Tesla’s (NASDAQ:TSLA) first quarter 2023 earnings call comes on the heels of the company’s Q1 2023 Update Letter. Tesla’s first quarter numbers were quite impressive, with the electric vehicle maker meeting EPS expectations despite posting lower gross margins during the quarter.
A number of milestones were highlighted by Tesla in the first quarter. Tesla Giga Berlin was listed with a capacity of over 350,000 Model Y per year, and the FSD Beta program reached 150 million cumulative miles. The Cybertruck is also closer than ever to its first deliveries, with the all-electric pickup truck’s production line now being set up.
The following are live updates from Tesla’s Q1 2023 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. The first entry starts at the bottom of the page.
17:35 CDT – And that wraps up the Q1 2023 earnings call! Not gonna lie, this is one of the most info-heavy earnings calls to date, with lots of questions answered from both the investor and analyst sides.
Once again, thanks for staying with us for yet another live blog! Until the next one!
17:31 CDT – Following a question from Jefferies, who asked if there is a limit to the direct selling business to grow market share, Elon Musk notes that Tesla’s direct selling strategy seems to be working so far. And while the analyst brought up the issue of customers who may be missing human interactions for things like service, Musk noted that “the best service is no service.” He also noted that Tesla uses the feedback loop to improve car design so it needs less service.
17:29 CDT – Following a question from Barclays, who asked about the margin profile of Berlin and Austin and how it compares to Shanghai. Musk notes that Shanghai is well optimized, though Tesla expects Giga Berlin and Giga Texas to achieve good margins as well.
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17:26 CDT – Following a question from Morgan Stanley, Tesla executives such as Elon Musk reiterated that the company doesn’t really think of competitors that much. Executives also noted that Tesla wants all EVs to succeed, as shown by the company opening its Supercharger Network to other brands.
17:21 CDT – A question from Wolfe Research is asked, with the analyst asking about margins on Tesla’s lineup of services.
Elon Musk reiterates that it’s hard to predict these things. Zachary Kirkhorn also cautioned investors not to be too caught up with the short-term, as Tesla typically adopts strategies designed for the long-term. In a way, gross margin levels only matter in terms of how Tesla will invest it in the following years.
Elon Musk also noted that Tesla is in a unique position because Tesla can technically sell its cars for 0% profit now and yield it in other ways in the future (i.e. through autonomy). He notes that really, no other automaker can do that.
17:16 CDT – A question from Goldman Sachs is asked, with the analyst asking if Tesla is still seeing a 1.8 million target for this year, or will the company be going for 2 million.
Elon Musk noted that from a production standpoint, at least, if things go well, Tesla has a shot at 2 million this year. That being said, Tesla feels comfortable with a target of 1.8 million vehicles for 2023.
17:10 CDT – A Baird analyst asks about Tesla’s programs such as Dojo and Optimus. Elon Musk notes that Dojo has a multi-billion dollar potential. “I look at Dojo as a long shot bet — but a long shot bet that could pay off in a very big way,” Musk said.
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He also mentioned upcoming projects such as heat pumps for homes and commercial offices. Musk noted, however, that such products are a “back-burner item.”
Tesla also highlights the idea that there is no such thing as an “EV market share vs ICE.” Tesla sees it as a “car market” overall. “All cars will be EVs,” Musk said.
17:03 CDT – A Deutsche Bank analyst asks about specific ways Tesla could further monetize its products, such as the Robotaxi platform.
Musk explains that the Robotaxi idea is quite a general term, though he reiterates that all vehicles with Hardware 3 could be a Robotaxi. The Robotaxi is also almost synonymous with Tesla’s next-generation vehicle.
A question on automotive gross margins was asked. Kirkhorn noted that several factors contributed to Q1 2023 gross margin results. Elon Musk also mentioned interest rate, and uncertainty in the economy contributed to Q1 2023 results as well.
16:59 CDT – Cannacord asks about FSD take rates and if there are any significant positives and negatives. The analyst also asks if FSD pricing will also be dropping.
Elon Musk notes that this is a tricky question since the value of an autonomous car is enormous. He notes that improvements are dramatic, though it’s more of a “two steps forward, one step back” kind of progress. Musk jokes that he believes FSD will be achieved this year (for the nth time now).
