It’s the morning after Tesla’s much-watched earnings report, and as always, it’s something of a social media spectacle, with several interesting takes on Elon Musk and his company of electric vehicles, robots, and self-driving taxis.
But the bottom line is this: we just witnessed a more reserved billionaire Musk on the earnings call.
Right now that is not applauded. The stock is down 3% in pre-market trading as investors wanted the usual bombastic Musk (among other reasons). But it should be.
The Elon Musk we witnessed: The usual Musk offers crazy deadlines for seemingly crazy new projects. The usual Musk attacks his competitors. The usual Musk speaks in another language that only the powerful Grok can decipher.
We didn’t get the usual Musk, and that’s why I say you have to love it.
We get Musk delaying the reveal date of the next Optimus robot because competitors are apparently copying the technology through top-secret analysis in a bunker somewhere. We had a Musk who was clearly focused on robotaxi safety and talked about the timeline for when these self-driving cars could be hailed in the US and Europe. We met a Musk who did not want to give precise details about the costs of building a Terafab or which partner would bear which costs.
I loved hearing all this pushback against Wall Street, which peppered Musk with dumb questions in an effort to estimate revenue 10 years from now.
A sober, super-focused Musk is what Tesla investors need at what is arguably the most important time for the company in years. Deploying self-driving cars, making chips, unleashing robots, building production lines – all of this requires extreme precision and a CEO focused on the details, without predicting when all of this can come together in an explosive quarter that appeases number-crunching sell-side analysts.
For that, I applaud Musk. Give us more of this suit-and-tie-clad Musk (though maybe not too much; I still enjoy hearing Musk’s trippy version on an earnings call).
The four drivers behind Tesla stock’s decline after results:
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The capital expenditure forecast of $25 billion by 2025 was a lot for investors to take in, especially since the original guidance was $20 billion and Tesla spent $8.5 billion last year.
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No date has been given for the presentation of the next Optimus robot.
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It would appear that the robotaxi launch is moving slower than expected.
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The energy business underperformed some Wall Street estimates.
First quarter in figures: Tesla reported a generally strong first quarter, led by its fastest revenue growth in three years. Total revenue rose 16% year over year to $22.39 billion, driven by a resurgence in demand in Europe and Asia. The company significantly beat Wall Street expectations for profitability, posting non-GAAP earnings per share of $0.41, above estimates of $0.35.