Barclays Upgrades Tesla to Overweight With $450 Target, Citing SpaceX Merger Prospects and Robotaxi Surge

Barclays upgraded Tesla to Overweight from Equal Weight on October 26, raising its price target to $450 from $370, a move that sent Tesla shares up roughly 2% in premarket trading. The bank's analysts cited three converging drivers: a potential merger with SpaceX that they now describe as "a key part of the bull case," accelerating Robotaxi execution, and strengthening core business fundamentals.

On the autonomous vehicle front, Barclays pointed to Tesla logging nearly 2 million cumulative unsupervised Robotaxi miles, with unsupervised miles growing approximately 8 times quarter-over-quarter in the most recent period. Full Self-Driving adoption crossed a significant threshold, surpassing a 75% take rate on new vehicle deliveries across North America, which the bank said is driving accelerating software revenue recognition and commercial autonomous network momentum.

The SpaceX merger narrative has been building since mid-October, when Barclays analyst Dan Levy first wrote that a Tesla-SpaceX combination could be announced before December and Tesla's annual general meeting. Any deal would combine two companies with a combined valuation of roughly $3.5 trillion, with Barclays previously identifying SpaceX as the more likely acquirer in an all-stock structure. The $450 target implies approximately 21% upside from Tesla's price ahead of the upgrade.