Tesla’s quarterly outcomes have been a catastrophe by each metric. Internet revenue plunged 71%, automobile gross sales dropped 13%, and automotive income fell 20%. Wall Avenue 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 due to $595 million in carbon credit—authorities lifelines for a CEO who claims to detest authorities intervention.
Tesla’s Q1 outcomes have been a catastrophe by each metric. Internet revenue plunged 71%, automobile gross sales dropped 13%, and automotive income fell 20%. Wall Avenue had anticipated $21.3 billion in income and earnings of $0.41 per share. Tesla delivered simply $19.3 billion and $0.27 per share.
And that revenue? It solely exists due to $595 million in carbon credit—a authorities program that Elon Musk pretends to hate, however fortunately cashes in. But once more, a Musk firm can be deep underwater with out public intervention.
And but … Tesla’s inventory jumped almost 10% after the earnings report. Why? As a result of traders, 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 concept. “The protests that you’ll see out there, they’re very organized, they’re paid for,” he claimed, providing zero proof. “They are the recipients of wasteful largesse … they wish to continue receiving it.”
He additionally blamed a 50,000-car drop in deliveries on “retooling” the Mannequin Y. However final 12 months, Tesla retooled the Mannequin 3 line with out tanking gross sales, although they did expertise a drop. In Q1, the corporate truly constructed 26,000 extra automobiles 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 think starting in May, my time allocation to DOGE will drop significantly,” he mentioned, pledging to cut back his anti-government antics—until the president “still needs” him.
Buyers cheered. However they shouldn’t have.
Tesla’s Cybertruck is shaping as much as be the largest 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 12 months.
Anybody may’ve predicted this. The Cybertruck is a hideous, overdesigned monstrosity. Musk, who as soon as bragged, “I do zero research whatsoever,” designed it for an edgelord fever dream—not for actual individuals.
And if that have been Musk’s solely blunder, Tesla may be positive.
Musk now claims that totally autonomous Cybercabs will probably be producing income for Tesla subsequent 12 months, and that “there will be millions of Teslas operating fully autonomously in the second half of next year.”
This is similar Musk who mentioned in 2019, “Next year, for sure, we’ll have over one million robotaxis on the road.”
Now we’re speculated to imagine Tesla, which constructed 1.77 million automobiles in 2024, will manufacture multiple million robotaxis by mid-2026, although large-scale manufacturing of the brand new automobile isn’t even scheduled to start till subsequent 12 months? Tesla did verify 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 12 months? 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 Model Y in Austin,” mentioned Musk within the earnings name, admitting that this largest of technological challenges just isn’t but solved, one thing that he’s persistently 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 cause 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 cars in a few years … unless blocked by regulatory situations.” Buyers apparently skipped that footnote.
Let’s assume the inconceivable occurs. Austin’s pilot succeeds. The robotaxis don’t kill anybody. Regulators wave it via.
Now who rides them?
City liberals? They’ve deserted Musk. They gained’t step right into a Tesla cab, preferring Waymo, Uber, or public transit.
Conservatives? They don’t want robotaxis. They’ve obtained 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 possible? Zero—apart from a lingering pilot or two in Austin, most likely vandalized, in fact.
If robotaxis weren’t sufficient, Musk additionally hyped his humanoid robotic Optimus. “We expect to have thousands of Optimus robots working in Tesla factories by the end of this year,” he mentioned on the earnings name. “I feel confident we’ll hit a million units per year by 2030, maybe 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 interchange human staff.
On the Optimus unveiling, Musk mentioned the robotic may very well be “your own personal 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 think about it, that R2-D2 bot may absolutely come in useful to repair these panels falling off Cybertrucks!
But Tesla’s not even a frontrunner in robotics in a area with fierce competitors. (Right here’s some opponents which are doing the work if you wish to get creeped out.)
However Musk has huge numbers in thoughts, saying final 12 months, “Tesla will be the most valuable company in the world … $25 trillion.” As CNBC famous, that’s greater than half the worth of the whole 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 an alternative, it pivoted to robotic taxis and humanoid staff—neither of which Tesla is remotely ready to ship at scale.
And if that weren’t sufficient, you continue to must cope with Musk’s noxious character—which may be Tesla’s largest legal responsibility of all.
