General Motors (GM) and Ford will report third-quarter earnings this week, coming amidst the sixth week of ongoing strikes and contract negotiations with the United Auto Workers (UAW) union.
A lot hangs on the reports, and the UAW will likely leverage any bullishness and successes compared to Wall Street expectations shared by the automakers to demand further concessions in contract negotiations, as CNBC points out in a Sunday report. On the other hand, the companies could scare off investors if the impacts of UAW labor efforts or general bearishness on guidance are evident.
In data from LSEG (formerly Refinitiv), Wall Street expectations predict that GM will report earnings of $1.88 per share in Q3, while they estimate that Ford will report $0.45 per share in the same quarter.
GM will release its Q3 2023 financial results on Tuesday at 6:30 a.m. ET, according to the company’s website. Following the meeting, GM will also hold a conference call at 8:30 a.m. ET.
Ford is set to announce its Q3 2023 financial results on Thursday, starting at 4:05 p.m. ET, according to a press release. The webcast for the online event will be available here, and the automaker will hold an earnings call afterward at 5:00 p.m. ET.
Throughout the contract negotiations, the UAW has pulled from earnings reports and public statements from executives of the “Big Three” of Detroit, which includes Ford, GM and Chrysler-parent Stellantis.
“When you’re in bargaining you want to use every piece of news that’s in your favor and bring it up and bring it to the public and to the table,” says Art Wheaton, Cornell University professor of labor at the Worker Institute. “If GM, Ford and Stellantis are still very profitable for the third quarter, [UAW’s] going to claim that, ‘They’re being too cheap in bargaining, and they should give us more.’”
Despite some recent concessions from the automakers in contract negotiations, UAW President Shawn Fain noted in a statement on Friday that the companies were all “extremely profitable,” adding that there is still “more to be won.” The statements came just as Ford laid off an additional 364 workers in two states.
UAW President: Tesla workers are union “members of the future”
JPMorgan has estimated that the UAW strikes have cost Ford $145 million in Q3 before interest and taxes, while the firm estimates it has cost GM $191 million. In Q4 so far, the firm thinks losses have increased to $517 million and $507 million for Ford and GM, respectively.
The estimates come after Ford workers walked off the job at the automaker’s highly profitable Kentucky Truck Plant earlier this month, which produces the company’s F-Series Super Duty pickup, the Expedition and the Lincoln Navigator SUV.
Additionally, if labor efforts are successful, many analysts predict that labor costs will be passed along to the price of the vehicles and thus to consumers. Last Monday, Wolfe Research analyst Rod Lache predicted that labor costs would jump by $3,000 to $4,000 per vehicle based on the latest proposals to the UAW. At the same time, he expects competitor costs to increase by $2,500 to $3,000.
“This could compound other challenges that the OEMs [original equipment manufacturers] face (e.g. competitiveness in batteries, distribution, design),” Lache said. “And we also worry that the OEMs may still not fully appreciate the long-term risks associated with UAW’s new tack — including bargaining in public, social media, and populism. The Automakers appear to be struggling to adjust to this reality.”
The news comes after Tesla reported its Q3 earnings last week, posting a non-GAAP earnings per share of $0.53, beneath Wall Street expectations of $0.64 per share. Additionally, the non-union automaker posted $23.35 billion in revenue during the quarter, though analysts expected the company to report a revenue of $23.9 billion.
You can find our live coverage of Tesla’s Q3 2023 earnings call here.
What are your thoughts? Let me know at zach@teslarati.com, find me on X at @zacharyvisconti, or send your tips to us at tips@teslarati.com.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk certainly tipped off some details of the Tesla Roadster event with a broadening of information regarding the company’s decision to delay the unveiling for two weeks.
For years, people have speculated about what the Roadster will be capable of. While there have been plenty of things said about what it *could* do, we have not seen or been told by Tesla what it will actually be capable of.
However, over the past few days, Tesla’s weather updates have truly pushed the speculation into Plaid Mode, basically all but confirming the car will have some sort of aerial capability — whether that would be hovering or fully flying remains to be seen — but it definitely seems that it will be able to leave the ground intentionally.
“Because this event can only be held outdoors…”
Tesla posted on Monday that it would delay the Roadster event until October 15, and it indicated that it had to do this because the event “can only be held outdoors.”
With the potential SpaceX collaboration to develop cold-gas thrusters that will help the vehicle go airborne, doing this indoors is probably not a safe, or even plausible, possibility.
Roadster event update
We’ve been tracking the weather closely with local meteorologists, but given the severe conditions predicted & because this event can only be held outdoors, we’ve made the difficult decision to reschedule.
New date is October 15. Additional details to…
— Tesla (@Tesla) September 28, 2026
FAA Airspace Restriction
The FAA gave Tesla a Temporary Flight Restriction (TFR) for 10,000 feet above ground level, much higher than the typical 2,000-foot restrictions that are usually placed at SpaceX’s McGregor, Texas site.
Tesla Roadster event requires restricted airspace, and the FAA obliges
Some have said that this massive increase is due to Tesla’s need to restrict unauthorized drone use for spying on the event.
Elon Admits High Winds
“Due to high winds, the new Roadster demo is postponed by 2 weeks,” Musk said in a post on X yesterday.