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“The trend is very clearly towards full autonomy,” Musk said.
Tesla also highlighted that the company is not impacted by lithium pricing because it has contracts in place. After all, on the lithium front, at least, the chokepoint is refining capacity. The same extends to the refining of the cathode and anode materials.
Elon also begs — literally begs — everyone to go into refining, to much laughter from other executives.
16:51 CDT – The fifth investor question is asked: “How has global order intake tracked since the most recent round of price cuts?”
“Orders are in excess of production,” Elon Musk said.
The final question from investors is asked: “Can you give updated specs and pricing for Cybertruck, and any new features that will make it to production?”
Musk states that Tesla will save it for Cybertruck handover happening toward the end of Q3, though he also stated that the wait would be worth it.
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“A product like this only comes only once in a while. It will not be disappointing at all,” Musk said.
16:49 CDT – The fourth investor question is asked: “What do you anticipate FY23 automotive gross margins (ex-credits) will be at the company’s current pricing levels?”
Zachary Kirkhorn noted that it’s difficult to predict this at the moment, especially as Tesla is busy with projects such as the Giga Texas battery factory. So far, Giga Texas’ cost optimizations are focused on stabilizing production and lowering 4680 costs. “We see a pretty good projection for Austin factory,” Kirkhorn said, noting that Giga Berlin also has a lot of areas for cost reduction.
Kirkhon also expresses this thanks to Tesla’s supply chain team, though he also noted that commodities remains max pain point for Tesla.
16:45 CDT – Third investor question is asked: “How well are 4680 cells meeting the expectations described on battery day? How long will it be until the cells meet those goals?”
Austin’s 4680 battery cell facility is progressing well. A Tesla executive noted that Giga Texas’ 4680 factory would be 70% lower CAPEX when fully ramped. The lithium corpus christi refinery will also be breaking ground in May. Tesla also achieved a 25% reduction in COGS.
16:43 CDT – Second investor question is asked: “Do you still believe Tesla Energy will be bigger than auto and when will you provide more formal guidance on megapack and overall Tesla energy?”
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“I should just clarify, bigger than auto, from the standpoint of GWh deployed,” Musk said. So while Tesla Energy may not have the total revenue of the company’s automotive business, its battery deployments will be substantially larger. He also affirmed growth in line with expectations.
Zachary Kirkhorn also noted that it would be a few more quarters until Tesla publishes guidance on its Energy business.
16:40 CDT – First investor question is up: “What is the process to make auto pricing adjustments? What variables do you consider? How frequently do you review pricing?”
“We do our best to review the production output and macro conditions,” Musk said.
16:39 CDT – Zachary Kirkorn congratulates the Tesla Energy team for a record quarter. “Our storage business is starting to take shape,” he said. He assures that automotive gross margins remain at healthy levels. He highlights the need to focus on cost efficiencies so that Tesla could achieve its goals.
16:36 CDT – Elon Musk’s opening remarks were a recap of Q1. He highlights that the Model Y was the best-selling vehicle in Europe and it also performed amazingly in the United States. He states that Tesla’s operating margins are still among the highest in the industry. Musk also notes that Tesla is looking to make a lot of margins as the company perfects autonomy.
“While we reduced the price significantly in Q1, our operating margins remain the best in the industry,” Musk said.
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As for the Cybertruck, alpha versions are being built today. Volume production line is coming along nicely in Giga Texas. Delivery event for the Cybertruck will likely be set for Q3 2023. The demand for the Cybertruck is notable, Musk said, though it will take some time to get its manufacturing line down pat.
Megapack is making breakthroughs, with the battery posting its best quarter ever in Q1. Goal is set at 40 GWh a year for now. He also highlights Tesla’s ramp for the Megapack, such as the start of a new Megafactory in Shanghai.
As for FSD Beta, the program has reached 150 million miles. “This is a data advantage that really no one else has,” Musk said, adding that training data will be key in getting an advantage in the autonomous driving space. He notes that work on the Dojo supercomputer is still ongoing, and that the program would be advantageous in the future. “
“I really think DOJO potential is really significant,” Musk said.
Musk also thanks Tesla’s global team for their milestones this quarter.
