Investor's Corner
Tesla’s Q2 2019 earnings: A look back at TSLA’s journey from Q2 2018 to the present
Tesla’s (NASDAQ:TSLA) second-quarter earnings report on Wednesday is poised to be a pivotal point for the electric car maker. While the importance of Q2 2019’s earnings cannot be emphasized enough, it is pertinent to note that just a year ago in Q2 2018, things were a lot different for Tesla. Things were, for lack of a batter term, a make or break for the company.
Tesla was at a much different place in the second quarter of 2018. Prior to Q2 2018, Tesla had failed to meet every Model 3 production forecast that it has announced. Q2 2018 already had an adjusted production target of producing 5,000 Model 3 per week, but the task had proven to be more difficult than expected. Even Q1 2018’s conservative goal, producing 2,500 Model 3 per week, was not met by the end of March 2018.
Tesla dug deep in the second quarter, breaking convention and building GA4 in the Fremont factory’s grounds. The rapid buildout only took a few weeks, and it involved CEO Elon Musk doing manual work with other Tesla employees in an attempt to set up the tent-based production line. Apart from this, Tesla also decided to fly in six airplanes’ worth of robots from Europe as part of an initiative to raise Model 3 production numbers. These measures ultimately allowed Tesla to produce 5,000 units of the electric sedan by the end of the second quarter.
The next two quarters following Q2 2018 will see Tesla’s challenges transition from what Elon Musk described as “production hell” to “delivery logistics hell.” Together with the launch of the Model 3 Performance and the Dual Motor AWD variant, Tesla’s efforts ultimately resulted in the company reaching profitability in both the third and fourth quarter. Vehicle delivery numbers also reached record levels, hitting 90,000 in Q4 2019.
Tesla did have its own set of challenges in this period, and a notable part of it was centered on CEO Elon Musk. The CEO ended up in several Twitter controversies over the past 12 months, from his rows with journalists that seemingly held notable anti-Tesla biases, to his short-lived attempt at taking Tesla private at $420 per share, to his troubles with the Security and Exchange Commission, which resulted in his departure from Tesla’s Chairman position.
Amidst all these challenges, Tesla has expanded its presence in the electric vehicle market. The company has revealed the Model Y, and Tesla has also taken the wraps off its custom Hardware 3 computer, which will be a crucial component of its future Full Self-Driving strategy. The company has also started rolling out improvements to the Model S and X, which are expected to herald even more updates to the flagship vehicles.
In the weeks leading up to Tesla’s release of its Q2 2019 vehicle production and delivery figures, TSLA stock was battered as analyst after analyst from Wall Street expressed reservations about the allegedly declining demand for the company’s vehicles. Yet, following the release of the company’s record-setting numbers, sentiments among TSLA investors have shifted for the better. Tesla has so far been on a path towards recovery in July, recovering around 14% to date following another 21% in June.
Tesla set records in Q2 2019 by producing a total of 87,048 vehicles and delivering approximately 95,200, both in the United States and in other territories such as Europe and China. This quarter’s feat was a blow to the pervading bear thesis insisting that demand for the company’s vehicles is declining. With such strong results, Wall Street is currently expecting Tesla to report an adjusted quarterly loss of $0.39 per share.
As of writing, Tesla stock is trading at +0.60% at $257.21 per share.
Disclosure: I have no ownership in shares of TSLA and have no plans to initiate any positions within 72 hours.
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.
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.
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.
In a striking revelation that underscores the lucrative crossover between Big Tech and space exploration, Alphabet Inc., Google’s parent company, disclosed a massive $94.1 billion equity stake in SpaceX following the rocket company’s blockbuster initial public offering earlier this year.
The disclosure came in Alphabet’s quarterly filing, marking the first time the long-held private investment has been publicly valued at market prices. Google was an early backer, investing alongside Fidelity in 2015 with roughly $500-900 million at a time when SpaceX was valued around $12 billion.
That bet has delivered extraordinary returns, roughly a hundredfold, transforming a strategic play on satellite internet and launch capabilities into one of Alphabet’s largest assets.
Google, $GOOGL, has said they hold $94 billion in SpaceX, $SPCX, shares after IPO.
— unusual_whales (@unusual_whales) July 23, 2026
Of the total holding, approximately $80 billion remains subject to short-term post-IPO lockup restrictions, preventing near-term sales. An additional $14.1 billion faces longer-term restrictions, extending into the third quarter of 2027. This structure limits immediate liquidity but protects against market volatility as SpaceX transitions into public trading.
The SpaceX position contributed significantly to gains in Alphabet’s broader investment portfolio, which also includes a major stake in AI leader Anthropic. Combined, these holdings helped drive nearly $100 billion in investment gains during the second quarter, providing a substantial boost to net income amid ongoing AI spending pressures.
Analysts view the disclosure as validation of Alphabet’s venture strategy beyond its core search and cloud businesses. The investment aligns with deeper ties, including reported multi-billion-dollar deals for AI computing capacity on SpaceX infrastructure. As SpaceX advances Starship flights, Starlink expansion, and ambitious Mars goals under Elon Musk, Google’s stake positions it to benefit from the commercialization of space.
For Alphabet, the windfall highlights how patient, forward-looking bets in transformative sectors can yield outsized rewards. While lockups temper short-term impact, the holding cements SpaceX as a cornerstone of Alphabet’s diversified portfolio in an era where aerospace, AI, and connectivity increasingly intersect. Investors will watch closely as restrictions lift and SpaceX’s public performance unfolds.
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