Investor's Corner
Tesla Q4 Earnings is ‘one of the most important’ for Elon Musk and Co.
Tesla’s (NASDAQ: TSLA) fourth-quarter earnings call is being described as “one of the most important” for CEO Elon Musk and Co. by an analyst.
Wedbush’s Dan Ives describes tomorrow’s earnings as crucial, especially based on Musk’s potential comments regarding 2023 delivery targets, automotive gross margins, and overall outlook for the company moving forward.
While every quarter is important for Tesla we would highlight tomorrow’s call/guidance commentary as one of the most important moments in the history of Tesla and for Musk. Delivery targets for 2023 (1.8 mm the bogey), Auto gross margins, and Musk commentary/outlook key tmrw
— Dan Ives (@DivesTech) January 24, 2023
Tesla’s 2023 Delivery Targets
After delivering a million units in a year for the first time in 2022, with 1.313 million cars delivered globally, Tesla is still going to be looking for year-over-year growth.
“Over a multi-year horizon we expect to achieve 50% average annual growth in vehicle deliveries,” Tesla wrote in its Q3 2022 earnings shareholder deck. “The rate of growth will depend on our equipment capacity, factory uptime, operational efficiency, and the capacity and stability of the supply chain.”
This was a 40 percent increase from 2021 figures. However, it is not necessarily straightforward.
Tesla dealt with some production shutdowns last year in Shanghai, its biggest contributor to global manufacturing for the past two years. With ramp-ups continuing at Berlin, and products like the Cybertruck expected to launch this year in Texas, along with surges in demand thanks to price decreases, Tesla is sure to see growth this year. However, Ives seems interested in what Musk’s synopsis of the full year could be.
Automotive Gross Margins
After Tesla cut prices globally by as much as $13,000 in the United States and 13 percent in other markets, consumers felt the positives as the cars became more affordable. However, from an investor standpoint, it is much more complicated.
Tesla had the third-best operating margins globally, trailing only Ferrari and BMW. In Q3, the company posted 27.9 percent automotive gross margins, which was unchanged from Q2 but a decrease from the 32.9 percent the company posted in Q1.
Price cuts from Tesla were seen as a way to trigger global demand, which many analysts felt the company was battling against as more competitors entered the EV sector. However, Tesla had raised prices many times over the past two years due to supply chain issues. It seems, while the automaker was making so much per unit, consumers were still looking for an affordable yet competitive EV option from the company.
Overall Outlook for 2023
Perhaps the biggest question on the minds of Tesla investors, especially the company’s “permabulls,” is whether Musk’s attention will remain fixated on Tesla or Twitter. While his acquisition of the social media platform has seemed to take up much of Musk’s time, he has recently solidified that Tesla is the priority.
This has not alleviated the drop the stock felt last year, as Tesla shares dropped over 60 percent in 2022. Slightly recovering so far in 2023 with a 32 percent increase in value so far this year, investors will likely want to know what Musk’s overall plans are for Tesla, and what his potential level of commitment will be.
Many are still questioning how the CEO is splitting his time between the two companies. However, with Tesla expecting to ramp up several projects this year, including a new Semi production facility and the aforementioned Cybertruck, Musk could have his hand in more of the Tesla pie through 2023 than he did in late 2022.
Ives said in a note to investors:
“Tesla is Musk and Musk is Tesla. With all the worries about Musk’s attention on Twitter, selling Tesla stock, name a new Twitter CEO, and other noise created by this ongoing soap opera….this is a key moment of truth for Musk. Elon needs to give investors comfort around this tight wire balancing act and reiterate his goals for the year and lay out the strategic vision despite a near-term dark macro. Musk is not shy about his negative view of the economy, but how does that weave in with Tesla’s outlook? Also Musk giving some insight into the China situation, Twitter situation will be in the bright spotlight for the Street.”
Wedbush has a $175 price target and maintained its Outperform rating. The firm said it “ultimately believe[s] tomorrow’s call/guidance will be one of the most important moments in Tesla’s (and Musk’s) history.”
Disclosure: Joey Klender is a TSLA Shareholder.
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Electric vehicle maker Lucid Group has denied rumors of an imminent bankruptcy after a report from this morning sent the stock on a dramatic drop on Wall Street, seeing losses of more than 40 percent during trading hours.
Lucid’s Director of Communications, Nick Twork, responded to the report from Eletric-Vehicles.com, which stated the company’s restructuring advisor, AlixPartners, was asked to review two decisions: taking Lucid shares private or filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
The report also claims AlixPartners told the Lucid board to “concentrate on Gravity production while improving its quality, and to temporarily hold back the Lucid Air, the sedan that has defined the company since its launch.”
Twork said:
$LCID The rumors are completely false. The company has sufficient liquidity to carry its operations well into next year, as recently published in its last quarterly filings, and it has not formed any special Board committee to explore the scenarios reported today. Our focus is…
— Nick Twork (@ntwork) July 14, 2026
Shares rebounded after the response to the report, halving its losses as the trading day neared 3 p.m. Eastern.
