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 typically been combative with Wall Avenue analysts. Tesla turned one of many first main firms 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 extremely uncommon for the CEO of a significant publicly traded firm:
“I’ll now not be the default throughout earnings calls. Going ahead, I’ll almost definitely not be on earnings calls except there’s one thing actually necessary that I have to say.”
Nevertheless, he ended up attending just about all Tesla earnings calls after making that remark.
Musk has additionally typically mentioned that “Tesla earnings calls will not be a spot for product bulletins” and has shut down the concept of utilizing the platform for revealing new details about the corporate.
The CEO seems to be transferring away from that amid a disaster at Tesla.
Tesla has confirmed that, together with its earnings on Tuesday, the automaker may also maintain a “reside firm replace”:
Along with posting first quarter outcomes, Tesla administration will maintain a reside 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 big 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 autos in mass to distance themselves from the more and more extra controversial CEO.
Musk held the all-hands assembly publicly amid this disaster and type of used the occasion to advertise Tesla’s merchandise and extra immediately, its inventory.
Tesla’s inventory is down 40% year-to-date, and it’s at present down 4% in pre-market buying and selling a day earlier than the earnings.
What might 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 worth and model disaster at Tesla.
With Tesla delivering ~40,000 fewer autos in Q1 2025 versus final yr, the automaker is predicted to have a troublesome quarter, which the CEO doesn’t wish to pile onto an already lengthy sequence of unhealthy information.
Final Friday, Reuters launched a report claiming a delay in Tesla’s launch of its beforehand introduced, extra reasonably priced EV within the US. Extra importantly, the report seems to make extra folks perceive that Tesla’s upcoming “extra reasonably priced EV” is solely a stripped-down Mannequin Y.
Musk might use this “firm replace” to make clear Tesla’s plans for extra reasonably priced EVs, but when they don’t seem to be prepared to enter manufacturing instantly, it’s unlikely, because the CEO wouldn’t wish to fall into the Osborne impact.
It’s extra possible that Musk will stick 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 value nothing if it doesn’t remedy self-driving, and he extra just lately added that he sees Tesla changing into essentially the most invaluable firm on this planet with its humanoid robots.
I’d anticipate Tesla’s “firm replace” to deal with these areas.
Musk will possible launch extra detailed plans in regards to 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 just like what Waymo has been doing for years and that Musk has been criticizing as unscalable.
It’s a transferring of the goalpost in comparison with Tesla’s earlier guarantees of buyer autos changing into able to robotaxi self-driving.
The revealing of the most recent era of Optimus, Tesla’s humanoid robotic, additionally wouldn’t be shocking.
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 circumstances and worth. Will probably 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 spend money on xAi, which he would possible current in conjunction with the combination of Grok in Tesla autos and robots.
Electrek’s Take
You may sense the desperation right here. Tesla is afraid that the earnings will ship the inventory spiraling additional down, and it plans slightly pumping session on the similar time to compensate.
I’m curious to see whether or not it really works or not. Currently, I feel the inventory extra intently relate as to if or not folks consider Musk’s claims than the rest and definitely 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, will probably be attention-grabbing to see if no matter Musk publicizes on the “firm replace” can stop 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.
