Investor's Corner
Elon Musk’s Twitter tirade comes amid SEC probe on Tesla’s Model 3 production ramp
Tesla shares (NASDAQ:TSLA) experienced a steep dive on Friday’s trading, dropping more than 7% amidst reports that U.S. District Court Judge Alison Nathan has asked Elon Musk and the Securities and Exchange Commission to justify the terms of their settlement over the CEO’s “funding secured” lawsuit. Also weighing down Tesla’s stock was Elon Musk’s latest Twitter session, where he seemingly trolled the SEC by dubbing the agency as the “Shortseller Enrichment Commission,” and then doubling down.
Update: Tesla CEO Elon Musk faces contempt claim from SEC over recent tweets
Musk’s latest round of tweets has polarized the Tesla community, as a number of retail investors began directly addressing their concerns to the CEO regarding his behavior and its effects on the price of TSLA stock. While Musk assured the community that they would be fine if they are invested for the long-term, several retail investors nonetheless informed the CEO that they had lost a considerable amount of money due to the apparent market-moving effects of his tweets.
But what’s the point of poking regulators publicly? The greatest problem is sustainable energy as you said, but every distraction erodes goodwill you worked so hard to build.
— Vicente Silveira (@vicentes) October 5, 2018
Just want to that the Shortseller Enrichment Commission is doing incredible work. And the name change is so on point!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 4, 2018
While the reasons behind Elon Musk’s latest Twitter session are still up for question, some details about the CEO’s aggravation over the SEC appear to have been teased by FBN’s Charlie Gasparino. In a segment on Fox Business, Gasparino noted that sources close to Tesla’s legal team and the SEC had informed him that the agency is still investigating Tesla, not because of Elon Musk’s “funding secured” tweet, but over the company’s previous forecasts on the Model 3 production ramp and and the company’s profitability.
“What we reported was from people close to the Tesla legal team and the Elon Musk legal team. What they’re telling us is that the SEC does continue to investigate Tesla. Remember, the “funding secured” thing is out of the way, but there’s an existing investigation that could take a bit longer. It involves Tesla and Elon Musk’s stated production goals for the Model 3 largely, and profitability; if those things match up to reality, and whether there’s a fraud case by saying ‘Hey, we’re gonna reach profitability, for example.’”
“The case focuses again on targets that Musk made and some of the other corporate executives as well, about when the Model 3 was gonna come out, how many were gonna be produced, and profitability. When Tesla was gonna be profitable. Remember, these goals have changed along the way. He’s now saying the third quarter should be profitable. We’ll see if it happens.”
Gasparino noted that the SEC’s investigation into Tesla’s Model 3 production and profitability goals would likely be more challenging for the agency than its “funding secured” lawsuit against the CEO. In order to corner Musk and Tesla, the SEC would have to prove that the company knowingly misled investors about the Model 3 ramp. If Tesla or Elon Musk admits that it has honestly miscalculated the progress of the Model 3 ramp, the SEC would likely have a difficult time proving its case. Gasparino noted that his sources in the SEC had informed him that this other Tesla investigation would likely be a very “tough” venture for the agency.
“This is a much tougher case. While it still exists, it’s still problematic for the company; it’s a much tougher case than the other one. This is something that you literally have to go back, look at his statements, look at potential emails where they might be telling each other ‘Hey, we know this is BS, we’re just throwing it out there.’ That’s what the SEC is looking at. So this is a much tougher case, and that’s why the market looks like it’s coming off its lows on this, because people are saying ‘Maybe they got done with the other case, and that’s about it.’”
“This is where we are right now. We should point out that cases like this take months. They’re tough to prove. Very hard to prove that someone was specifically lying about a production goal. You could say “Listen, I thought we’re gonna produce that many Model 3, I thought we were gonna hit production profitability in the second quarter. I was wrong, I misinterpreted.” That type of honest mistake, even though I think most CEOs know you shouldn’t say that sort of stuff. You try not to get forward-looking statements; you always run into problems. That is a tougher case then ‘funding secured,’ and you don’t have funding secured.
“I think if you’re betting that he might be, from a regulatory standpoint, largely out of the woods. I’m not saying he is. If you’re betting, I’m just saying these are tougher, tougher cases. And I can tell you, my sources inside the SEC are telling me that.”
There is no denying that Elon Musk’s Twitter twitter behavior has resulted in losses for Tesla’s investors once more. By the time markets closed on Friday, Tesla stock had lost the recovery it gained earlier in the week after the release of its impressive Q3 production and delivery numbers, as well as the announcement of Elon Musk and the SEC’s settlement. In this sense, Elon Musk’s decision to poke the agency seems like a miscalculation at best.
That said, if the seasoned journalist’s sources are correct and the SEC is still pursuing Tesla over its Model 3 goals, at a time when production of the electric sedan is hitting its stride and the vehicle is getting warmly received by consumers, then Elon Musk’s aggravation becomes a bit more understandable. Nevertheless, with millions in the Tesla community investing their hard-earned money to support the company, then it seems safe to say that Elon Musk should have known better.
Watch Charlie Gasparino’s segment on Fox Business in the video below.
Investor's Corner
LIVE BLOG: Tesla (TSLA) Q4 and FY 2025 earnings call
Tesla’s (NASDAQ:TSLA) earnings call follows the release of the company’s Q4 and full-year 2025 update letter.
Tesla’s (NASDAQ:TSLA) earnings call follows the release of the company’s Q4 and full-year 2025 update letter, which was published on Tesla’s Investor Relations website after markets closed on January 28, 2025.
The results cap a quarter in which Tesla produced more than 434,000 vehicles, delivered over 418,000 vehicles, and deployed 14.2 GWh of energy storage products. For the full year, Tesla produced 1.65 million vehicles and delivered 1.63 million, while total energy storage deployments reached 46.7 GWh.