16:31 CDT – The earnings call begins! Tesla Head of Investor Relations Martin Viecha opens the call. Elon and other Tesla executives are present.
16:28 CDT – If there’s something quite interesting about this earnings call, it’s the fact that everything seems to be on time. That Update Letter was posted really quickly after markets closed today. Tesla bulls probably appreciate this, as it’s far less stressful than the long wait times for Update Letters several years ago.
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16:25 CDT – Looks like the livestream’s about to go live. To be fair, Tesla’s pretty cool for being so open with its earnings call livestreams. There’s one in YouTube and one on Twitter. Here’s the Twitter one.
16:15 CDT – Hi everyone, and welcome to yet another live blog! Tesla’s Q1 numbers are pretty much in line with what TSLA bulls expected. Gross margins took a hit, but that’s understandable because of the company’s aggressive pricing strategy. Tesla’s war chest remains impressive though, at $22.4 billion.
Here’s the YouTube livestream.
Don’t hesitate to contact us with news tips. Just send a message to simon@teslarati.com to give us a heads up.
Elon Musk
SpaceX’s next trillion dollar bet has nothing to do with rockets, Musk tells staff
Elon Musk told SpaceX staff AI revenue will soon dwarf rockets and Starlink combined entirely.
Elon Musk told SpaceX employees this week that artificial intelligence, not rockets, will soon carry the company’s revenue. In a roughly 29 minute internal address posted on SpaceX’s X account on Tuesday, Musk said AI revenue will pass every other line of business at SpaceX “probably in September” and pull further ahead by the fourth quarter.
The numbers he gave are specific. SpaceX currently runs 1.4 gigawatts of AI compute capacity. Musk wants that at 10 gigawatts by the end of 2027, a jump he tied directly to revenue: “if we bring 10GW of AI online by the end of next year, it will be $300 billion to $500 billion a year in revenue.” He called those “big numbers,” which undersells a projection larger than what most countries produce in a year.
We made rockets reusable and are rebuilding the internet in space. The next challenge: making life multiplanetary and understanding the true nature of the universe
Watch @ElonMusk deliver a company update to @SpaceX employees pic.twitter.com/5c8rxoCQfu
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) August 11, 2026
Musk went further on where AI fits into SpaceX’s future. “Probably in four or five years, AI will be 99% of the value of SpaceX,” he told staff, adding that digital intelligence would eventually run “a trillion times” ahead of biological intelligence as computing scales. He tied that growth to the company’s founding mission, telling employees “we must win on AI, because the future is overwhelmingly AI and robots,” with the payoff meant to help fund Starship and a Mars program that increasingly runs through Terafab, the joint Tesla, SpaceX and xAI chip plant.
Elon Musk launches TERAFAB: The $25B Tesla-SpaceXAI chip factory that will rewire the AI industry
None of this is entirely new territory. SpaceX told investors much the same story during its first earnings call as a public company on August 4, where Musk moved the company’s $1 trillion revenue target up a year to 2030 and said Starlink could someday carry a majority of the world’s internet. What the all hands video adds is a hard deadline and a specific power figure Musk had not given publicly before, along with a franker pitch to his own workforce that AI, not launch cadence, is now the thing SpaceX is betting its future on.
The AI revenue itself is not coming from SpaceX training its own models. It is largely Starlink acting as the network layer for xAI’s workloads, plus SpaceX renting out compute capacity directly, the same approach behind the roughly $16 billion the company spent on AI infrastructure in a single quarter.
Musk closed the video with a pitch aimed at recruiting and retention rather than investors, telling employees that anyone who helps SpaceX win the AI race will eventually get the chance to go to the moon or Mars themselves. Whether SpaceX can turn 1.4 gigawatts into 10 in seventeen months is the more immediate question, and one that will show up in quarterly numbers well before anyone leaves Earth.
In a new note to investors on Tuesday, Morgan Stanley analyst Andrew Percoco said that Tesla has one big financial question to answer for investors regarding its Robotaxi rollout, Full Self-Driving software, and Optimus.
Percoco said in the note that, for the most part, investors are still very positive about the direction the company is headed. However, there are some things the firm would like to see, and they have to do with financials.
