With the annual shareholders' meeting in the rearview now, Tesla, Inc's next stock catalyst could be its second AI Day.
What Happened: $Tesla(TSLA.US)$ CEO Elon Musk Sunday confirmed on Twitter that AI Day 2022 will be held on Sept. 30. The first AI Day took place on Aug. 19, 2021, in which the billionaire said he wanted to take Tesla beyond just electric cars with "deep AI activity in hardware on the inference level and on the training level."
Musk in mid-May had said there would be "many cool updates" at the event, originally slated for August. He also suggested then that the purpose of AI Day is to attract great AI/software/chip talent to join Tesla.
At the AGM last week, Tesla teased an image of the humanoid robot it is developing — two metal hands of robot hands held in the shape of a heart.
When Musk announced the postponement of the AI Day in early June, he had said a working prototype of the Tesla bot, aka Optimus, should be available by Oct. 30.
The departure of senior AI executive Andrej Karpathy in mid-July triggered speculation of potential delays in the broader launch of the full self-driving software, as well as the Tesla bot.
Benzinga's Take: Barring any further deterioration in macroeconomic conditions, Tesla stock looks primed to get momentum from the event. Although the stock dipped Friday following the split announcement, that could change come Aug. 25, when the split takes effect. Between this catalyst and third-quarter results due in late October, AI Day could help the stock maintain positive momentum.
Price Action: Tesla closed Friday's session down 6.63% at $864.51.