Investor's Corner
LIVE BLOG: Tesla (TSLA) Q3 2019 earnings call updates
Tesla’s (NASDAQ:TSLA) third-quarter earnings call comes on the heels of a blockbuster earnings report that saw the electric car maker prove its critics wrong by posting a surprise profit and showing earnings per share of $1.91, far beyond Wall St’s expec. By beating Wall Street’s estimates, Tesla appears to be on the cusp of changing the narrative surrounding the company’s immediate future once more.
As revealed in the company’s Q3 2019 Update Letter, Tesla is GAAP profitable once more. The company is also seeing free cash flow, something that was largely unexpected during the days leading up to the earnings report.
For today’s earnings call, Tesla’s executives are expected to address questions surrounding the company’s plans for the immediate and CEO Elon Musk’s apparent ability to now underpromise and overdeliver. Tesla stock is currently trading +20.30% at $306.38 in after-hours trading. The earnings call will likely affect these results further, for better or for worse.
The following are live updates from Tesla’s Q3 2019 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.
16:35 PT – And that concludes the third-quarter earnings call! We saw a far more tempered, far more restrained Elon Musk, and a more confident Zach Kirkhorn. Calm, composed and quick, this earnings call appears to be one of Tesla’s smoothest yet. I’m inclined to be more optimistic about the company’s future after this Q&A session. And it appears that the company’s shareholders are too. At the end of the call, TSLA stock has remained where it was when the session started. No wild swings — and everyone’s the better for it.
16:34 PT – Dan Levy from Credit Suisse questions Gigafactory 3’s Model 3 production ramp, and how smooth will it be. Elon notes that he is optimistic about Gigafactory 3’s ramp, but not on a week-by-week basis. This is quite impressive for Elon Musk. In previous earnings calls where he was much more emotionally charged, I can’t help but think that he would have given an ambitious estimate as a response. Not so much anymore.
16:30 PT – Pierre Ferragu of New Street Research asks about how Tesla’s thinking about Model S and X have evolved, and if Model 3 has cannibalized sales of the flagships. Elon explains that the S and X are niche products, made in low volumes and higher prices. “We continue to make them more for sentimental reasons than anything else,” Musk said, adding that “If you’re buying an electric (full-sized sedan) and you don’t buy a Model S, you’re making a mistake.” It is evident from Elon’s statements that the Model S still holds a special, special place in his heart.
-
Kirkhorn did state that Model S and X are seeing more production lately due to increasing demand. Though delivery numbers for the Model S and X this quarter actually “understate the interest in the product,” he said. Elon also announced an upcoming upgrade for the Model S, X, and 3 that will improve comfort, feel and range. VP for Tech Drew Baglino adds that this upcoming updates will make Supercharging better too.
16:23 PT – Emmanuel Rosner of Deutsche Bank asks about electric pickups, particularly the Tesla Pickup Truck. He also asks about the baseline for Tesla’s baseline for orders quarter to date. Musk responds by stating that the Tesla Cybertruck is the company’s best ever, though he also mentioned that he could be wrong about this.
Kirkhorn, speaking about Tesla’s baseline orders, noted that the company is focused on moving quickly as it can. “We believe everyone should be driving an electric car,” he said. Musk adds a long-term (very long) estimate of 20 million vehicles a year.
16:20 PT – Maynard Um of Macquarie Research asks about Tesla’s software and its potential monetization opportunities, Elon reiterated the company’s intention of giving customers the most fun they can have with a car. “People spend a couple hours on average in a car. It’s a lot of time,” Musk said, adding that Tesla can look at its software for profit down the line, but for now, the company is simply focused on improving user experience.
16:16 PT – Morgan Stanley asks if vehicles produced in China could be the most profitable vehicle in Tesla’s lineup. Kirkhorn states that Tesla expects China vehicles to be in line with the cars from Fremont. The company is still working on landing the right mix for the Chinese market. “For now, it’s safe to assume that it’s in line with the margins of cars coming out of the Fremont factory,” he said.
When asked if Tesla will be open to the idea of becoming a supplier of batteries and drivetrains to other OEMs, Elon Musk stated that it is in line with Tesla’s mission to help other carmakers in their EV initiatives. “It’s something we’re open to,” Musk said.
