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.
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.
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.
Tesla (TSLA) Q1 2026 earnings results: beat on EPS and revenues
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