Latest / Elon Musk Podcast / The latest Tesla investor call was weird

Transcript

The latest Tesla investor call was weird · Elon Musk Podcast

• 0:00
  Welcome back to the Elon Musk Podcast.
• 0:02
  I'm thrilled to share some exciting news with you over the
• 0:05
  next two weeks. We're evolving.
• 0:07
  We'll be broadening our focus to cover all the tech Titans
• 0:11
  shaping our world. You'll still get the latest.
• 0:14
  Insights. On Elon.
• 0:14
  Musk. Plus so much more.
• 0:17
  So stay tuned for our official relaunch coming soon after
• 0:21
  Tesla's quarter 12025 earnings report.
• 0:24
  One thing stood out. The numbers were bad, but the
• 0:27
  stock went up. Tesla posted its worst margins
• 0:30
  in years with only 2% profitability and deliveries
• 0:34
  fell by 50,000 vehicles compared to the previous quarter.
• 0:38
  Now, most companies would have faced a sell off after results
• 0:41
  like that, but instead, Tesla's stock surged by as much as 8%.
• 0:48
  Now, the earnings call offered few actual answers.
• 0:51
  Tesla's leadership blamed broader economic uncertainty for
• 0:54
  falling demand, saying people are hesitant to make big
• 0:58
  purchases right now. And that explanation ignores a
• 1:01
  key fact. EV sales are growing, just not
• 1:04
  for Tesla. Competitors are posting gains
• 1:06
  while Tesla's inventory piles up.
• 1:09
  Real story seems harder to face. Tesla's brand might be losing
• 1:14
  its pull now. Elon Musk's comments during the
• 1:17
  call lead heavily on future promises.
• 1:20
  He spoke about robo taxis, full self driving cars and humanoid
• 1:25
  rabbits. Now these ideas have been
• 1:27
  discussed at Tesla for years without becoming a reality.
• 1:31
  Yet once again the future took center stage.
• 1:34
  Musk said Tesla would launch a small pilot program for self
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  driving vehicles in Austin by June, starting with just 10 to
• 1:41
  20 cars. He also predicted millions of
• 1:44
  robo taxis on the road by the second-half of 2026.
• 1:48
  Now the Austin pilot will use Geo fenced areas and remote
• 1:51
  human operators. This approach mirrors services
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  like Waymo, even though Musk previously criticized those
• 1:58
  systems as unscalable. Now, Tesla's full self driving
• 2:02
  software for consumers, which many customers already paid for,
• 2:06
  remains completely unfinished. Now updates have slowed because
• 2:10
  Tesla's engineers are focused on making the Austin service work.
• 2:15
  Now humanoid robots also return to the spotlight.
• 2:18
  Musk claimed Tesla will build millions of robots by the end of
• 2:22
  the decade, leading the company to become the world's most
• 2:25
  valuable business. But right now, Tesla's robots
• 2:28
  can only perform basic scripted tasks under human control.
• 2:32
  There's no proof yet that Tesla has a competitive advantage in
• 2:35
  robotics compared to other companies working in the same
• 2:38
  space, so they're no different than any other general purpose
• 2:43
  robot on the market. Now.
• 2:45
  The gap between Tesla's current performance and its future
• 2:48
  vision continues to grow. Financial results show tighter
• 2:51
  margins, slower sales, and rising inventory.
• 2:54
  Yet the market keeps responding to Musk's storytelling.
• 2:57
  The stock price has drifted away from the company's day-to-day
• 3:00
  business and attached itself to Musk's longer term promises.
• 3:04
  Now this pattern effects more than shareholders, though.
• 3:07
  Customers who invested thousands of dollars in the Tesla's Full
• 3:10
  Self Driving package are still waiting for the tech they were
• 3:14
  promised years ago. They paid up front for something
• 3:17
  that they don't have, and they don't know when they're going to
• 3:21
  get. And employees inside Tesla are
• 3:23
  being shifted between projects that change direction based on
• 3:26
  external pressure rather than internal readiness.
• 3:30
  Now, Tesla's earning calls used to focus on product milestones
• 3:33
  and financial metrics. Now they're more about painting
• 3:36
  a picture of what the future could look like.
• 3:39
  Musk blends technical claims with marketing language, making
• 3:42
  it harder to separate actual progress from hopeful
• 3:45
  projections. And the strength of Tesla stock
• 3:48
  no longer reflects how the business is performing today
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  reflects how much belief there is in Musk's ability to deliver
• 3:54
  tomorrow. Now, that belief has carried the
• 3:57
  company through tough periods before, but it also introduces
• 4:00
  new risks. Faith can drive a stock higher,
• 4:03
  but eventually results have to catch up.
• 4:07
  How Tesla's stock rose because investors are still choosing to
• 4:11
  believe in the future that Musk describes, even when the present
• 4:16
  shows warning signs. And when Elon was asked about
• 4:20
  protests and public criticism of Tesla, he opened the call by
• 4:25
  stating that those demonstrating against the company were all
• 4:28
  Everyone was organized and paid. The 100,000 people were all paid
• 4:33
  and organized together, he went on to say.
• 4:36
  They're obviously not going to say, admit that the reason that
• 4:39
  they're protesting is because they're receiving fraudulent
• 4:42
  money or that they are the recipients of wasteful logas.
• 4:47
  No, there was no evidence provided to support Elon's
• 4:51
  claim, though He never said anything about where he got this
• 4:55
  information, this data from. And as an engineer, you would
• 4:59
  expect him to present his data. But it's also not the first time
• 5:04
  that Musk has said the kind of thing without proof.
• 5:06
  It's a tactic to shift attention away from a substance criticism
• 5:11
  and instead cast doubt on the motives of the people raising
• 5:15
  concerns. And protests have been growing
• 5:17
  around Tesla factories and facilities, especially in
• 5:19
  Europe. They involve unions, labor
• 5:21
  rights boards, environmental advocates and even some Tesla
• 5:25
  employees. Complaints range from unsafe
• 5:27
  working conditions to anti union practices.
• 5:30
  And instead of addressing any of these directly, Musk chose to
• 5:34
  suggest these people were financially motivated actors,
• 5:37
  essentially dismissing all criticism as bad faith.
• 5:42
  How? As the earnings call continued,
• 5:44
  Musk moved away from the realities of Tesla's current
• 5:47
  operations and the protests. We spent more time discussing
• 5:51
  projects, of course, that haven't shipped yet.
• 5:55
  AI, robotaxis and humanoid robots were all in focus in
• 5:58
  this. For many investors, this shift
• 6:01
  in tone is very familiar. When margins are down or
• 6:04
  delivery numbers miss the mark, Tesla's future gets pushed to
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  the front of the story. Hey, thank you so much for
• 6:11
  listening today. I really do appreciate your
• 6:14
  support if. You could take a second and hit
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  subscribe or the follow button on whatever podcast platform
• 6:18
  that you're listening on. Right now I.
• 6:20
  Greatly appreciate it, it helps out the show tremendously and
• 6:24
  you'll never miss an episode. And each episode is about. 10
• 6:27
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• 6:30
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• 6:33
  to. Atreoncom Stage 0.
• 6:37
  And please. Take.
• 6:38
  Care of yourselves and each other, and I'll see you
• 6:40
  tomorrow.