Lucid has struggled to get its sales off the ground and into more respectable numbers, but the company is in its early years, when things are hard to begin with. It is also backed by several notable investors, including the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF), which has nearly limitless money and likely would not ditch an investment of this size so soon.
Lucid shares were down just 14 percent at the time of publication, a far cry from the 55 percent its losses topped out at during the day.
Tesla received a price target upgrade just on the heels of what was a crazy successful quarter for its automotive business, as the company reported a delivery beat of over 15 percent for Q2.
Jefferies analysts are upping Tesla’s price target (NASDAQ: TSLA) to $400 from $375, while maintaining their “Hold” rating on shares, and the strong automotive deliveries from Q2 is a big reason. However, there are some other catalysts that Jefferies believes position Tesla for a strong position in the second half of the year.
Strong Deliveries
Tesla reported 480,000 deliveries for Q2, while Wall Street was between 395,000 and 405,000, as an overall consensus. It was an incredibly strong quarter from a delivery perspective, and Tesla sold well more than it produced during the three months.
Tesla crushes Wall Street expectations, beats delivery estimates by over 15 percent
While vehicle deliveries are not necessarily looked at in the light that they used to be, Tesla still maintains a lot of advantages for keeping deliveries strong. With the loss of the $7,500 EV Tax Credit last year, Tesla still maintains a strong demand case for its EVs.
Robotaxi Performance
Tesla has been operating Robotaxi for over a year now, as it launched in Austin in mid-2025. That program has expanded to Houston and Dallas, the San Francisco Bay Area, and, most recently, Miami, Florida, the suite’s first appearance in the Sunshine State.
While the Robotaxi suite is still in its early phases and Tesla is working through things like fleet size and wait times, the company has been able to undercut the pricing of its competitors and has a great safety record.
Merger Speculation with Tesla and SpaceX
This is perhaps the biggest topic that many are speaking about with Tesla and SpaceX, and it is the one thing that seems to be on the mind of every investor.
Jefferies warns that growing talk of a Tesla-SpaceX merger could cause Tesla stock to trade more like a SpaceX proxy, which may disconnect it from underlying automotive fundamentals. SpaceX has a lot going for it, especially its compute deals that have been widely publicized as of late.
Profitability in New Projects Could Take Some Time
Tesla has a few long-term ventures in the pipeline, most notably the Optimus project and Robotaxi, which is launched but will take several years to expand to a meaningful level that resonates with everyday people.
This is something that investors need to be careful of. Tesla’s projects could take some time to round out, so Jefferies advises that these may carry initial losses, rather than immediate profit. Seasoned Tesla investors have echoed something like this for a long time; they knew going in it would not be an open-and-shut strategy. It was going to take time.
These new projects are no different.
Investor's Corner
NASA taps SpaceX to launch the telescope that could unlock new worlds
NASA’s Roman Space Telescope heads to orbit this August aboard SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy with massive scientific ambitions.
SpaceX is set to play a central role in one of NASA’s most anticipated science missions in years. The company’s Falcon Heavy rocket, currently the most powerful operational launch vehicle in the world, will carry the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope into orbit on August 30 from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Roman is now in final preparations inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility, where on June 26 technicians used a crane to lift the observatory into a specialized stand for fueling and pre-launch testing.
Roman is named after Nancy Grace Roman, NASA’s first chief of astronomy, whose career helped shape how the agency approaches space science.
NASA chose SpaceX Falcon Heavy because of Roman’s needs to reach a specific orbit far from Earth, well beyond where a standard Falcon 9 can deliver it. The Falcon Heavy, which first flew in 2018, has since become NASA’s go-to option for missions that need serious muscle without the cost and complexity of older launch systems.
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Roman will carry a field of view at least 100 times wider than the Hubble Space Telescope, meaning it can photograph enormous swaths of the universe in a single shot rather than the narrow slices Hubble captures. That difference in scale is significant. While Hubble reshaped our understanding of the cosmos over 30 years, Roman is built to work faster and wider, surveying hundreds of millions of galaxies at once.
One of Roman’s most compelling capabilities is its potential to discover and photograph planets orbiting stars outside our solar system, and with enough precision to directly image planets that would otherwise be lost. That means scientists could study the atmosphere and surface characteristics of distant worlds rather than simply confirming they exist. Combined with Roman’s sweeping field of view, the telescope could detect thousands of exoplanets, and some of those planets may be in habitable zones where liquid water could exist. No telescope currently in operation has this level of power and capability. That capability alone could change what we know about other worlds, and perhaps finally answer the question: are we the only intelligent lifeforms in existence?
What Roman actually finds once it reaches orbit is an open question, and that is exactly what makes this launch worth watching.
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