Tesla’s (NASDAQ:TSLA) first-quarter earnings call comes on the heels of an impressive quarter that saw the electric car maker post $10.389 billion in revenue and non-GAAP earnings per share of $0.93, beating Wall Street’s expectations. With these results, Tesla has now maintained its profitability for seven straight consecutive quarters.
As revealed in the company’s Q1 2021 Update Letter, the company hit some notable milestones in the first quarter. The Model 3 became the world’s best-selling premium sedan, electric or otherwise. The Model Y is also showing a lot of potential, with the vehicle’s production ramp going well in Gigafactory Shanghai. Deliveries for the Model S Plaid are expected shortly as well, and the Tesla Semi, a Class 8 truck that has seen delays, is now poised for a 2021 release.
The following are live updates from Tesla’s Q1 2021 earnings call. I will be updating this article in real-time, so please keep refreshing the page to view the latest updates on this story. The first entry starts at the bottom of the page.
15:41 PT – And that wraps up Tesla’s Q1 2021 earnings call! Overall, Elon Musk and team seemed to be a bit cautious this time around, with timeframes for projects like the 4680 cells being conservative. Tesla also did not provide a specific forecast for 2021’s vehicle deliveries. But considering the ongoing supply challenges, this may not be a bad strategy at all.
Anyway, thanks for staying with us for another live blog! These are always fun. Until the next time!
15:40 PT – Dan Levy from Credit Suisse asked about Tesla and its ongoing cost reductions. Tesla notes that building cars is a complex process, though if one were to look at the advancements in the production of the company’s vehicles like the Model Y, there are a lot of innovations happening there, which should improve COGS.
When asked about Fremont vs the Gigafactories, the analyst asked about how Tesla’s new capacity would differ from the previous NUMMI plant. Musk notes that Tesla does not talk much about future product developments. “We’ll get there. We’ll provide it later,” Musk said.
15:34 PT – Rod Lache of Wolfe Research LLC asks about the FSD rollout, such as the subscription model and its impact. Kirkhorn noted that Tesla is working on rolling out FSD subscriptions, though there are some aspects of the service that still need work. “We’re hoping to get this launch pretty soon, and see what the response is to it,” he said.
15:33 PT – Ferragu asks a follow up about Tesla’s energy business. According to Musk, Tesla has comparable margins in energy and vehicles though it should be noted that the company’s EV business is more mature than the energy segment. Powerwall is mature, however, so the margins there are pretty good. “We have a clear runway for improving the cost of the Megapack,” Musk said.
15:30 PT – Analyst questions start. First up is New Street Research’s Pierre Ferragu. He asks about the 4680 battery line (YES!). He asks about capacity, as well as where the company stands in its ramp.
Musk notes that Tesla has a small pilot plant for the 4680 cells with a 10 GWh per year capacity. “We’re not yet at a point where we think the cells are reliable enough to be put in cars. We think we’re close to that point. We’ve already ordered the equipment for battery production in Berlin and Austin as well. We’re down to the nitty gritty on this. I’m confident that we’d achieve volume production of the 4680 next year,” Musk said.
Musk also added that it appears that Tesla is about 12 or not more than 18 months away from volume production of the 4680 cells. At the same time, Tesla is also looking to ramp the 4680 cells with its existing suppliers. The 4680 revolution is not a Tesla-only thing. It will involve CATL and LG and Panasonic as well. Ultimately, Tesla is on track to more than double the output from suppliers.
15:24 PT – An inquiry about vehicle production is asked. Musk notes that people still do not understand the difficulties of production. “Prototypes are child’s play,” he said, noting that mass-production is insanely difficult. Musk notes that Tesla is the first company to achieve volume production of cars in a hundred years and not go bankrupt. “Tesla has had several aneurysms to get this done,” Musk said.
Musk shared some of the challenges that Tesla experienced over the years, from production stops due to trivial items like carpets and USB ports. “Solving those constraints is insane,” Musk reiterated.
15:16 PT – An inquiry about vampire drain was asked. Musk notes that vampire drain is not an issue. “We’ve got a long way to go before we’re dealing with season technology issues,” he said.
