

Investor's Corner
Tesla Q1 Earnings Call: The return of superstar CFO Deepak Ahuja
Deepak Ahuja may not be a household name, but he’s a key player in the storied history of Tesla [NASDAQ: TSLA]. He was the company’s first CFO, and was at the financial helm through the near-death experience of 2008 and the triumphant IPO in 2010. Ahuja retired in 2015. Jason Wheeler, Google’s former VP of Finance, took over for Ahuja but recently announced his departure in order to pursue interests in the public sector. In turn, Ahuja came out of retirement to become Tesla’s CFO once again. Today, you’ll hear Ahuja’s voice on Tesla’s much-anticipated earnings call.
Ahuja had originally left a comfortable position at Ford, and moved his family from Michigan to Silicon Valley, to join a company that at the time could only have been described as a quixotic startup. As was the case with other key execs, it was Elon Musk’s sincere commitment that convinced Ahuja to jump into the ocean. “Meeting Elon Musk, and understanding his vision of Tesla, was a game-changing moment in my life,” Ahuja recently told graduates at his alma mater, Northwestern University. “I felt passion about this opportunity in a way that I hadn’t felt before.”
Photo credit: TepperCMU
Tesla’s feats of acceleration tend to get most of the press, but expert financial guidance has been one of the keys to the company’s success from the beginning, so Mr. Ahuja’s contribution may have been (and be) greater than anyone outside the Tesla boardroom will ever know. Ahuja discussed some of his unique personal history and challenges working at Tesla as part of a panel discussion about ‘How to build unicorn companies’ in Silicon Valley.
In a recent presentation at Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper School of Business, Ahuja spoke about the gathering wave of disruption in the traditionally slow-moving auto industry. He discussed three major trends driving the transformation: electric vehicles, battery storage and autonomous driving. “We are at the early part of the steep S curve of innovation in each of these changes, which is what makes it really exciting.”
Above: Clips from Ahuja’s panel discussion (Source footage: diyatvusa / Vimeo)
From the beginning, Tesla has worked not only to make superlative cars, but also to transform the process by which those cars are produced. The company hired the best process and manufacturing engineers it could find. “What that enabled Tesla to do was to build completely new manufacturing processes in a cost-efficient manner, to get a better ROI than the other car companies,” Ahuja said.
For electric vehicles (EVs) to truly compete with legacy vehicles, everyone agrees they need to get cheaper. The key to that, says Ahuja, is reducing the cost of energy storage. He estimates that a cost of $100 per kilowatt hour could be achieved within five years, and predicts that this will be “the natural inflection point at which EVs become an economic no-brainer.” This milestone will be “really transformational” for the industry.
Autonomous driving will also disrupt the motor trade in many ways. Ahuja points out that 95 percent of auto accidents are caused by human error, so autonomous cars will help reduce medical and insurance costs. They will also use transportation infrastructure more efficiently, because cars will be able to travel faster and closer together. “The thing to keep in mind is that self-driving cars don’t have to be perfect to change the world,” says Ahuja. “They just have to be better than human beings.”
A big thanks to EVANNEX for providing us with this story. This story was originally published on their site at EVANNEX.com
Investor's Corner
Tesla investors may be in for a big surprise
All signs point toward a strong quarter for Tesla in terms of deliveries. Investors could be in for a surprise.

Tesla investors have plenty of things to be ecstatic about, considering the company’s confidence in autonomy, AI, robotics, cars, and energy. However, many of them may be in for a big surprise as the end of the $7,500 EV tax credit nears. On September 30, it will be gone for good.
This has put some skepticism in the minds of some investors: the lack of a $7,500 discount for buying a clean energy vehicle may deter many people from affording Tesla’s industry-leading EVs.
Tesla warns consumers of huge, time-sensitive change coming soon
The focus on quarterly deliveries, while potentially waning in terms of importance to the future, is still a big indicator of demand, at least as of now. Of course, there are other factors, most of them economic.
The big push to make the most of the final quarter of the EV tax credit is evident, as Tesla is reminding consumers on social media platforms and through email communications that the $7,500 discount will not be here forever. It will be gone sooner rather than later.
It appears the push to maximize sales this quarter before having to assess how much they will be impacted by the tax credit’s removal is working.
Delivery Wait Time Increases
Wait times for Tesla vehicles are increasing due to what appears to be increased demand for the company’s vehicles. Recently, Model Y delivery wait times were increased from 1-3 weeks to 4-6 weeks.
This puts extra pressure on consumers to pull the trigger on an order, as delivery must be completed by the cutoff date of September 30.
Delivery wait times may have gone up due to an increase in demand as consumers push to make a purchase before losing that $7,500 discount.
More People are Ordering
A post on X by notable Tesla influencer Sawyer Merritt anecdotally shows he has been receiving more DMs than normal from people stating that they’re ordering vehicles before the end of the tax credit:
Anecdotally, I’ve been getting more DMs from people ordering Teslas in the past few days than I have in the last couple of years. As expected, the end of the U.S. EV credit next month is driving a big surge in orders.
Lease prices are rising for the 3/Y, delivery wait times are… pic.twitter.com/Y6JN3w2Gmr
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) August 13, 2025
It’s not necessarily a confirmation of more orders, but it could be an indication that things are certainly looking that way.
Why Investors Could Be Surprised
Tesla investors could see some positive movement in stock price following the release of the Q3 delivery report, especially if all signs point to increased demand this quarter.
We reported previously that this could end up being a very strong rebounding quarter for Tesla, with so many people taking advantage of the tax credit.
Whether the delivery figures will be higher than normal remains to be seen. But all indications seem to point to Q3 being a very strong quarter for Tesla.
Elon Musk
Tesla bear Guggenheim sees nearly 50% drop off in stock price in new note
Tesla bear Guggenheim does not see any upside in Robotaxi.

