TLDR
- Millennium Management sold 91% of Palantir holdings, added 311,000 Tesla shares in Q3.
- Palantir trades at 110x sales vs AppLovin’s 38x, the second-highest in S&P 500.
- Tesla EV deliveries dropped 8.5% in 2025 due to Model Y refresh timing.
- Model 3 sales grew 17.6% in first nine months of 2025 in U.S. market.
- Tesla’s robotaxi and humanoid robot markets projected to grow 74% and 54% annually.
Israel Englander made a contrarian bet in Q3 2025. His Millennium Management fund dumped 4.5 million Palantir shares while quadrupling its Tesla stake.
The move defies conventional wisdom. Palantir dominated returns while Tesla posted its worst annual performance. Yet Millennium’s record speaks volumes—the fund outpaced the S&P 500 by 39 percentage points over three years.
Millennium cut Palantir by 91% after it ranked among top 10 holdings. The fund added 311,000 Tesla shares despite declining EV sales. Tesla has returned 27,300% since its 2010 IPO.
Why Palantir Got Cut
Palantir’s Q3 results looked stellar. Revenue surged 63% to $1.1 billion. Customer count jumped 45%. Non-GAAP earnings climbed 110% to $0.21 per share.
Forrester Research calls Palantir a leader in AI platforms. The company excels at operationalizing AI projects. But one metric stands out: valuation.
Palantir trades at 110 times sales. AppLovin, the second-priciest S&P 500 stock, trades at 38 times sales. Palantir is nearly three times more expensive.
The stock could fall 65% and remain the index’s most expensive. No software company has sustained a 100x sales multiple long-term.
Tesla’s 2025 Struggles
Tesla delivered its worst year in recent memory. Full-year EV deliveries dropped 8.5%. Market share fell 5 percentage points. BYD overtook Tesla as the global EV leader.
The Model Y refresh drove most of the decline. The SUV represents over 25% of U.S. EV sales. Production shifts for the new Juniper model crushed first-half deliveries.
Model 3 sales tell a different story. They rose 17.6% in the first nine months of 2025 domestically. This wasn’t a Tesla problem. It was a Model Y timing issue.
Second-half numbers improved. Annualized deliveries hit 1.83 million vehicles. Analyst consensus for 2026 projects 1.75 million deliveries. The Juniper now ships globally with more affordable pricing.
The AI Play
Tesla’s future revolves around physical AI. That means robotaxis and Optimus humanoid robots, not just electric cars.
Tesla’s camera-only system cuts costs versus Waymo’s lidar approach. No expensive sensors. No high-definition mapping requirements. Just computer vision.
Tesla has 8 million vehicles on roads today. Owners can add cars to a crowdsourced robotaxi network. That fleet advantage is massive.
Elon Musk projects Optimus could hit $10 trillion in revenue eventually. He claims “Optimus will be an incredible surgeon.” The robotaxi market should grow 74% annually through 2030. Humanoid robots are projected at 54% annual growth through 2035.
Musk expects 2026 robotaxi approvals. Cybercab production starts in April. Netherlands FSD approval could arrive early in the year. Lower interest rates will help vehicle financing across the board.