Investor's Corner
Tesla beats Wall St. estimates: $7 billion revenue; record Model S, X orders; Model 3 production starts in July
Tesla released its fourth quarter 2016 earnings after the closing bell on Wednesday, summarized in the Q4’16 Update Letter, surprising Wall Street after posting fourth quarter earnings loss of 69 cents a share, at the low end of the estimated analyst losses. Revenue was $2.28 billion versus an estimate of $2.13 billion.
The complete text of the Tesla Fourth Quarter 2016 Update letter can be seen at the end of this article. We’ve embedded a copy of the original document from Tesla.
Revenue
In the letter, Tesla announced that “2016 revenue of $7 billion, up 73% from 2015.”
This is the first time Tesla reported earnings since the company’s acquisition of SolarCity Corp. in mid-November. Tesla had done little to guide the market for how to expect results, leading some analysts to exclude the solar panel business from their estimates until greater clarity is provided. As a result, the estimates between analysts varied widely. Some were expecting the company to report a loss of as low as $0.43 per share on revenues of $2.18 billion for the December quarter. Other analysts were expecting a loss of as much as $1.19 a share. According to a consensus poll with analysts conducted by FactSet, Tesla was expected to report an adjusted fourth-quarter loss of 53 cents per share. Expectations varied greatly.
Model 3
In the letter, Tesla announced that “Model 3 on track for initial production in July, volume production by September” and reiterated that “the Model 3 and solar roof launches are on track for the second half of the year.”
The company also reported record high orders in Q4 for its Model S and X vehicles.
Elon has set a July 1 deadline for his suppliers and internal teams to be ready for production. Investors will be listening for additional information about the status of the Model 3 during the conference call scheduled for 2:30 pm PT today.
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An update on the Model 3 is highly anticipated. With Elon Musk’s goal of manufacturing and selling 100,000 to 200,000 Model 3’s in the second half of 2017, and half a million cars per year by 2018, this is a major driver for the stock. Since the company ended 2016 producing 83,922 cars, or roughly 230 cars per day, ramping up production sixfold will require new investments in equipment, people and facilities.
Guidance for 2017
In the letter, Tesla states that “We expect to deliver 47,000 to 50,000 Model S and Model X vehicles combined in the first half of 2017, representing vehicle delivery growth of 61% to 71% compared with the same period last year. In addition, both GAAP and non-GAAP automotive gross margin should recover in Q1 to Q3 2016 levels and then continue to expand in Q2 2017.”
Elon Musk has a history of setting ambitious targets and missing deadlines. Jeffrey Osborn, an analyst for Cowen and Co., wondered if the influence of Chief Financial Officer Jason Wheeler, after about 18 months into his job since coming from Alphabet Inc., would have been seen in setting more conservative 2017’s targets.
SolarCity
In the letter, Tesla announced that “SolarCity and Grohmann integrations underway.”
Elon Musk also faces the challenge of integrating SolarCity into Tesla. He dropped the word “Motors” from the company’s name earlier this month as he looks to make a fully integrated company that makes solar powers to generate energy, large batteries for storing that power at home and offices and electric cars that can run on it. Since the deal closed on Nov. 21, Tesla shares have risen almost 50%.
The quarter’s results include just over a month of the SolarCity merger. It may be difficult to determine how much it impacted Tesla’s numbers unless management provides specific information on SolarCity. March quarter’s guidance will be even more important than usual since it will include a full quarter of SolarCity’s business. Watch for some of these issues to be discussed in the Conference Call Q&A.
Cash
In the letter, Tesla announced that “Q3 to Q4 cash increased by over $300 million to $3.4 billion. In Q4, we increased cash by $309 million.”
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One of the big issues against the SolarCity deal was the effect it would have on Tesla’s cash pile just as it prepares to introduce the Model 3. Mr. Musk has said he has enough money, though signaled he might raise additional cash through the capital or debt markets. Tesla’s guidance in October suggested it planned to spend about $1 billion on capital expenditures in the fourth quarter. Tesla finished September with $3.1 billion in cash.
TSLA Stock
Tesla shares have been on a tear, up 53%to $277.39 since December 2 when they closed at $181.47. From a technical perspective the shares had created a double bottom when combined with the low from November 14 of $181.45. The 53% increase has led to the stock being overbought but the shares have been overbought since the beginning of the year when they were trading at $214. The shares are also 18% above their 50 day moving average and 29% above the 200 day moving average. All of these are bullish indicators, closely followed by technical investors and traders.
The previous time the shares were this far above its moving averages was back in 2014. While it may only be short-term the stock is more likely to move down vs. up after today’s earnings announcement.
Today’s session ended up closing 1.4% lower, with some traders not wanting to risk the huge gains over a Quarterly report. Looking at the extended trading action after the close, the initial reaction to the numbers for Q4 2016 is hugely positive, with the stock raising to $280 just 1 minute after the close and continuing into the session. Expect a positive opening on Thursday.
[pdf-embedder url=”http://www.teslarati.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/TSLA_Update_Letter_2016-4Q.pdf”]
Elon Musk
SpaceX Starship just nailed something it’s never done before
SpaceX’s Starship flew successfully Friday, landing both stages and deploying its first Starlink V3 satellites.
Starship’s thirteenth test flight delivered exactly what SpaceX needed with a clean liftoff, two successful stage recoveries, and the first real payload the vehicle has ever carried to space. Booster 20 and Ship 40 lifted off at 5:51 p.m. CT from Starbase, and by the time the mission wrapped roughly an hour later, both halves of the rocket had done exactly what they were supposed to do.
