Tesla’s quarterly outcomes had been a catastrophe by each metric. Web earnings plunged 71%, automobile gross sales dropped 13%, and automotive income fell 20%. Wall Road anticipated $21.3 billion in income and $0.41 earnings per share; Tesla delivered simply $19.3 billion and $0.27. And that was solely because of $595 million in carbon credit—authorities lifelines for a CEO who claims to detest authorities intervention.
And that revenue? It solely exists because of $595 million in carbon credit—a authorities program that Elon Musk pretends to hate, however fortunately cashes in. But once more, a Musk firm could be deep underwater with out public intervention.
And but … Tesla’s inventory jumped practically 10% after the earnings report. Why? As a result of buyers, like Donald Trump voters, maintain believing Musk’s lies, ignoring collapsing fundamentals in favor of fantastical guarantees.
Associated | Musk pushes dumb lies about paid protesters as Tesla gross sales collapse
On the earnings name, Musk opened with a conspiracy idea. “The protests that you simply’ll see on the market, they’re very organized, they’re paid for,” he claimed, providing zero proof. “They’re the recipients of wasteful largesse … they want to proceed receiving it.”
He additionally blamed a 50,000-car drop in deliveries on “retooling” the Mannequin Y. However final yr, Tesla retooled the Mannequin 3 line with out tanking gross sales, although they did expertise a drop. In Q1, the corporate really constructed 26,000 extra vehicles than it offered. That’s a requirement downside, not provide.
None of that mattered. The inventory didn’t rally due to Q1’s collapse, it surged as a result of Musk dangled the subsequent shiny object—his promise to focus extra on Tesla and fewer on wrecking the federal government. “I feel beginning in Could, my time allocation to DOGE will drop considerably,” he stated, pledging to reduce his anti-government antics—except the president “nonetheless wants” him.
Buyers cheered. However they shouldn’t have.
Tesla’s Cybertruck is shaping as much as be the greatest auto business flop because the Edsel. Simply 46,000 have been offered since its November 2024 launch—regardless of Musk claiming 1 million reservations and constructing a manufacturing unit in Austin to pump out 250,000 a yr.
Anybody may’ve predicted this. The Cybertruck is a hideous, overdesigned monstrosity. Musk, who as soon as bragged, “I do zero analysis in any way,” designed it for an edgelord fever dream—not for actual individuals.
And if that had been Musk’s solely blunder, Tesla could be superb.
Musk now claims that totally autonomous Cybercabs will probably be producing income for Tesla subsequent yr, and that “there will probably be thousands and thousands of Teslas working totally autonomously within the second half of subsequent yr.”
This is identical Musk who stated in 2019, “Subsequent yr, for certain, we’ll have over a million robotaxis on the highway.”
Now we’re alleged to imagine Tesla, which constructed 1.77 million vehicles in 2024, will manufacture a couple of million robotaxis by mid-2026, although large-scale manufacturing of the brand new car isn’t even scheduled to start till subsequent yr? Tesla did affirm on the decision that they’ll be making the robotaxis of their Austin plant, which has all that extra capability from the Cybertrucks they aren’t promoting. Sufficient capability to construct 1 million Cybercabs in half a yr? I’m calling bullshit on that.
Tesla doesn’t have the factories. It doesn’t have the infrastructure. And extra importantly, it doesn’t even have the tech. “Unsupervised autonomy will first be solved for the Mannequin Y in Austin,” stated Musk within the earnings name, admitting that this greatest of technological challenges just isn’t but solved, one thing that he’s constantly claimed was months away from being solved for the previous decade.
Even when they crack the tech, they’ll want regulatory approval in each metropolis they function. And who runs huge cities? Liberal Democrats. The identical individuals Musk has spent years mocking and antagonizing, and who may have each motive to sluggish stroll any approvals till Tesla proves its robotaxis aren’t murdering individuals or destroying property.
Musk is aware of this, so he hedged on the decision, saying, “We’ll have 10 million autonomous vehicles in a couple of years … except blocked by regulatory conditions.” Buyers apparently skipped that footnote.
Let’s assume the unattainable occurs. Austin’s pilot succeeds. The robotaxis don’t kill anybody. Regulators wave it by means of.
Now who rides them?
City liberals? They’ve deserted Musk. They received’t step right into a Tesla cab, preferring Waymo, Uber, or public transit.
Conservatives? They don’t want robotaxis. They’ve acquired pickups, SUVs, garages, and wide-open roads of their exurban and rural outposts. They’re not hailing Cybercabs to the Cracker Barrel.
Even when Tesla threads each needle, I’d be shocked to see greater than 5,000 Cybercabs nationwide by mid-2026. Extra seemingly? Zero—apart from a lingering pilot or two in Austin, in all probability vandalized, after all.
If robotaxis weren’t sufficient, Musk additionally hyped his humanoid robotic Optimus. “We anticipate to have hundreds of Optimus robots working in Tesla factories by the tip of this yr,” he stated on the earnings name. “I really feel assured we’ll hit 1,000,000 items per yr by 2030, possibly 2029.”
Who’s shopping for thousands and thousands of humanoid robots? And for what?
At a price of $20,000–$30,000, they’d want to unravel actual labor issues at scale in an financial system that’s already shifting towards automation. And never notably on this financial dystopia the place Musk is hoarding all of the wealth—and constructing robots to exchange human employees.
On the Optimus unveiling, Musk stated the robotic may very well be “your personal private R2-D2 [or] C-3PO,” so both a beeping trash can that fixes your spaceship, or a neurotic butler who by no means stops whining. Nice. However come to consider it, that R2-D2 bot may certainly come in useful to repair these panels falling off Cybertrucks!
But Tesla’s not even a frontrunner in robotics in a discipline with fierce competitors. (Right here’s some rivals which can be doing the work if you wish to get creeped out.)
However Musk has huge numbers in thoughts, saying final yr, “Tesla would be the most respected firm on this planet … $25 trillion.” As CNBC famous, that’s greater than half the worth of your complete S&P 500.
At this level, Tesla isn’t a automobile firm, it’s a meme inventory. It’s science fiction with a inventory ticker and P.T. Barnum on the helm.
Tesla’s earnings name didn’t encourage confidence in EVs or power storage, neither of which might maintain the corporate’s ridiculous valuation. As a substitute, it pivoted to robotic taxis and humanoid employees—neither of which Tesla is remotely ready to ship at scale.
And if that weren’t sufficient, you continue to must take care of Musk’s noxious character—which could be Tesla’s greatest legal responsibility of all.