Tesla’s Q4 and FY 2025 Results
According to Tesla’s Q4 and FY 2025 Update Letter, the company posted GAAP earnings per share of $0.24 and non-GAAP EPS of $0.50 in the fourth quarter. Total revenue for Q4 came in at $24.901 billion, while GAAP net income was reported at $840 million.
For full-year 2025, Tesla reported GAAP EPS of $1.08 and non-GAAP EPS of $1.66 per share. Total revenue reached $94.83 billion, including $69.53 billion from automotive operations and $12.78 billion from the company’s energy generation and storage business. GAAP net income for the year totaled $3.79 billion.
Earnings call updates
The following are live updates from Tesla’s Q4 and FY 2025 earnings call. I will be updating this article in real time, so please keep refreshing the page to view the latest updates on this story.
16:25 CT – Good day to everyone, and welcome to another Tesla earnings call live blog. There’s a lot to unpack from Tesla’s Q4 and FY 2025 update letter, so I’m pretty sure this earnings call will be quite interesting.
Investor's Corner
Tesla (TSLA) Q4 and FY 2025 earnings results
Tesla’s Q4 and FY 2025 earnings come on the heels of a quarter where the company produced over 434,000 vehicles, delivered over 418,000 vehicles, and deployed 14.2 GWh of energy storage products.
Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) has released its Q4 and FY 2025 earnings results in an update letter. The document was posted on the electric vehicle maker’s official Investor Relations website after markets closed today, January 28, 2025.
Tesla’s Q4 and FY 2025 earnings come on the heels of a quarter where the company produced over 434,000 vehicles, delivered over 418,000 vehicles, and deployed 14.2 GWh of energy storage products.
For the Full Year 2025, Tesla produced 1,654,667 and delivered 1,636,129 vehicles. The company also deployed a total of 46.7 GWh worth of energy storage products.
Tesla’s Q4 and FY 2025 results
As could be seen in Tesla’s Q4 and FY 2025 Update Letter, the company posted GAAP EPS of $0.24 and non-GAAP EPS of $0.50 per share in the fourth quarter. Tesla also posted total revenues of $24.901 billion. GAAP net income is also listed at $840 million in Q4.
Analyst consensus for Q4 has Tesla earnings per share falling 38% to $0.45 with revenue declining 4% to $24.74 billion, as per estimates from FactSet. In comparison, the consensus compiled by Tesla last week forecasted $0.44 per share on sales totaling $24.49 billion.
For FY 2025, Tesla posted GAAP EPS of $1.08 and non-GAAP EPS of $1.66 per share. Tesla also posted total revenues of $94.827 billion, which include $69.526 billion from automotive and $12.771 billion from the battery storage business. GAAP net income is also listed at $3.794 billion in FY 2025.
xAI Investment
Tesla entered an agreement to invest approximately $2 billion to acquire Series E preferred shares in Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence startup, xAI, as part of the company’s recently disclosed financing round. Tesla said the investment was made on market terms consistent with those agreed to by other participants in the round.
The investment aligns with Tesla’s strategy under Master Plan Part IV, which centers on bringing artificial intelligence into the physical world through products and services. While Tesla focuses on real-world AI applications, xAI is developing digital AI platforms, including its Grok large language model.
Below is Tesla’s Q4 and FY 2025 update letter.
TSLA-Q4-2025-Update by Simon Alvarez
Tesla has scheduled its Earnings Call for Q4 and Full Year 2025 for next Wednesday, January 28, at 5:30 p.m. EST, and investors are already preparing to get some answers from executives regarding a wide variety of topics.
The company accepts several questions from retail investors through the platform Say, which then allows shareholders to vote on the best questions.
Tesla does not answer anything regarding future product releases, but they are willing to shed light on current timelines, progress of certain projects, and other plans.
There are five questions that range over a variety of topics, including SpaceX, Full Self-Driving, Robotaxi, and Optimus, which are currently in the lead to be asked and potentially answered by Elon Musk and other Tesla executives:
- You once said: Loyalty deserves loyalty. Will long-term Tesla shareholders still be prioritized if SpaceX does an IPO?
- Our Take – With a lot of speculation regarding an incoming SpaceX IPO, Tesla investors, especially long-term ones, should be able to benefit from an early opportunity to purchase shares. This has been discussed endlessly over the past year, and we must be getting close to it.
- When is FSD going to be 100% unsupervised?
- Our Take – Musk said today that this is essentially a solved problem, and it could be available in the U.S. by the end of this year.
- What is the current bottleneck to increase Robotaxi deployment & personal use unsupervised FSD? The safety/performance of the most recent models or people to monitor robots, robotaxis, in-car, or remotely? Or something else?
- Our Take – The bottleneck seems to be based on data, which Musk said Tesla needs 10 billion miles of data to achieve unsupervised FSD. Once that happens, regulatory issues will be what hold things up from moving forward.
- Regarding Optimus, could you share the current number of units deployed in Tesla factories and actively performing production tasks? What specific roles or operations are they handling, and how has their integration impacted factory efficiency or output?
- Our Take – Optimus is going to have a larger role in factories moving forward, and later this year, they will have larger responsibilities.
- Can you please tie purchased FSD to our owner accounts vs. locked to the car? This will help us enjoy it in any Tesla we drive/buy and reward us for hanging in so long, some of us since 2017.
- Our Take – This is a good one and should get us some additional information on the FSD transfer plans and Subscription-only model that Tesla will adopt soon.
Tesla will have its Earnings Call on Wednesday, January 28.
LIVE BLOG: Tesla (TSLA) Q4 and FY 2025 earnings call
Tesla announces massive investment into xAI
