Tesla Raises 2026 Capital Spending to $25 Billion for Self-Driving, Robotaxis, and Humanoid Robots

Tesla raised its 2026 capital spending plan to more than $25 billion, nearly triple last year's $8.53 billion, as the company bets heavily on self-driving technology, humanoid robots, and robotaxi services.

The company expects negative free cash flow for the rest of the year despite a strong first quarter. Cybercab production is slated for later in 2026, with robotaxi rollout planned for select U.S. cities.

Investors reacted skeptically. Shares dropped nearly 3% after the announcement, as analysts questioned when these investments would generate returns. Critics noted that Tesla lacks the established recurring revenue streams, such as cloud services or advertising, that allow companies like Microsoft, Google, and Amazon to fund large AI bets.

CEO Elon Musk framed the spending as a necessary "leap of faith" on future AI platforms. He also outlined plans for Terafab, a large-scale AI chip manufacturing project in Austin, Texas, intended to support Tesla, SpaceX, and xAI. The project may involve Intel's next-generation 14A manufacturing process.

The broader AI infrastructure race is driving capital spending across the tech industry. Amazon committed an initial $5 billion to AI startup Anthropic, with a potential additional $20 billion. Google is developing new custom AI chips in partnership with Marvell. Meta is preparing to cut about 8,000 jobs while increasing AI infrastructure spending. Microsoft is offering buyouts to roughly 7% of its U.S. workforce for the same reason.

Morgan Stanley analysts forecast that agentic AI will expand chip demand beyond GPUs to CPUs, memory, and related manufacturing, adding $32.5 to $60 billion to the data-center CPU market by 2030.