Investor's Corner
Tesla (TSLA) Q3 2022 earnings results: $21.4B in revenue and EPS of $1.05 per share
Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) posted its third-quarter 2022 earnings report after markets closed today. The results, which were discussed in the Q3 2022 Update Letter, were released after the closing bell on Wednesday, October 19, 2022.
Tesla started transitioning into a more regional mix of vehicle builds every week in the third quarter, resulting in the company delivering fewer cars than what Wall Street expected. For context, Tesla delivered a total of 343,830 vehicles in Q3 2022, while producing a total of 365,923 electric cars across its vehicle factories worldwide.
The following is a quick overview of Tesla’s Q3 2022 results.
REVENUE
Tesla posted total revenues of $21.454B billion with a gross profit of $5.382B billion. In comparison, analysts expected Tesla to post revenue of $21.99 billion. Overall, Tesla’s total revenue grew 56% year-over-year in the third quarter.
EARNINGS PER SHARE
Tesla posted non-GAAP earnings per share of $1.05 per share. GAAP EPS is listed at $0.95 per share. In comparison, analysts were expecting Tesla to post non-GAAP earnings per share of $1.00.
PROFITABILITY
Tesla’s operating income improved year-over-year to $3.7 billion in the third quarter. This resulted in a 17.2% operating margin. YoY, Tesla noted that its operating income was affected by increased ASP, growth in vehicle deliveries, and higher raw material, commodity, logistics, warranty, and expedite costs, among others.
CASH
Tesla’s cash increased sequentially by $2.2 billion to $21.1 billion in the third quarter. This was mainly driven by FCF of $3.3 billion, partially offset by debt repayments of $900 million.
OTHER KEY UPDATES
- Tesla Cybertruck is now listed in the Update Letter as a vehicle under “Tooling.”
- Tesla Semi is now listed in the Update Letter as a vehicle under “Early Production.”
- The total number of 4680 cells produced increased 3X in the third quarter.
- Tesla Semi deliveries are expected to start in December 2022.
- Gigafactory Shanghai remains Tesla’s main vehicle delivery hub.
- Gigafactory Berlin produced over 2,000 Model Y per week towards the end of Q3. The vehicles are produced with 2170 batteries.
- Tesla is looking to introduce front and back megacasts and structural battery packs in vehicles produced in Giga Berlin before the end of the year.
- Energy deployments increased 62% year-over-year in the third quarter to 2.1 GWh.
- Tesla Solar deployments increased by 13% year-over-year in Q3 to 94 MW.
- Tesla is still looking to end the year with a growth of 50%, as previously indicated.
Tesla’s Q3 2022 Update Letter can be viewed below.
tesla-Q3-2022 by Simon Alvarez on Scribd
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Elon Musk
Elon Musk will give ‘every kid in America’ a SpaceX share in 2027
Elon Musk said he is planning to give “every one of his SpaceX shares to every kid in America” in 2027, stating that “this will be the first of many.”
SpaceX went public earlier this year, and its stock price has been relatively stable since leveling off shortly after its IPO. Based on its current price, it’s a gift of just over $10 billion to children across the United States.
It appears to be closely related to President Donald Trump’s bank accounts for children, which were set up earlier this year as Trump Accounts.
Just hours earlier, Anthropic had announced the establishment of its Anthropic Public Benefit Fund, “a new wholly-owned entity dedicated entirely to public benefit.” Musk responded by stating he recommended “giving the shares directly to the public,” and that he would be doing it that way.
Just a little bit later, Musk said children across the U.S. would be getting a share from him:
Next year, I will give one of my SpaceX shares to every kid in America.
This will be the first of many.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 19, 2026
There are roughly 70 million children, meaning someone under the age of 18, in the United States, according to the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics. Musk’s ownership of SpaceX stock shows he has around 849 million Class A shares of SpaceX stock, according to filings with the SEC.