Due to high winds, the new Roadster demo is postponed by 2 weeks https://t.co/dV3ojDh1iT
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 30, 2026
A reply reading, “What’s strong wind got to do with a car demo with four grounded wheels?” was directly below Musk’s post, satirically and sarcastically probing for more details.
All signs are pointing toward an aerial demonstration for the Roadster.
Tesla has secured $30 billion in fresh credit lines from Citibank and Wells Fargo in an effort to scale its biggest current projects.
Tesla agreed to a $20 billion three-year delayed-draw term loan facility from Citibank, it announced on Tuesday. Additionally, it signed a five-year, $8 billion revolving credit facility and a $2 billion, 364-day term credit facility with Wells Fargo.
In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), that it “may draw” from the $20 billion delayed-draw term “from time to time” and “no more than ten times during the 18 months following the closing date.” This loan matures on September 29, 2029.
The five-year revolving facility from Wells Fargo will also be accessed by Tesla “from time to time,” and will become due and payable on September 29, 2031. Tesla can request two separate one-year extensions.
On the $2 billion, 364-day revolving loan, it becomes due and payable on September 28, 2027. Tesla can also increase its additional commitments to an additional $4 billion across the Revolving Facilities. This would increase the total facilities to $14 billion. Tesla said it does not plan to utilize any of these loans in 2026.
Tesla plans to utilize the money to help prop up its ambitions to scale its biggest products, each of which is either in early launch phases or still in development. Of course, we’re talking about Cybercab and Semi, which have launched, and Optimus, which is still under heavy development and working toward initial release.
All three Tesla products have one thing in common: they’ve all required Tesla to build new manufacturing lines for them.
For the Semi, Tesla built a brand new factory in Sparks, Nevada, adjacent to the Tesla Gigafactory. For Optimus, Tesla sunset Model S and X production at the Fremont Factory, which brought an end to the two flagship models, thus creating manufacturing space for the humanoid robot. Finally, Cybercab is being built at Gigafactory Texas and officially entered production earlier this year.
The cash will help Tesla bolster its finances for the continuing development of these products. Tesla said that it forecasts its CapEx to be over $25 billion, up from just over $8.5 billion last year. These loans surely help with that spending.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk and Trump are closer than ever, and Tesla could be the big winner
Elon Musk sat beside Trump as AI leaders signed a voluntary White House safety accord.
Elon Musk had the seat right next to President Donald Trump on Tuesday as the White House hosted the leaders of America’s biggest artificial intelligence companies for a lunch that ended with a voluntary industry accord on AI safety.
A seating chart Trump posted on Truth Social placed Musk at the president’s left in the East Room, with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang on his right, according to an Associated Press reporter. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, OpenAI President Greg Brockman, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Google’s Sundar Pichai, Microsoft’s Satya Nadella and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos also attended, along with Vice President JD Vance and House Speaker Mike Johnson.
🚨 Elon Musk is currently speaking to the media alongside President Trump after a meeting with AI Leaders in Washington today
Trump says AI is now being called “Super Intelligence” or SI pic.twitter.com/woJJqUVP9B
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) September 29, 2026
After the lunch, Trump told reporters outside the West Wing that the executives had signed “The White House Accord on Superintelligence: A Joint Commitment on Frontier SI Responsibilities.” Johnson described it as a voluntary statement of principles built on “robust internal controls and layers of internal and external review,” while Zuckerberg said company boards would independently review reports from outside auditors. Trump called the document “morally binding,” said he would name a new AI czar within days, and signed an executive order formally renaming artificial intelligence “super intelligence,” CNBC reported.
Musk was not in the room for Tesla alone. Since SpaceX absorbed xAI, he runs the company behind Grok and one of the largest AI training operations anywhere. On September 25, he said another 220,000 Nvidia GB300 chips would come online at Colossus 2 within a week, with more expected in November and December.
“I think it is worth highlighting the positive benefits of A.I. … S.I., pardon me.”
“Thank you.”@elonmusk catches his own slip after calling the technology “A.I.” while speaking alongside President Trump and other tech leaders, quickly correcting himself to “super… pic.twitter.com/fH7CFileNb
— Fox News (@FoxNews) September 29, 2026
SpaceX confirms third massive compute deal at Colossus data center
Musk also used the trip to restate his energy ambitions. “SpaceX is aiming together with Tesla to do 200 gigawatts of solar production per year,” he said at an event in Washington. It is the same combined target he laid out that feeds directly into Terafab, the Tesla and SpaceX chip venture that will need enormous amounts of power.
The showing between Musk and Trump has come a long way, since the two had the very public split in mid 2025 after Musk opposed the “Big Beautiful Bill” and left DOGE. They reconciled at Charlie Kirk’s memorial that September, and Trump later called their relationship “good”. Since then, Musk has joined Trump’s China delegation in May and attended last week’s White House state dinner for Chinese President Xi Jinping.
For Tesla, that access to government official could pay dividends. As Teslarati noted in January, federal autonomy rules, NHTSA oversight and a single national standard for driverless vehicles all run through an administration Musk can more easily reach directly as Tesla works to scale Robotaxi and Cybercab beyond Texas.
Elon Musk weather update tips Tesla Roadster speculation into Plaid Mode
Tesla snags $30B in fresh credit lines for expanding its biggest projects