16:13 PT – Daniel Galves from Wolfe Research. He asks about the auto gross margin from Q2 to Q3, as well as potential headwinds for the Shanghai plant. CTO Kirkhorn states that Tesla is working hard to prevent ramp inefficiencies for Gigafactory 3 that it experienced in Fremont. He also explained that Tesla is working on a way to implement a “targeted” way of adjusting prices for its products.
-
16:08 PT – Elon Musk confirms that Gigafactory 3 Phase 2 is for battery and module production. More construction is due in Shanghai as well, as preparations for Model Y production gets underway. As for Tesla Insurance, the CTO stated that the service will be expanded to other US states, as well as some foreign territories. “The goal here is to make sure that customers have an alternative if their insurance rates are high,” Kirkhorn said.
16:05 PT – Asked about the DeepScale acquisition and how it could help Tesla’s FSD initiative, Musk stated that the startup is a very tiny company. That being said, DeepScale has expertise in reducing the size of Neural Nets, “which is very helpful in slightly accelerating FSD,” he said.
16:00 PT – When asked if Tesla would consider selling NoA and Summon features as individual modules, Musk stated that the company will remain selling the suite as a whole. Responding to an inquiry about the Model Y’s launch and if it would interfere with Model 3 production, Musk assured that the electric sedan should not be affected that much.
15:57 PT – Questions from Say are up. First up, advertising. Is word of mouth enough? Elon says it’s more than enough. “We have no plans to advertise at this time,” he says. Tesla may do advertising in the future, but they will be more informative in nature.
When asked about Tesla Energy, Musk stated that he expects the business to be even bigger than the company’s automotive business. “Tesla Energy is the least appreciated element (of Tesla). For about 18 months, almost 2 years, we had to divert a tremendous amount of resources for the Model 3 production ramp,” Musk said, explaining that Tesla Energy’s resources paid the price for the electric sedan’s challenges. Now that Model 3 is humming along, Tesla solar and storage could see “crazy growth” in the future.
15:53 PT – Kunal Girotra, Energy Operations, discusses the improvements in Tesla’s energy business, which has seen a rise in recent months. “If it doesn’t print money, we’ll fix it or take it back,” Musk confidently said, referring to the company’s revived solar business. He also mentions how homes’ value increases if they are equipped with clean energy equipment such as solar panels.
Girotra also mentions that Tesla is able to offer low solar prices because it doesn’t do advertising, lowering the company’s costs of acquisition. An enthusiastic Elon Musk adds more details, interrupting Kunal. This is not annoyed Elon though — rather, the CEO in this call is more like a very excited Musk.
-
15:47 PT – CFO Zachary Kirkhorn takes the stage. He explains how Tesla achieved GAAP profitability. Model S and X ASPs increased, Model 3 ASPs declined slightly, the CFO noted. “With the release of Smart Summon, we were able to recognize $30 million of deferred revenue,” Kirkhorn added, emphasizing Tesla’s strong positive free cash flow in the third quarter.
Kirkhorn emphasizes that despite increases to production backlogs, orders continue to grow for the company’s electric cars. Demand is strong. The no-demand narrative is dead, and Tesla is stepping on its carcass at this point. The CFO also pledges to further reduce costs.
15:43 PT – Early access release of a “feature complete” version of Full Self-Driving is expected to be rolled out by the end of the year, says Musk. He adds that Tesla is focused on opening more Gigafactories in several countries. Lastly, Tesla is also releasing Solar Roof Version 3, which is “finally ready for the big time.” Official product launch of Solar Roof Version 3 will be done tomorrow.
15:40 PT – CEO Elon Musk thanks the Tesla team for pushing hard to achieve GAAP profitability. “Operating costs are at their lowest levels since Model 3 production started,” Musk said. He also mentions that Gigafactory 3 is already conducting Model 3 production activities. Equipment in Gigafactory 3 was installed while the factory shell was still under construction.