15:15 PT – An inquiry about MSM FUD is asked. Elon comments on the “extremely deceptive” media coverage of the Texas crash. According to Lars Moravy, VP of Vehicle Engineering, Tesla is working with Texas authorities about the high-profile, tragic accident. Tesla has conducted a study to understand what happened in the crash together with authorities. As per the findings, it appears that the steering wheel was deformed, and someone was in the driver’s seat during the crash. All seatbelts were unbuckled in the car.
15:11 PT – A question about digital currencies are asked for Zachary Kirkhorn. He reiterates Tesla’s Bitcoin investment and eventual sale, as well as the company’s decision to support Bitcoin for payments. According to Kirkhorn, Tesla had been looking for a place to store its cash. Bitcoin presented itself as a preferable avenue for such an endeavor, considering that traditional systems simply provide far less.
“Bitcoin was a good place to put Tesla cash and be able to get some return on it,” he said. Considering that Tesla added over $200 million from its investment in a few months, this decision definitely seems well worth it. “We’ve been pleased with how much liquidity there is in the Bitcoin market. We do we believe long-term in the value of Bitcoin,” Kirkhorn said.
15:08 PT – Musk continues to discuss the Powerwall’s potential, noting that the home battery’s virtual power plant capabilities are profound. This is especially notable considering that the world is now heading towards an era where EVs are the norm. With this in mind, there has to be a way to produce more electricity to meet the demand that would be produced by an all-electric future.
Considering Tesla’s mission, this shift would be beneficial to the company. “This is a prosperous future for Tesla and for utilities ,” he said. Otherwise, we will see more of what happened in Texas earlier this year. “If this is not done, utilities won’t be able to serve their customers. We’ll see a lot more of what we saw in Texas and California,” Musk said.
15:05 PT – Next question is up. This time it’s about the Solar Roof, its price increase, and its ramp. Musk notes that Solar Roof demand is strong, though he admits that Tesla has made mistakes in evaluating the difficulties in assessing the difficulty of installing the solar tiles. “You can’t have a one size fits all system,” he said.
Musk reiterated Tesla’s decision to bundle the Powerwall and its solar products, adding that batteries produced last year have a higher peak capability. With the bundle in place, musk states that the difficulty of installations would be much easier. Installers would not even need to touch the house’s circuit breaker. This, according to Musk, is important for scalability.
15:00 PT – Elon notes that Tesla is actually getting good at auto-labeling, which is pretty much the holy grail for neural net training. This is something that Dojo would be designed for.
“We think Dojo would be probably an order of magnitude more cost-efficient in hardware and energy usage compared to the next best solution we’re aware of. Possibly it could be used by others,“ Musk remarked, adding that “Probably others would want to use it too. And if they do, we’d make it available.”
14:57 PT – Retail investors from Say begin. First up is a question about Dojo. Elon notes that right now, people think Tesla is a car and energy company, but in the long run, people will likely see Tesla as a robotics company. “I think we are developing some of the strongest hardware and software teams in the world,” he said. And if one were to look at Tesla’s tech evolution, Tesla came to a point where it needed something more powerful than what the market offers.
It then makes sense for Tesla to create a supercomputer that would help train its neural nets. “If you have a system that has very good eyes, which can see in all directions at once, never gets tired, has redundancy, and whose reaction time is superhuman, then such a system would achieve a high level of safety,” Musk said, describing the thinking behind Project Dojo. With over a million cars, after all, that’s a lot of data. And next year, this would grow to two million.
14:53 PT – Tesla has trimmed its Bitcoin investment by 10%, resulting in a profit of $272 million.
14:50 PT – Zachary Kirkhorn explains the Model S and Model X delays, noting that the delays are a meaningful headwind for the company’s finances. He also highlights that Tesla is experiencing some challenges with the ongoing global supply shortage, though the company is working with its partners to address them.
14:48 PT – Elon adds that Model X should ramp in Q3 2021. “We’re going to aim to produce 2,000 Model S and Model X per week,” Musk said. He also adds that he believes that the two flagship cars would see a lot of demand.
