows the browser to perform multi-step tasks such as filing expense reports or organizing tax documents across different tabs without manual input. By integrating Personal Intelligence into Search AI Mode, Google now allows the assistant to synthesize private context from Gmail and Photos to manage complex user logistics and scheduling.

This shift to private data synthesis creates a technical barrier for competitors like Perplexity.

While Perplexity has gained traction as a citation-heavy answer engine for research, it lacks access to the private user data—emails, calendars, and photo libraries—that Google is now weaponizing to move search from information retrieval to task execution. By shifting the battleground from public web indexing to private data synthesis, Google is effectively boxing out third-party AI assistants that cannot verify a user’s travel schedule or past purchases with the same level of native integration.

Simultaneously, Google is facing significant regulatory pressure following a NHTSA investigation into a Waymo incident in Santa Monica.

Amazon (AMZN) gears up for earnings next week

Amazon shifted its organizational structure this week, cutting 16,000 corporate roles to prioritize a massive expansion of its AI infrastructure and custom silicon production.

The headcount reduction is part of a plan to remove management layers and reallocate capital toward a projected $150 billion infrastructure cycle for 2026. This pivot focuses on scaling Trainium and Inferentia chips to reduce dependency on external hardware providers and lower the cost of running large-scale generative models for AWS customers.

On our end, we see additional tailwinds heading into the February 5 earnings report following a historic 2025 holiday shopping season. According to National Retail Federation year-end data, U.S. retail sales surpassed the $1 trillion milestone for the first time during the November-December window. Adobe Analytics reports show that Amazon captured a disproportionate share of the $258 billion spent online due to its logistics advantage and high consumer trust in delivery windows.

The expansion of high-margin ad inventory into Prime Video—specifically the record-breaking viewership during the Christmas Day NFL broadcasts—provides a massive lead-in for the upcoming results.

While Netflix hosted the early doubleheader, Amazon Prime Video carried the primetime nightcap (Broncos vs. Chiefs), contributing to a record 55.1 billion streaming minutes on Christmas Day. 

Amazon's influence was further bolstered by Netflix's use of the Amazon DSP for its ad-supported tier, allowing brands to leverage Amazon’s shopper data to target the NFL audience. 

Performance data from the recent peak period shows Amazon advertising maintained a conversion rate of 9.9%. This efficiency level stands nearly 8 times higher than the 1.3% industry average for non-Amazon e-commerce sites.

Bitcoin faces macro pressure

Bitcoin faced its most violent deleveraging event of the year today, sliding toward the 80k level as a mechanical breakdown in leveraged positions triggered a massive liquidity flush.

The price hit an intraday low of 81,000 on January 30, following a sharp 6% daily drop that accelerated once the asset broke below its 100-week moving average. According to CoinGlass data, over $1.7 billion in crypto positions were liquidated in the last 24 hours, with 93% of those being long bets. This was accompanied by $818 million in daily outflows from spot ETFs, signaling a period of institutional fatigue.

The digital asset flush coincided with a massive reversal in physical hard assets, which also faced a violent end-of-week correction. After testing record highs on Thursday, Gold plunged as much as 8% today to test the 5,000 level, while Silver crashed over 17% from its 120 peak.

This capitulation across the hard asset complex was triggered by the nomination of Kevin Warsh as Federal Reserve chair. Warsh is viewed as a monetary hawk and a defender of central bank independence, a profile that directly threatens the debasement trade that had pushed gold and digital assets to extremes. His selection signals a potential shift toward higher real interest rates and a more aggressive reduction of the Fed balance sheet, which prompted a sudden surge in the U.S. Dollar.

Translation: Bitcoin is caught in a wider structural deleveraging event that hammered both digital and physical safe havens in a single session. This move was accelerated by the nomination of Kevin Warsh as the next Federal Reserve chair, which prompted a mass exit from crowded inflation-hedge trades in gold, silver, and digital assets.

Founders Call: Robotics Early Innings

Richtech Robotics (RR) launched +30% higher on Tuesday after a company press release highlighted a "hands-on collaboration with Microsoft... to jointly develop and deploy agentic artificial intelligence capabilities in real-world robotic systems.” 

However, the rally was short-lived as Microsoft (MSFT) denied any “commercial element” to the agreement. Shares quickly reversed course as the market digested the misunderstood agreement.To be clear, Microsoft's clarified involvement does not change our bullish outlook for the stock. We still see this as an early play in accumulation mode.

Last week, Richtech’s delayed 10-K filing revealed its first big jump in real gross profit ($3.3 million), proving the company is selling and leasing robots for significantly more than they cost to build and deploy.

Translation: The math works. The path to wealth is now a matter of volume. Service robotics is already a $31 billion opportunity. And Richtech is at the forefront.

Make no mistake: Richtech Robotics is not a safe bet. It’s a binary one. 

Either this company proves it can scale AI-powered robots into the real economy – or it gets outrun by a better-funded competitor. There’s not much middle ground.

But Tuesday’s surge proves how fast this small-cap stock can fly.

Andy talked about RR in detail on this week’s founders call – enjoy below:

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