Elon Musk is breaking his personal rule of not making bulletins throughout Tesla earnings because the CEO seems determined amid a model disaster.
Tesla and its CEO, Elon Musk, don’t report the most common earnings.
Earlier in Tesla’s run as a public firm, Musk had usually been combative with Wall Avenue analysts. Tesla turned one of many first main corporations to prioritize taking softball questions from retail buyers over more difficult questions from analysts.
In 2021, Musk even mentioned that he would cease attending most Tesla earnings calls, which is very uncommon for the CEO of a serious publicly traded firm:
“I’ll now not be the default throughout earnings calls. Going ahead, I’ll most certainly not be on earnings calls until there’s one thing actually necessary that I have to say.”
Nevertheless, he ended up attending nearly all Tesla earnings calls after making that remark.
Musk has additionally usually mentioned that “Tesla earnings calls aren’t a spot for product bulletins” and has shut down the thought of utilizing the platform for revealing new details about the corporate.
The CEO seems to be shifting away from that amid a disaster at Tesla.
Tesla has confirmed that, together with its earnings on Tuesday, the automaker will even maintain a “stay firm replace”:
Along with posting first quarter outcomes, Tesla administration will maintain a stay firm replace and query and reply webcast that day at 4:30 p.m. Central Time (5:30 p.m. Japanese Time).
That is the primary time Tesla has introduced one thing like that.
It comes after Tesla additionally held an all-hands assembly publicly for the primary time only a month in the past.
That is taking place amid a major disaster at Tesla. The corporate skilled its first yr of declining gross sales in 2024, and the decline accelerated in 2025 amid boycotts and protests over Musk’s involvement in politics.
Tesla’s gross sales are declining, gross margins are shrinking, the Cybertruck is proving to be a industrial flop, and Tesla house owners are promoting their automobiles in mass to distance themselves from the more and more extra controversial CEO.
Musk held the all-hands assembly publicly amid this disaster and form of used the occasion to advertise Tesla’s merchandise and extra instantly, its inventory.
Tesla’s inventory is down 40% year-to-date, and it’s presently down 4% in pre-market buying and selling a day earlier than the earnings.
What may Tesla announce on the “firm replace”?
Musk’s public all-hands assembly, together with the attachment of a “firm replace” to the earnings, each seem like desperation strikes amid a declining inventory value and model disaster at Tesla.
With Tesla delivering ~50,000 fewer automobiles in Q1 2025 versus final yr, the automaker is anticipated to have a tricky quarter, which the CEO doesn’t need to pile onto an already lengthy sequence of dangerous information.
Final Friday, Reuters launched a report claiming a delay in Tesla’s launch of its beforehand introduced, extra inexpensive EV within the US. Extra importantly, the report seems to make extra folks perceive that Tesla’s upcoming “extra inexpensive EV” is just a stripped-down Mannequin Y.
Musk might use this “firm replace” to make clear Tesla’s plans for extra inexpensive EVs, but when they don’t seem to be prepared to enter manufacturing straight away, it’s unlikely, because the CEO wouldn’t need to fall into the Osborne impact.
It’s extra possible that Musk will persist with the identical stock-pumping strategy he has in the previous few years: self-driving and robotics.
The CEO has repeatedly mentioned that Tesla is price nothing if it doesn’t remedy self-driving, and he extra lately added that he sees Tesla turning into essentially the most helpful firm on the planet with its humanoid robots.
I might anticipate Tesla’s “firm replace” to give attention to these areas.
Musk will possible launch extra detailed plans concerning the deliberate launch of the “unsupervised self-driving” ride-hailing fleet in Austin. We beforehand reported that Tesla will use the launch of the geo-fenced, teleoperation-assisted fleet as a “win” in self-driving regardless of being an strategy much like what Waymo has been doing for years and that Musk has been criticizing as unscalable.
It’s a shifting of the goalpost in comparison with Tesla’s earlier guarantees of buyer automobiles turning into able to robotaxi self-driving.
The disclosing of the most recent era of Optimus, Tesla’s humanoid robotic, additionally wouldn’t be stunning.
Tesla has made spectacular progress on the robotics aspect of issues with its newest prototypes, however all earlier demonstrations of the robots included teleoperation by people. Till that’s a factor of the previous, the Optimus robotic has solely minimal use instances and worth. It will likely be one thing to look out for.
Together with these potential product bulletins, it can also be potential that Musk will announce a proposal for Tesla to put money into xAi, which he would possible current in conjunction with the combination of Grok in Tesla automobiles and robots.
Electrek’s Take
You possibly can sense the desperation right here. Tesla is afraid that the earnings will ship the inventory spiraling additional down, and it plans a bit pumping session on the identical time to compensate.
I’m curious to see whether or not it really works or not. Recently, I believe the inventory extra intently relate as to whether or not folks imagine Musk’s claims than the rest and positively not fundamentals.
With Tesla’s earnings anticipated to say no within the upcoming report and future earnings possible adjusted down, Tesla will commerce at record-high price-to-earnings and future earnings ratios.
Each time that occurred, Tesla’s inventory considerably rapidly readjusted. Nonetheless, it will likely be attention-grabbing to see if no matter Musk declares on the “firm replace” can forestall that from taking place, or if Tesla shareholders will begin to query whether or not Musk’s views on Tesla’s self-driving and robotic efforts are correct.
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