Musk also highlighted that the new Model S and Model X are actually cheaper to produce. Giga Berlin and Giga Texas would likely see volume production next year. In closing, he thanks the Tesla team for their efforts.
14:45 PT – Elon notes that solving FSD is a matter of having a massive data set. And in this case, Tesla has an edge with its large fleet of over a million cars on the road. This should help the company handle edge cases. “It’s quite tricky, but we’re highly confident that we’ll get this (FSD) done,” Musk said.
“Q1 had some of the most difficult supply chain challenges that we’ve ever experienced at Tesla,” Musk said, describing the ongoing chip shortage currently plaguing the auto industry.
As for Model S and Model X, Musk notes that there are more challenges than expected. Musk lists some improvements coming to the vehicles, such as their new interior, battery pack, electric motor, and features. Elon adds that Tesla is just making refinements to cars that are already built. A ramp is coming likely in May.
14:40 PT – The Q1 earnings call begins. Martin Viecha takes the floor. Elon Musk, Zachary Kirkhorn, and a number of executives are present in the call. Opening remarks from Elon Musk. He highlights that Q1 was a record quarter for Tesla. He says that Tesla has seen a shift in the perception for EVs, and demand has been even more formidable than ever. “Demand is the best we’ve ever seen,” he said. This is the reason why Q1 became such an outlier compared to past first quarters, which tended to be softer than other quarters.
Elon also mentions the Model 3’s victory in the premium sedan market, beating veterans like the BMW 3-Series. As for the Model Y, the CEO states that the vehicle has a chance of becoming the best-selling car in the world of any kind. Elon estimates that this would happen sometime in 2022. As for FSD, the Beta has been making progress, though Musk admits that it is one of the most difficult technical problems out there. Elon also emphasizes Tesla’s vision-only approach, reiterating his previous statements on Twitter about radar eventually being retired.
14:32 PT – Of course it’s on Elon Time. 😀
14:30 PT – And… it’s time! Butts in seats, everyone.
14:28 PT – And the earnings call stream is live. We’re now treated with some classical music. Definitely a celebratory air here.
14:25 PT – Now that the Tesla Semi has been announced to be on track for a 2021 release, perhaps we’d see more updates on the release of the next-generation Roadster too? The Semi and new Roadster were unveiled at the same time, after all.
14:20 PT – While the Q1 Update Letter is rife with information, there are quite a number of things that were not mentioned as much. A big one is the company’s 4680 battery cell production developments and plans, which were notably absent in the Update Letter. Hopefully, we can get some nice tidbits of information about the 4680 cells in the earnings call. Crossing our fingers.
14:15 PT – Good day, everyone, and welcome to another live blog of Tesla’s earnings call! We all knew that this quarter would be special when the Q1 vehicle delivery and production numbers came out. Even Wall Street was optimistic about the company’s numbers. Well, the Q1 results are here, and they are actually better than expected. Tesla soundly beat Wall Street’s expectations for revenue and EPS. Though in true Tesla fashion, TSLA stock has now dipped around 1.9% after hours.
Don’t hesitate to contact us for news tips. Just send a message to tips@teslarati.com to give us a heads up.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk just upped his Tesla stake further fueling SpaceX merger conversation
Elon Musk just collected a $116 billion Tesla payday and the timing is eye-opening
Elon Musk quietly collected one of the largest single-transaction paydays in corporate history on Monday. A Form 4 filed with the SEC on June 17, 2026 disclosed that Musk exercised 303,960,630 Tesla stock options from his 2018 compensation package, with the transaction dated June 16. No shares were sold on the open market.
The numbers are straightforward but striking. Musk exercised the options at a split-adjusted strike price of $23.34, with Tesla closing at $404.66 that day, putting the spread at $381.32 per share and generating roughly $115.9 billion in paper gains in a single transaction. To cover the exercise cost, Tesla withheld 17,531,857 shares through a net share settlement, meaning Musk paid nothing out of pocket.