Tesla bear Guggenheim is still among the biggest non-believers in the company’s overall mission and its devotion to solving self-driving.
In a new note to investors on Thursday, analyst Ronald Jewsikow reiterated his price target of $175, a nearly 50 percent drop off, with a ‘Sell’ rating, all based on skepticism regarding Tesla’s execution of the Robotaxi platform.
A few days ago, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the company’s Robotaxi platform would open to the public in September, offering driverless rides to anyone in the Austin area within its geofence, which is roughly 90 square miles large.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk confirms Robotaxi is opening to the public: here’s when
However, Jewsikow’s skepticism regarding this timeline has to do with what’s going on inside of the vehicles. The analyst was willing to give props to Robotaxi, saying that Musk’s estimation of a September public launch would be a “key step” in offering the service to a broader population.
Where Jewsikow’s real issue lies is with Tesla’s lack of transparency on the Safety Monitors, and how bulls are willing to overlook their importance.
Much of this bullish mentality comes from the fact that the Monitors are not sitting in the driver’s seat, and they don’t have anything to do with the overall operation of the vehicle.
Musk also said last month that reducing Safety Monitors could come “in a month or two.”
Instead, they’re just there to make sure everything runs smoothly.
Jewsikow said:
“While safety drivers will remain, and no timeline has been provided for their removal, bulls have been willing to overlook the optics of safety drivers in TSLA vehicles, and we see no reason why that would change now.”
He also commented on Musk’s recent indication that Tesla was working on a 10x parameter count that could help make Full Self-Driving even more accurate. It could be one of the pieces to Tesla solving autonomy.
Jewsikow added:
“Perhaps most importantly for investors bullish on TSLA for the fleet of potential FSD-enabled vehicles today, the 10x higher parameter count will be able to run on the current generation of FSD hardware and inference compute.”
Elon Musk teases crazy new Tesla FSD model: here’s when it’s coming
Tesla shares are down just about 2 percent today, trading at $332.47.
Investor's Corner
Elon Musk issues dire warning to Tesla (TSLA) shorts
This time around, Tesla shorts should probably heed his words.

Elon Musk has issued a dire warning to Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) short sellers. If they do not exit their position by the time Tesla attains autonomy, pain will follow.
Musk has shared similar statements in the past, but this time around, Tesla shorts should probably heed his words.
Musk’s short warning
The Tesla CEO’s recent statement came as a response to Tesla retail shareholder and advocate Alexandra Merz, who shared a list of the electric vehicle maker’s short-sellers. These include MUFG Securities EMEA, Jane Street Group, Clean Energy Transition LLP, and Citadel Advisors, among others. As per the retail investor, some of Tesla’s short-sellers, such as Banque Pictet, have been decreasing their short position as of late.
In his reply, Elon Musk stated that Tesla shorts are on borrowed time. As per the CEO, TSLA shorts would be wise to exit their short position before autonomy is reached. If they do not, they will be wiped out. “If they don’t exit their short position before Tesla reaches autonomy at scale, they will be obliterated,” Musk wrote in his post.
Tesla’s autonomous program
Tesla short sellers typically disregard the progress that the company is making on its FSD program, which is currently being used in pilot ride-hailing programs in Austin and the Bay Area. While Tesla has taken longer than expected to attain autonomy, and while Musk himself admits to becoming the boy who cried FSD for years, autonomy does seem to be at hand this year. Tesla’s Unsupervised FSD is being used in Robotaxi services, and FSD V14 is poised to be released soon as well.
Elon Musk highlighted this in a response to X user Ian N, who noted that numerous automakers such as Audi, BMW, Fiat-Chrysler, Ford, GM, Honda, Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen, and Toyota have all promised and failed in delivering autonomous systems for their vehicles. Thus, Tesla might be very late in the release of its autonomous features, but the company is by far the only automaker that is delivering on its promises today. Musk agreed with this notion, posting that “I might be late, but I always deliver in the end.”
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