Cramer Defends Tesla & SpaceX as TSLA EPS Drops 17.5%

For market participants, Cramer's defense crystallizes the valuation fight around Tesla: a 1.4% operating margin and negative free cash flow clash with a narrative that Tesla is no longer a car company but a robotics and AI platform. The question isn't whether Elon Musk can think ahead—investors are pricing in whether that thinking can convert to cash flow before autonomy timelines slip.

On September 3, 2026, CNBC host Jim Cramer delivered an unambiguous message to investors: he would not criticize anyone holding shares of Tesla or SpaceX, because he believes Elon Musk is 'well ahead of everybody else in the way he thinks.' The remarks, recirculated in a September 12 article by Insider Monkey and syndicated by Yahoo Finance, are more than a sound bite. They frame a key market debate over whether Musk's vision of Tesla as an AI and robotics company can justify a premium valuation while the company's core automotive economics deteriorate.

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Operating margin fell 270 basis points to 1.4%, while operating income dropped 57% to $398 million.

The source articles highlight just how much that deterioration has accelerated. In Q2 2026, Tesla reported non-GAAP earnings per share of $0.33, a 17.5% year-over-year decline. Free cash flow was negative $1 billion. Operating margin fell 270 basis points to 1.4%, while operating income dropped 57% to $398 million. On top of that, revenue from regulatory credits—once effectively pure profit—was nearly wiped out. Those are not the numbers of a company whose existing auto business is funding its future; they are the numbers of a company whose future ambitions are placing enormous strain on current cash generation.

Yet Cramer's stance aligns with the bull case that Tesla should be valued as a robotics, AI, and ridesharing platform rather than a traditional carmaker. He explicitly agreed with Musk's framing, saying Tesla is not a car company but a robotics and AI company. From a market perspective, that reframing is crucial. If investors accept it, then Tesla's hardware and software optionality—full self-driving revenue with its margin-heavy profile, the Optimus robot, and rideshare expansion—can be modeled as separate long-dated call options. The Q2 auto margin compression becomes a transitional cost of building that platform, not a structural profit problem.

The separate inclusion of SpaceX in Cramer's defense adds another dimension. If SpaceX is trading under SPCX as the article indicates, then Musk's ecosystem bet now spans electric vehicles, space launch, satellite internet, social media, and artificial intelligence. Cramer's anecdote about a 'really great business person' who called Musk 'the greatest businessman of our time' speaks to a potent retail and professional narrative: that Musk's companies should be judged on the founder's demonstrated capacity to win new industries before competitors understand the rules. That narrative can power valuation multiples, but it also concentrates risk. Regulatory volatility around autonomous driving, the loss of credit revenue, and capital intensity of AI infrastructure all sit inside Tesla's story.