For perspective, in 2018, Elon Musk’s award was originally approved by Tesla shareholders on March 21, 2018, and structured entirely around performance milestones that many analysts at the time called unreachable. Every tranche eventually vested. The original grant covered 20,264,042 shares at $350.02, which after Tesla’s 5-for-1 split in 2020 and 3-for-1 split in 2022 adjusted to 303,960,630 shares at $23.34. A Delaware court rescinded the award in January 2024, ruling the board was conflicted. As Teslarati reported, Tesla shareholders voted to ratify the package anyway in June 2024 by a wide margin. The Delaware Supreme Court reversed the decision in December 2025, finding full cancellation too extreme, and Tesla’s board signed an Implementation Agreement on April 21, 2026 to formally deliver the shares.
The Tesla and SpaceX merger everyone is talking about is quietly building
The timing and structure of the Form 4 filing carries more weight than a routine stock option exercise typically would. Musk exercised his 2018 Tesla award on June 16, a week into SpaceX completing its IPO and trading publicly, and giving SpaceX a public market valuation and share currency for the first time in the company’s history. A stock-for-stock merger between two companies requires the acquiring entity to have tradeable shares it can offer to the target’s shareholders, and SpaceX now has exactly that. At the same time, Musk just increased his direct Tesla voting power to approximately 20%, giving him greater influence over any shareholder vote that a merger would require. The restricted shares he received cannot be sold until 2033, which removes any near-term incentive to cash out and instead positions this stake as long-term structural collateral in a deal. Additionally, Musk’s two companies are already deeply intertwined through shared semiconductor fabrication at their joint TERAFAB facility in Austin, cross-company supply chain transactions, and Tesla’s $2 billion investment in xAI prior to the SpaceX-xAI merger.
Wedbush analyst Dan Ives has publicly placed the odds of a Tesla and SpaceX combination at 80% to 90% by early 2027. The Implementation Agreement that made Monday’s exercise possible was signed on April 21, 2026, roughly two months before the SpaceX IPO closed. That sequencing, building Musk’s Tesla ownership to its highest point ever immediately before SpaceX gains the public currency needed to acquire it, is either an extraordinary coincidence or a carefully staged foundation for the largest corporate merger in history.
Tesla deliveries got a big boost in expectations from Wall Street firm Goldman Sachs, who believes the company will report some stronger-than-expected numbers when the second quarter comes to an end in the coming weeks.
Goldman Sachs has raised its vehicle delivery forecast for Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) in the second quarter of 2026, signaling growing confidence in the electric vehicle leader’s near-term momentum despite mixed market signals. Analyst Mark Delaney lifted the bank’s Q2 estimate to 420,000 units from a previous 405,000, surpassing the Visible Alpha consensus estimate of 400,000.
The upward revision stems from stronger-than-expected sales data across key regions. Europe stands out with projected year-over-year growth of 85-90 percent, driven by robust demand for Tesla’s Model Y and refreshed offerings. China posted high single-digit gains, while markets like South Korea and Australia also contributed positive momentum. These gains help offset mid-teens declines in U.S. deliveries through May, where broader EV market headwinds and competition persist.
Goldman extended its optimism to the full year, increasing its 2026 delivery projection to 1.73 million vehicles from 1.72 million. Longer-term forecasts remain unchanged, with 1.88 million units expected in 2027 and 1.96 million in 2028. The bank also nudged its 2026 earnings-per-share estimate higher to $1.35 from $1.30, reflecting anticipated margin benefits from higher volumes and operational efficiencies.
Despite these positive adjustments, Goldman maintained its Neutral rating and $375 price target on Tesla shares. At current trading levels near $411, the stock sits about 8-9 percent above the target, highlighting ongoing valuation concerns even as delivery momentum builds. Tesla’s Q1 2026 deliveries totaled 358,023 units, setting a baseline for recovery expectations in the current period.
This update arrives as Tesla prepares to report official Q2 figures shortly after June 30. Investors and analysts will closely watch not only headline delivery numbers but also regional breakdowns, average selling prices, and progress on energy storage deployments and autonomous technology initiatives.
The move by Goldman Sachs underscores a broader narrative for Tesla: while legacy auto markets face softening demand and tariff uncertainties, Tesla’s global footprint and product pipeline provide resilience. Europe’s surge reflects pent-up demand and policy support for EVs, while China’s steady growth highlights Tesla’s competitive positioning against local rivals.