Gigafactory 4 will be announced by the end of 2019. Tesla is “confident” that Model Y could enter production in Summer 2020. “Model Y will outsell S, X, and 3 combined.” Musk also mentions V10, which includes the first version of Smart Summon. “There’s now been a million uses of Smart Summon.” A new version of Smart Summon is set to be released soon, taking the learnings that were gathered from the feature’s initial release.
15:35 PT – And so it begins. Senior Director of Investor Relations Martin Viecha takes the stage. He provides an overview of the topics that the earnings call will cover. Hands over the stage to Elon Musk.
15:31 PT – The earnings call should start any moment now. That being said, it’s understandable if Tesla is taking its time. Unlike the previous quarters, the company is coming to this call not to explain a loss, but to highlight a victory.
-
15:26 PT – It’s now just a few minutes before the Q3 2019 earnings call is expected to begin. This is a very exciting time for Tesla.
-
Cybertruck
Tesla Cybertruck production snaps back after ugly supplier fight
Cybertrucks are piling up again at Giga Texas after Tesla’s court win against a parts supplier.
Cybertruck production at Giga Texas is showing its first visible recovery since Tesla sued a supplier last month over withheld manufacturing tooling.
Aerial observer Joe Tegtmeyer flew over the Austin factory Wednesday morning and counted roughly 100 or more Cybertrucks filling the outbound lot, a sharp jump from the thin numbers seen in recent weeks. The flyover came a day after a judge granted Tesla a temporary restraining order against Angstrom Automotive Group, the parts supplier at the center of the dispute.
Tesla filed an emergency lawsuit in late July after Angstrom told the automaker it planned to close the Troy, Texas facility where Tesla’s die-cast tools, trim dies and other Cybertruck stamping equipment were housed. According to Tesla’s complaint, a shipment of 700 finished parts never left the building, and when Tesla sent representatives to retrieve its equipment, accompanied by law enforcement, they were turned away. Angstrom allegedly then asked for an extra $250,000 a week to keep operating, which Tesla’s filing described as holding its own property for ransom.
TESLA: U.S. District Judge Christopher R. Wolfe of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, Waco Division granted Tesla a Temporary Restraining Order and Writ of Replevin in its dispute with Angstrom Automotive (Case No. 6:26-cv-00477).
The order authorizes… https://t.co/E1DKcQSxMn pic.twitter.com/LR8aAiV2Og
— S.E. Robinson, Jr. (@SERobinsonJr) August 5, 2026
The restraining order gives Tesla immediate right of entry to Angstrom’s facility to recover the tooling. It is temporary, with a fuller hearing still to come, but the speed of Wednesday’s rebound suggests the Angstrom shortage was indeed the main bottleneck limiting Cybertruck output. Outbound lot counts are an imperfect measure of actual production, since finished trucks can sit for days before shipping, but a lot that full after a lean stretch is a meaningful signal.
Cybertruck output at Giga Texas has fluctuated all year as Tesla worked through supply issues and introduced new trims, including a cheaper Dual Motor AWD version that drew strong early demand.
Venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya has cautioned investors shorting SpaceX shares, drawing a direct parallel to the intense short-selling pressure Tesla faced in its early public years.
Responding to reports of elevated short interest in the newly public rocket, satellite, and AI company, Palihapitiya noted that similar dynamics played out with Tesla, where aggressive short sellers ultimately “went broke.”
SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX) went public on June 12, 2026, in the largest IPO on record, pricing at $135 per share. Shares quickly surged to an all-time high of $225.64 just days later, briefly implying a valuation exceeding $2 trillion. The stock has since retreated sharply amid valuation concerns, lockup expiration fears, and broader market dynamics.
By early August, it traded near $108–$125, representing a roughly 50 percent decline from the peak and bringing the market capitalization closer to the $1.5–1.7 trillion range. On August 4, shares closed up more than 9 percent at $125.33 ahead of earnings before facing pressure in after-hours and premarket trading.
Short interest has climbed dramatically. According to S3 Partners data widely cited in market reports, short positions reached approximately 219.3 million shares by late July, about 34 percent of the limited public float of roughly 640 million shares, and represented a notional value of around $24.6 billion.