Investor's Corner
SpaceX’s biggest earnings test yet lands Tuesday, and Tesla shareholders should be watching
SpaceX reports earnings Tuesday as Wall Street watches AI spending, Starlink growth and Tesla merger
SpaceX reports third quarter results after the market closes Tuesday, with a webcast at 4:30 p.m. ET streamed on X, and Tesla follows a day later. Bloomberg consensus, cited by Pepperstone, calls for revenue of $12.89 billion, adjusted EBITDA of $6.62 billion and adjusted EPS near $0.15. That would be about 65% growth from the second quarter and SpaceX’s first profitable quarter since its IPO. Analysts expect roughly $6.4 billion from AI and $4.9 billion from Starlink, which is projected to reach 14.3 million consumer subscribers. Capital spending is forecast at $19.6 billion, leaving free cash flow near negative $11.6 billion.
The numbers matter because SpaceX has spent months trying to win over a skeptical market. It priced its record IPO at $135, spiked to $225.64, then sank near $105 in early August. Friday’s close of $146.03 sits about 28% below the June high. The Q2 report beat on revenue at $7.8 billion and put Starlink at 12 million subscribers, but $18.4 billion of capex hurt the stock. Since then SpaceX reached orbit on Starship Flight 14 with 26 Starlink V3 satellites, agreed to buy 800 MHz spectrum for about $8 billion as part of its Starlink Mobile push, and signed a fourth compute hosting deal in four months worth roughly $13 billion a year from December. Management is targeting more than 2 gigawatts of compute by year end and a $100 billion annualized revenue run rate. Evercore ISI, which raised its target to $275, said the quarter may be judged more on those targets than the reported figures
All of this sits under the Tesla merger question. Barclays analyst Dan Levy expects an all stock deal in which SpaceX buys Tesla at a premium, using reference values of $2.1 trillion and $1.5 trillion, and said an announcement would need to come by late October or early November to be voted on at Tesla’s December 6 annual meeting. Barclays estimates Musk would hold about 37% of the combined company and 56% of the votes. Musk said in July that combining companies cannot be discussed on an earnings call, but an investor question asking when SpaceX will merge with Tesla is sitting on SpaceX’s Q&A platform, and Teslarati has tracked how the Roadster demo revived the talk.
If a deal happens, Tuesday’s result would effectively set the price Tesla holders would receive. Their shares would convert into SpaceX stock, along with exposure to a company with a heavy investment on AI, while Tesla itself expects 2026 capex above $25 billion. A strong quarter and calmer spending would make that exchange easier to sell. Another round of heavy capex and a falling stock would make it harder.
Investor's Corner
Tesla’s flying Roadster just revealed something bigger than the car
Analysts say the Roadster demo puts a Tesla and SpaceX merger back on the table.
The Roadster unveiling near Waco ended Thursday night, and by Friday morning much of the investor reaction had less to do with the car than with who owns the rocket technology inside it.
Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said the event “puts the Tesla/SpaceX relationship on the table in a tangible way,” pointing to the propulsion, pressure vessel and control hardware sitting on a Tesla product. Gene Munster of Deepwater Asset Management called the demo “a ridiculous display of engineering” with “no commercial value” beyond embarrassing traditional automakers, though he said it showed Musk wants the two companies together.
The more specific forecast came a day earlier from Barclays. Analyst Dan Levy told clients a deal could be announced before Tesla’s annual meeting, which must happen by December 6, and that an announcement in late October or early November could make shareholder approval harder. Barclays expects SpaceX to be the buyer in an all stock deal, with Tesla holders receiving SpaceX shares at a premium, based on market values of roughly $2.1 trillion for SpaceX and $1.5 trillion for Tesla. If nothing lands around the meeting, the bank still sees an announcement within 6 to 12 months.
The Roadster demo just added more weight to merger speculations. Tesla’s demo used cold gas thrusters and pressure tanks of the kind SpaceX uses on Falcon 9, and Musk described the car as a collaboration between Tesla and SpaceX engineers, as we mentioned in our breakdown of the three Roadster configurations.
Musk has not publicly addressed a deal since the event, as far as we have seen. His most direct answer remains the one he gave at the All In Summit, when he said that with so much collaboration, “who can imagine what action one might take” without ruling anything out. Ives has held to a 2027 timeline since his March note, and Musk pushed back on the China piece of the speculation when ARK floated a year end announcement in August.
The next test is Tesla’s third quarter earnings call on October 21. However, we recall in July that Musk told analysts, “we can’t talk about combining companies and that kind of thing on an earnings call,” so a clear answer wouldn’t be expected.