Investor's Corner
Tesla’s Bitcoin reversal confuses Jim Cramer, but he’s not giving up on Elon Musk
Tesla’s reversed outlook on accepting Bitcoin has made plenty of people scratch their heads, including Jim Cramer, a Tesla investor and Elon Musk supporter. On a live stream of his Stock Market Breakdown with Katherine Ross, Cramer says that Tesla’s and Musk’s reasoning for not accepting Bitcoin any longer doesn’t make sense. However, Cramer’s confusion isn’t causing him to give up on Tesla or Musk quite yet. “He does a lot of things that I can’t fathom that turn out to be brilliant.”
On Wednesday, Musk Tweeted a statement indicating that Tesla would no longer be accepting Bitcoin as a payment method for its products. Citing environmental concerns, Musk and Tesla remained supportive of Bitcoin and Cryptocurrencies in general. However, according to the statement, mining rigs are powered by fossil fuels, especially coal, and Tesla would be willing to accept another Cryptocurrency that uses less than 1% of Bitcoin’s energy per transaction.
Tesla & Bitcoin pic.twitter.com/YSswJmVZhP
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 12, 2021
The statement confused many people, including those who hold prevalent positions in the world of investing. One of the confused parties was Barstool founder Dave Portnoy. Portnoy and Musk have had a favorable relationship in the past. Musk even donated to Barstool’s Small Business Fund in January that accumulated $20 million to help small-time companies in America. Portnoy was critical of Tesla’s decision and pledged not to “flip-flop” over Bitcoin. “You will have to rip my bitcoin from my cold dead hands,” Portnoy added.
Unlike @elonmusk I am not flip flopping every other second about #bitcoin. You will have to rip my bitcoin from my cold dead hands
— Dave Portnoy (@stoolpresidente) May 12, 2021
Cramer’s Criticism
Cramer was critical of Musk’s decision and is curious as to what the reasoning is behind the decision. While Musk detailed the environmental concerns, Cramer doesn’t seem to believe that it is the only reason for the decision. “I don’t know why the hell he said it,” Cramer questioned during the show. “I don’t know whether there was another objection besides the environmental, because the environmental doesn’t hold water. It’s been this way the whole time. But he chose to do this, and I don’t get it. But, he does a lot of things that I can’t fathom that turn out to be brilliant.”
It is absolutely possible that Tesla’s decision to accept Bitcoin, an announcement made in March, could have been based on its recent $1.5 billion investment into the Crypto in December 2020. Non-sustainable sources generally power mining rigs, but it does come down to what individual miners choose to utilize as their power source. Cryptos can be mined using clean and environmentally friendly energy. As solar power and other forms of clean energy generation become more popular, the amount of energy used from fossil fuels per transaction will decrease.
Cramer, who was not an Elon Musk supporter several years ago, flipped his stance on Tesla after his daughter convinced him to buy a vehicle after driving one. Since then, Cramer has been vocally supportive of Tesla, Musk, and the stock, holding high hopes and expectations for the company in the coming years.
Musk’s change of heart regarding Bitcoin could have been a simple reversal on the decision. While we do not know whether other factors were involved, Tesla’s ultimate goal is to transition the world to sustainable energy in an accelerated manner, and Bitcoin mining could have gone against what the company stands for. There is no indication that Tesla will scrap Bitcoin altogether, but mining efforts need to become more sustainable in the coming years for Tesla to reconsider accepting the Cryptocurrency.
Cramer’s comments regarding Tesla and Bitcoin can be seen in the video below.
Disclosure: Joey Klender is a Tesla stockholder but does not own any Bitcoin and has no intention of initiating any positions within the next 72 hours.
What do you think about Tesla’s decision? What do you think about Cramer’s comments? Let us know in the comments or reach out to me directly at joey@teslarati.com.
Investor's Corner
Tesla (TSLA) Q1 2026 earnings results: beat on EPS and revenues
Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) reported its earnings for the first quarter of 2026 on Wednesday afternoon. Here’s what the company reported compared to what Wall Street analysts expected.
The earnings results come after Tesla reported a miss on vehicle deliveries for the first quarter, delivering 358,023 vehicles and building 408,386 cars during the three-month span.
As Tesla transitions more toward AI and sees itself as less of a car company, expectations for deliveries will begin to become less of a central point in the consensus of how the quarter is perceived.
Nevertheless, Tesla is leaning on its strong foundation as a car company to carry forward its AI ambitions. The first quarter is a good ground layer for the rest of the year.
Tesla Q1 2026 Earnings Results
Tesla’s Earnings Results are as follows:
- Non-GAAP EPS – $0.41 Reported vs. $0.36 Expected
- Revenues – $22.387 billion vs. $22.35 billion Expected
- Free Cash Flow – $1.444 billion
- Profit – $4.72 billion
Tesla beat analyst expectations, so it will be interesting to see how the stock responds. IN the past, we’ve seen Tesla beat analyst expectations considerably, followed by a sharp drop in stock price.
On the same token, we’ve seen Tesla miss and the stock price go up the following trading session.
Tesla will hold its Q1 2026 Earnings Call in about 90 minutes at 5:30 p.m. on the East Coast. Remarks will be made by CEO Elon Musk and other executives, who will shed some light on the investor questions that we covered earlier this week.
You can stream it below. Additionally, we will be doing our Live Blog on X and Facebook.
Q1 2026 Earnings Call at 4:30pm CT https://t.co/pkYIaGJ32y
— Tesla (@Tesla) April 22, 2026
Elon Musk
Tesla Earnings: financial expectations and what we should to hear about
In terms of discussions, Tesla earnings calls are usually a great time to get some clarification on the company’s outlook for its current and future projects.
Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) will report its earnings for the first quarter of 2026 this evening after the market closes, and analysts have already put out their expectations from a financial standpoint for the company’s first three months of the year.
Additionally, there will be plenty of things that will be discussed, including the recent expansion of the Robotaxi program, the Roadster unveiling, and Full Self-Driving (Supervised) approvals across the globe.
Financial Expectations
Wall Street consensus expectations put Tesla’s Earnings Per Share (EPS) at $0.36, while revenues are expected to come in around $22.35 billion.
This would compare to an EPS of $0.27 and $19.34 billion compared to Tesla’s Q1 2025. Last quarter, EPS came in at $0.50 on $29.4 billion of revenue.
Tesla beat analyst expectations last quarter, but the next trading day, the stock fell nearly 3.5 percent. We never quite can gauge how the market will respond to Tesla’s earnings; we’ve seen shares rise on a miss and fall on a beat.
It really goes on the news, and investor consensus, it seems.
What to Expect
In terms of discussions, Tesla earnings calls are usually a great time to get some clarification on the company’s outlook for its current and future projects. Right now, the big focus of investors is the Robotaxi program, the Roadster unveiling, and what the outlook for Full Self-Driving’s expansion throughout Europe and the rest of the world looks like.
Robotaxi
Tesla just recently expanded its unsupervised Robotaxi program to Dallas and Houston, joining Austin as the first cities in the U.S. to have access to the company’s ride-hailing suite.
Tesla expands Unsupervised Robotaxi service to two new cities
Some saw this move as a quick effort to turn attention away from a delivery miss and an anticipated miss on earnings. However, we’ve seen Tesla be more than deliberate with its expansion of the Robotaxi suite, so it’s hard to believe the company would make this move if it were not truly ready to do so.
The company is also working to expand its U.S. ride-hailing service outside of Texas and California, and recently filed paperwork to build a Robotaxi-exclusive Supercharger stall.
Expansion is planned for Florida, Nevada, and Arizona at some point this year, with more states to follow.
Roadster Unveiling
The Roadster unveiling was slated for April 1, and then pushed back (once again) to “probably late April,” according to Elon Musk.
It does not appear that the Roadster unveiling will happen within that time frame, at least not to our knowledge. Nobody has received media or press invites for a Roadster unveiling, and given the lofty expectations set for the vehicle by Musk and Co., it seems like something they’d want to show off to the public.
The Roadster has become a truly frustrating project for Tesla and its fans; evidently, there is something that is not up to the expectations Musk and others have. Meanwhile, fans are essentially waiting for something that is six years late.
At this point, also given the company’s focus on autonomy, it almost seems more worth it to just cancel it, remove any and all timelines and expectations, and surprise people with something crazy down the line, maybe in two or three years. There should be no talk of it.
Full Self-Driving Global Expansion
We expect Musk and Co. to shed some details on where it stands with other European government bodies, as it recently was able to roll out FSD (Supervised) to customers in the Netherlands.
Spain is also working with Tesla to assess FSD’s viability as a publicly available option for owners.
With that being said, there should be some additional information for investors as they listen to the call; no talk of it would be a pretty big letdown.
Optimus
There will likely be a date set for the Gen 3 Optimus unveiling, and we’re hopeful Tesla can keep that date set in stone and meet it. Not reaching timelines is a relatively minor issue, but a company can only do this for so long before its fans and investors start to lose trust and disregard any talk about dates.
It seems this is happening already.
Optimus has been pegged as Tesla’s big money maker for the future. The goals and expectations are high, but it is a privilege to have that sort of pressure when investors know the company’s capability.
Elon Musk
Tesla Q1 Earnings: What Elon Musk and Co. will answer during the call
Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) is set to hold its Earnings Call for the first quarter of 2026 on Wednesday, and there are a lot of interesting things that are swirling around in terms of speculation from investors.
With the company’s executives, including CEO Elon Musk, answering a handful of questions that investors submit through the Say platform, fans want to know a lot of things about a lot of things.
These five questions come from Retail Investors, who are normal, everyday shareholders:
- When will we have the Optimus v3 reveal? When will Optimus production start, since we ended the Model S and Model X production earlier than mid-year? What’s the expected Optimus production rate exiting this year? What are the initial targeted skills?
- What milestones are you targeting for unsupervised FSD and Robotaxi expansion beyond Austin this year, and how will that drive recurring revenue?
- How will Hardware 3 cars reach Unsupervised Full Self-Driving?
- When do you expect Unsupervised Full Self-Driving to reach customer cars?
- When will Robotaxi expand past its current limited rollout?
Additionally, these are currently the three questions that are slated to be answered by Institutional Firms, which also answer a handful of questions during the call:
- Now that FSD has been approved in the Netherlands and is expected to launch across Europe this summer, can you discuss your Robotaxi strategy for the region?
- What enabled you to finish the AI5 tapeout early and were there any changes to the original vision? Last week, Elon said AI5 will go into Optimus and the Supercomputer, but one month ago said it would go into the Robotaxi. Has AI5 been dropped from the vehicle roadmap?
- Given the recent NHTSA incident filings, can you update us on the Robotaxi safety data? If safety validation remains the primary bottleneck, why not deploy thousands of vehicles to accelerate the removal of the safety driver?
The questions range through every current Tesla project, including FSD expansion and Optimus. However, many of the answers we will get will likely be repetitive answers we’ve heard in the past.
This is especially pertinent when the questions about when Unsupervised FSD will reach customer cars: we know Musk will say that it will happen this year. Is Tesla capable of that? Maybe. But a more transparent answer that is more revealing of a true timeline would be appreciated.
Hardware 3 owners are anxiously awaiting the arrival of FSD v14 Lite, which was promised to them last year for a release sometime this year.
The Earnings Call is set to take place on Wednesday at market close.