Tesla still has its work cut out for it, including U.S. price sensitivity and intensifying competition. Yet Goldman’s revision adds to a series of analyst notes suggesting Q2 could mark a turning point. As Tesla pushes toward higher production rates at facilities in Fremont, Shanghai, and Berlin, sustained execution will be key to validating these higher forecasts.
We have said numerous times that deliveries are becoming a less important metric in the grand scheme of things, as AI truly takes precedence in the company’s thesis.
For Tesla bulls, the Goldman note reinforces faith in underlying demand trends. For skeptics, the unchanged rating serves as a reminder that delivery beats alone may not immediately resolve valuation debates in a high-interest-rate environment. Tesla’s stock reaction will likely hinge on the official numbers and management commentary in the coming weeks.
Renowned investor Ron Baron, founder and CEO of Baron Capital, has once again demonstrated his unwavering faith in Elon Musk’s ventures.
Just after SpaceX’s record-breaking IPO, Baron announced he purchased an additional $1 billion in SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX) shares. This move pushes Baron Capital’s total holdings in the company to a staggering $25 billion in market value, underscoring one of the most successful private-to-public investment stories in recent history.
Baron’s relationship with SpaceX dates back to 2017, when his firm began investing approximately $1.75–2 billion through secondary markets and employee tender offers at valuations around $20–22 billion.
By the time of the IPO, which valued SpaceX at over $2 trillion with shares closing near $161, those early stakes had generated more than $13 billion in unrealized gains. Post-IPO, Baron’s position ballooned further, reflecting the company’s meteoric rise driven by reusable rocketry, Starlink’s global satellite internet constellation, Starshield defense applications, and ambitious plans for orbital infrastructure.
In a recent interview, Baron articulated his bullish outlook with characteristic enthusiasm.
Ron Baron said today that he bought $1 billion of @SpaceX IPO shares last Friday, and said that all of Baron Capital’s $SPCX holdings are now worth $25 billion.
“I think we’re going to make hundreds of billions of dollars; If you read the prospectus, you realize what they… pic.twitter.com/U8F471KtJS
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) June 15, 2026
“I think we’re going to make hundreds of billions of dollars,” he stated, emphasizing that SpaceX’s achievements in rocketry and satellite technology are “not possible for anyone else to accomplish.” He envisions the company as a cornerstone of humanity’s multi-planetary future, potentially reaching valuations of $10–30 trillion within 10–15 years.
Baron has repeatedly affirmed he has no plans to sell, viewing SpaceX as a “lifetime investment” alongside Tesla.
Tesla bull Ron Baron reveals $100M SpaceX investment, sees 3-5x return on TSLA
This conviction stems from SpaceX’s unparalleled execution. The company has revolutionized access to space with Falcon 9 reusability, deployed thousands of Starlink satellites, and is advancing Starship for Mars missions and point-to-point Earth transport.
Baron highlights emerging opportunities like space-based AI data centers and direct-to-cell satellite connectivity, positioning SpaceX at the forefront of a new space economy projected to generate trillions in value.
Critics may question the lofty projections amid high valuations and execution risks, but Baron’s track record speaks volumes. His Tesla holdings, initiated in the mid-2010s, have also delivered outsized returns. As one of the largest institutional holders of SpaceX pre-IPO, Baron Capital’s funds, such as Baron Partners, benefited immensely from valuation markups.
Baron’s $1 billion IPO purchase signals deep confidence in SpaceX’s post-IPO trajectory. In an era of short-term market noise, his strategy exemplifies patient capital: backing visionary leadership and transformative technology.
For investors watching the space sector, it serves as a powerful endorsement that the final frontier may indeed yield the next great wealth-creation engine. As Baron puts it, SpaceX isn’t just building rockets—it’s trying to “save humanity” by expanding our horizons beyond Earth.
Elon Musk just upped his Tesla stake further fueling SpaceX merger conversation
Tesla Full Self-Driving is getting a major parking upgrade, Elon Musk says