Tesla (TSLA) Q2 2026 earnings results: miss on EPS, beat on revenue
Tesla bulls are more than convinced that the company’s Full Self-Driving software is proof it can develop physical AI. Financially, however, there are still some questions, especially on elevated spending, which CEO Elon Musk said would occur as the company works to roll out Robotaxi faster and continue developing its Optimus robot.
The latter two are where Tesla will have to prove progress to investors, as Percoco writes that both projects “will require clearer evidence that Robotaxi is scaling and more tangible Optimus proof points to support the ROI on elevated capex.”
Percoco said the second quarter earnings call did not change his long-term thesis of where Tesla is positioned in the AI race, which is out in front. However, there are concerns that weaker gross margins and higher R&D spend will stress financials, and that has “sharpened our (and investors’) focus on measurable progress across Robotaxi and Optimus.”
Additionally, Robotaxi still needs to be proven with more operation in existing cities while maintaining safety but improving how many rides it gives in any given time, he said. For Optimus, Percoco wrote that he is “still looking for evidence beyond commentary around SOP.”
Morgan Stanley put Percoco in charge of covering Tesla after long-time analyst Adam Jonas transitioned to the automotive side.
Currently, Morgan Stanley has a $415 price target on Tesla and a ‘Hold’ rating on the stock. It is trading at around $330 at the time of publication, which was 2:30 P.M. on the East Coast.
SpaceX’s massive investment in AI will make it a big winner, Argus Research said after the company’s successful earnings call last week.
The firm also upgraded shares to a Buy from Hold and set a $160 price target.
SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX) is currently recovering from its heavy AI infrastructure investments, as it spent nearly $16 billion in Q2 alone. The company did this primarily by monetizing high-demand GPU compute capacity at a much faster pace than traditional data center economics would suggest.
Company CFO Bret Johnsen said that SpaceX would be able to pay back anything on new deployments within a year.
There are plenty of ways the company can do this:
Leasing excess compute capacity through contracts
SpaceX has already built Colossus and Colossus II, largely for its own model training. However, much of that capacity is already rented out to third parties. It already has major deals with Anthropic, Google, and Reflection AI. These partnerships are adding billions per month to SpaceX’s spreadsheet.
High utilization driven by industry-wide scarcity
The demand for advanced AI training and inference capacity continues to exceed what is available for use. SpaceX can fill new racks quickly after they come online, so the capital deployed converts into revenue with minimal idle time.
Additionally, management and outside observers have described the new compute capital as behaving more like a cost-of-goods-sold than traditional multi-year capex, especially because of this rapid monetization pattern.
Capacity has already scaled from ~0.4 GW a year to 1.4 GW annually by the end of Q2. There are targets of more than 2 GW by year-end.
High incremental margins on the rental business once capacity is online
GPU cloud providers often operate at strong gross margins. SpaceX can monetize capacity that was already partially built or can be added efficiently. This means that incremental EBITDA margins on the rental revenue are usually high. This accelerates cash recovery relative to the gross capital outlay.
Parallel monetization of its own AI software and applications
Beyond pure infrastructure rental, SpaceX also generates revenue from Grok through subscriptions and usage, from X through ads, data, and other related services, enterprise APIs, and the planned integration of the Cursor coding tools acquisition.
These application layers ride on the same compute infrastructure and provide additional high-margin streams that could offset build-out costs. AI-segment revenue overall rose sharply to about $2.6 billion in Q2, according to Motley Fool. This was driven primarily by the infrastructure contracts, but the software side is also partially responsible.
Efficient, large-scale deployment and vertical integration advantages
SpaceX has emphasized the rapid construction of power and cooling infrastructure and favorable cost-per-megawatt economics relative to industry benchmarks in some disclosures.
Combined with its ability to scale capacity aggressively and the fact that many contracts start generating revenue within months of capacity coming online, the effective payback compresses dramatically compared with more conventional multi-year data-center projects.
SpaceX’s dominant near-term recovery path will turn the AI clusters into a hyperscale-style compute rental business for other leading AI companies while still using a portion for internal models.
SpaceX’s next trillion dollar bet has nothing to do with rockets, Musk tells staff
Tesla has one big financial question to answer for investors: Morgan Stanley