Utilization of shares available to borrow hit 95 percent, with borrow fees rising. This level of shorting exceeded the dollar value of short bets against Tesla at the time and built rapidly ahead of two catalysts: the company’s first post-IPO earnings and an August 6 lockup expiration that could free up to 911.5 million additional shares.
CEO Elon Musk has issued warnings of his own. In mid-July, as short interest approached one-third of the float, he posted that “the survival probability of firms who maintain a significant short position in SpaceX over time is very low,” reiterating his view that the company could ultimately be worth more than Earth if it achieves its goals.
On August 4, just before earnings, Musk responded to the latest short-interest data by saying, “I try to warn them, but they just double down.”
SpaceX delivered its first quarterly results as a public company after the close on August 4. Second-quarter revenue rose 92 percent year-over-year to $7.8 billion, beating consensus estimates near $6.8–6.9 billion.
The net loss narrowed to $541 million, or 9 cents per share, better than the roughly 23–24 cent loss expected. Starlink/connectivity contributed about $4.3 billion (up 66 percent), while the AI business generated $2.6 billion (up roughly 250 percent). Capital expenditures were heavy at $18.4 billion, largely tied to AI infrastructure. Management projected a $100 billion annualized revenue run rate by year-end 2026 and outlined a path toward $1 trillion in annual revenue by 2030.
The combination of Chamath’s historical reminder, Musk’s repeated alerts, and the company’s ambitious growth targets underscores the high-stakes debate surrounding SPCX. Short sellers are positioned for near-term supply pressure from the lockup, while long-term bulls point to Starlink scale, Starship progress, and AI compute expansion as reasons the bears may ultimately face the same fate as many early Tesla skeptics.
Investor's Corner
SpaceX and Nvidia team up on Musk’s orbital AI bet
SpaceX revealed a new Nvidia satellite partnership, then Musk pledged an exclusive Nvidia hardware commitment.
SpaceX and Nvidia are now working together on the hardware that will power Musk’s orbital data center ambitions. SpaceX announced on X on Tuesday that it is partnering with Nvidia to design the compute payload for Starmind AI1, the first satellite in a planned constellation built to run AI workloads directly in orbit. Each Starmind satellite will carry Nvidia’s Rubin GPUs and Vera CPUs, according to the post, which included renderings of the payload design.
The announcement landed hours before SpaceX’s first earnings call as a public company, where Musk went further, saying the company has committed to building its AI infrastructure exclusively on Nvidia hardware. “We think the Vera Rubin architecture is the best architecture. We think it’s the best AI computer, and we greatly value our close cooperation and partnership on many levels with Nvidia,” Musk told investors on the call,. “So we’re exclusive to Nvidia.”
Musk said SpaceX plans to deploy Nvidia’s Vera Rubin NVL72 rackscale system, codenamed Kyber, both on the ground and in space. He set a target of 2 gigawatts of compute capacity online by the end of this year, scaling to roughly 10 gigawatts by the end of 2027.
SpaceX’s newest Starmind will make earth data centers obsolete
Starmind has been in development since Musk confirmed the name in June, following an xAI trademark filing that tipped off the project before SpaceX made it official. The idea is massive in scope and instead of moving data down to ground based servers, satellites equipped with onboard processors and large solar arrays would compute AI workloads in orbit and beam results back to Earth. SpaceX has already filed with the FCC for a constellation of up to one million satellites to support the effort, citing constant solar power and the absence of zoning restrictions as advantages over terrestrial data centers.
The Nvidia exclusivity marks a shift in tone from just two weeks ago, when Musk was busy knocking down a report that SpaceX had ordered $52 billion worth of Nvidia GPUs through Foxconn, calling it fake news at the time. The dollar figure in that rumor may have been wrong, but the underlying direction seems correct. SpaceX’s AI division already leases Colossus compute capacity to Anthropic and Google, and Tuesday’s earnings report showed AI revenue climbing sharply as those deals ramp up.
Nvidia shares rose roughly 3% in Tuesday trading on the news, while SpaceX stock climbed nearly 9% during the day before giving back gains after hours as investors digested the earnings report’s capital spending figures.
The Boring Company’s newest Vegas Station has a permit quietly waiting behind it
Tesla’s mysterious Robovan makes a sneak peek with Optimus in Terafab video