Booster 20 separated from Ship 40 a few minutes into the flight and stuck a controlled splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico about six minutes after liftoff. That is a meaningful turnaround from Flight 12 in May, when the booster lost several engines during its boostback burn before a hard water landing attempt.
Starship as seen from Starlink satellites pic.twitter.com/e2hvfmnewh
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 25, 2026
Starship 40’s performance was arguably the bigger win. The vehicle deployed the first 20 operational Starlink V3 satellites Starship has ever carried, then flew a suborbital arc to a landing in the Indian Ocean that SpaceX commentator Dan Huot called the company’s softest splashdown yet. “This is a dream scenario for this team that’s trying to get this heat shield data,” Huot said on the live broadcast, according to Space.com’s live coverage. “I’m a little over the moon right now. Wow. Lucky number 13.”
Unlike the mass simulators SpaceX flew on Flight 12, these were production Starlink V3 satellites, meant to extend solar arrays and antennas and attempt to link with the broader constellation before reentering minutes later. Getting real hardware through a full deploy sequence on only the second flight of the V3 generation keeps Starship on schedule for the payload work NASA is counting on for future Artemis lunar landings.
What an awesome launch, really seems like everything went super well and it was all incredibly smooth.
SpaceX is awesome. Very interested to see how the market will respond on Monday pic.twitter.com/KSHmyBfV55
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) July 25, 2026
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— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) July 25, 2026
The flight also arrives at a moment when SpaceX needed a win. SPCX has traded below its $135 IPO price since mid-July, as Teslarati reported when the mission slipped to Friday, and short interest has climbed to roughly a third of the tradable float. A clean flight will not fix a balance sheet, but it does answer the one question SpaceX absolutely needed answered this week: whether the fixes made after the July 16 abort would hold up under real flight conditions. They did, on both stages, on the first try after the redesign.
SpaceX has not set a target date for Flight 14, though the company has said it wants to push toward an orbital attempt on the next mission. After Friday, that goal looks a lot more within reach.
Tesla short sellers won big following the company’s massive fall on Wall Street after it reported subpar Earnings on Wednesday.
Tesla short sellers collected about $4.12 billion in single-day profits on Thursday, according to Bloomberg. Shares fell as much as 15 percent during Thursday’s session. It closed as one of the worst days for Tesla on Wall Street in the past three years.
Investors sold off the stock after Tesla said it would aggressively direct its spending toward AI and its Optimus robot project. The company had record revenues, which were driven by one of the strongest quarters in terms of vehicle deliveries in company history.
However, it missed EPS estimates by reporting just $0.33, a far cry from the $0.53 analysts expected.
S3 Partners reported that about 3 percent of Tesla’s outstanding stock is sold short. Managing Director at S3, Ihor Dusaniwsky, provided the short seller’s potential profit, as well as another figure: shorts have likely had paper gains of $8.92 billion this year, as Tesla shares are down 30 percent in 2026.
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Tesla (TSLA) Q2 2026 earnings results: miss on EPS, beat on revenue
Tesla has burned short sellers many times in the past, but the company’s latest Earnings Call was a chance for those skeptics to taste some payback. Although the company gave some very transparent information regarding future projects, the rollout of Robotaxi, Optimus, and Semi, many investors took their profits on Thursday.
Notable short sellers like Michael Burry have been transparent about their skepticism around Tesla shares. Burry just revealed three weeks ago that he had opened up a new short on the stock, stating he shorted Tesla shares at $416.22. “Happy it jumped back to this level,” he said in a blog post.
At the time of publication, Tesla shares were down about 3 percent and the stock was trading at $309.92.
Tesla stock (NASDAQ: TSLA) endured one of its sharpest single-day declines in years on July 23, tumbling approximately 14.5 percent and closing near $320 after opening the session around $374. The drop erased more than $140 billion in market value amid heavy trading volume and left the shares at multi-week lows.
The sell-off followed the company’s second-quarter 2026 results, released the previous evening. Tesla reported record revenue of $28.2 billion, up 26 percent year over year, driven by a Q2-record 480,126 vehicle deliveries. Energy storage deployments also rose strongly.
Tesla (TSLA) Q2 2026 earnings results: miss on EPS, beat on revenue
Yet profitability disappointed sharply. Operating income fell 57 percent to $398 million, compressing the operating margin to just 1.4 percent. Non-GAAP earnings per share came in at $0.33, well below the roughly $0.53 analysts had expected. Free cash flow turned negative by $1.1 billion as capital expenditures surged 142 percent to $5.8 billion, largely tied to accelerated spending on artificial intelligence, robotics, and autonomous systems.
The losses on capex were expected, as Tesla said it would be spending heavily in 2026.
Investors also reacted to lingering uncertainty surrounding key product timelines. During the Earnings Call, management reiterated ambitions for Robotaxi deployment and the Optimus humanoid robot, but offered limited new concrete milestones, renewing questions about execution pace that have long accompanied Tesla’s ambitious roadmap.
The magnitude of the decline places it among Tesla’s more severe one-day percentage losses since its 2010 initial public offering. Historically, the two largest single-day drops (split-adjusted) remain September 8, 2020, when shares fell 21.1 percent amid broader market volatility and valuation concerns, and January 13, 2012, with a 19.3 percent plunge during the company’s early growth struggles.
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Other notable declines include an 18.6 percent drop on March 16, 2020, at the onset of pandemic-related market turmoil. Thursday’s move ranks roughly ninth on the all-time list but stands out as the steepest in more than a year.
Despite the short-term pain, Tesla’s long-term trajectory has repeatedly recovered from such volatility. The latest results underscore both the strength of its core automotive and energy businesses and the near-term costs of heavy investment in next-generation technologies.
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