Tesla’s inventory (TSLA) surged by as a lot as 8% immediately following the corporate reporting disastrous earnings outcomes – its worst in years and manner beneath expectations.
The inventory appears to surge based mostly on individuals believing Elon Musk’s lies.
Yesterday, Tesla launched its Q1 2025 monetary outcomes, confirming its worst efficiency in years.
The automaker is now working at simply 2% margins and would have misplaced cash final quarter if it weren’t for the gross sales of regulatory credit.
The monetary efficiency was worse than most analysts predicted, and but, Tesla’s inventory surged by as a lot as 8% immediately.
The explanation for the surge seems to be shareholders overlooking Tesla’s degrading auto enterprise in favor of Musk’s imaginative and prescient for the way forward for Tesla.
Nevertheless, the issue is that Musk has been deceptive individuals about his imaginative and prescient of Tesla’s future and lied a number of occasions on the earnings name that adopted the discharge of its monetary outcomes.
I did a complete reside stream to interrupt down and fact-check Tesla’s earnings name:
Musk actually began out his feedback on the Tesla name with a lie. He claimed that folks protesting Tesla proper now are “paid-for” and/or just upset as a result of they have been receiving cash that his DOGE crew minimize:
Now, the protests that you simply’ll see on the market, they’re very organized, they’re paid for. They’re clearly not going to say, admit that the explanation that they’re protesting is as a result of they’re receiving fraudulent cash or that they’re the recipients of wasteful largesse, however they’re going to provide you with another motive. However that’s – the actual motive for the protests, the precise motive is that these receiving the waste and fraud want to proceed receiving it.
It’s not the primary time Musk has claimed that regardless of having zero proof. He makes use of the claims to distance himself from any duty for Tesla’s present model injury.
Musk and the remainder of Tesla’s administration have tried their greatest throughout the name to attribute the 50,000 fewer deliveries final quarter to the Mannequin Y changevoer, however they by no means defined the large enhance in stock automobiles that additionally occurred throughout the quarter and would level to a broader demand situation.
When requested concerning the model injury’s impression on Tesla’s order circulation, Musk didn’t wish to admit any and as an alternative tried to clarify any slowdown in demand as a consequence of broader macroeconomic points:
Tesla just isn’t proof against the macro demand for vehicles. When there may be financial uncertainty, individuals usually wish to pause on shopping for —doing a significant capital buy like— a automotive. Absent of macro points, we don’t see a discount in demand.
That’s one other clear lie. Firstly, it’s inconceivable to attribute any particular demand situation to a broader macroeconomic situation fairly than a selected situation with the Tesla model. Secondly, Tesla’s gross sales have declined considerably in the previous couple of months, whereas broader EV gross sales are surging. This may level to a problem with Tesla particularly fairly than the broader market.
As an alternative of present demand points, Musk centered on Tesla’s self-driving and humanoid robotic efforts.
With the humanoid robots, Musk once more claimed that he believes Tesla will make thousands and thousands of robots by the top of the last decade and turn out to be the world’s most useful firm due to it. The CEO stated that he doesn’t see any competitor getting near Tesla.
The issue is that it’s not clear why Tesla would dominate this market. On the robotics entrance, it seems like Tesla is already behind opponents like Unitree:
As for the AI that goes into humanoid robots, Tesla has additionally not proven any aggressive benefit as all its demonstrations concerned human teleoperations.
Tesla’s personal AI effort has primarily centered on fixing the self-driving drawback, and that has additionally not but been achieved. Musk has claimed that Tesla was on the verge of fixing self-driving “subsequent yr” for each one of many previous 6 years.
Throughout Tesla’s earnings name, Musk once more up to date a number of self-driving timelines for Tesla, together with “thousands and thousands of robotaxis on the highway within the second half of 2026” and “unsupervised self-driving in client automobiles by the top of the yr.”
Once more, Musk has been making related claims for the final six years, and so they have by no means come true. Nevertheless, persons are beginning to give extra credibility to his self-driving timeline as a result of he reiterated that Tesla plans to launch its unsupervised self-driving pilot program in Austin as quickly as June.
Nevertheless, we famous that this represents a big shift in Tesla’s self-driving efforts, as it is going to depend on an inside, geo-fenced fleet with human teleoperation help. It’s mainly the identical service that Waymo has been providing for years and Musk claimed isn’t scalable.
Through the earnings name, Musk claimed that the fleet will initially encompass simply 10-20 Mannequin Y automobiles. Tesla’s head of self-driving admitted that Tesla is at the moment centered on optimizing FSD for driving in Austin to assist the service. This explains why Tesla’s FSD in client automobiles, which consumers paid for with the promise that it’s going to finally turn out to be unsupervised, hasn’t been considerably up to date in months.
Now, Musk will declare a win in self-driving with Tesla’s launch of its restricted pilot program in Austin in June, however actually, it’s only delaying the supply of what he promised for years: unsupervised self-driving in each client automobile constructed by Tesla since 2016.
Electrek’s Take
Musk now claims that is going to occur by the top of the yr, however let’s see if he nonetheless says that in just a few months. Just about yearly for the final 6 years, he stated early within the yr that it will occur by the top of the yr, and when the top of the yr will get nearer, he pushes the timeline to subsequent yr and repeats the cycle.
I want to give extra credibility to his prediction now, nevertheless it’s onerous to do when the perfect knowledge accessible nonetheless solely factors to FSD in client automobiles reaching about 500 miles between essential disengagement when it must be within the tens of 1000’s of miles for a geo-fenced ride-hailing service and within the tons of of 1000’s of miles for generalized unsupervised driving answer in client automobiles, which is what Tesla has been promising for years.
It’s onerous for me to imagine that some individuals nonetheless take his claims critically, however there’s a idiot born each minute and most of them turn out to be Tesla shareholders, evidently.
It’s beginning to sound like Tesla earnings calls are run by a Musk AI skilled on Musk’s feedback made during the last 10 years – with the addition of humanoid robots over the previous couple of years.
As for the inventory value, neglect about earnings, neglect about fundamentals, it’s merely an index to gauge the shareholders’ confidence in Musk’s claims. Proper now, they appear fairly assured. They’re nonetheless consuming the Kool-Assist.
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