Tesla’s (NASDAQ:TSLA) Q3 2024 earnings call comes on the heels of the company’s Q3 2024 Update Letter, which was released after the closing bell on Wednesday, October 23, 2024.
Tesla posted total revenues of $25.18 billion, with automotive revenues of $20.02 billion in Q3 2024. The company also posted non-GAAP earnings per share of $0.72 and GAAP EPS of $0.62. Tesla posted $2.7 billion GAAP operating income in the third quarter, and a record $33.6 billion in cash.
The following are live updates from Tesla’s Q3 2024 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.
Q3 2024 Earnings Call live at 4:30pm CT https://t.co/FLyk30QBLk— Tesla (@Tesla) October 23, 2024
17:38 CDT – And that’s a wrap for Tesla’s Q3 2024 earnings call! Thank you so much for tuning in. We’ll see you on the next event!
17:35 CDT – Adam Jonas from Morgan Stanley asks about the relationship between Tesla and xAI. Are the two companies working together, or are they competing? Elon Musk notes that xAI has been helpful to Tesla AI quite a number of times. Musk also highlighted that xAI is trying to make artificial general intelligence or superintelligence. Tesla is trying to make autonomous cars.
“Tesla is focused on real-world AI. It’s quite different from an LLM,” Musk said.
17:27 CDT – Elon Musk admitted that there is a chance HW3 vehicles would not achieve the necessary safety level for unsupervised FSD. If this were to be the case, Musk noted that Tesla would replace Hardware 3 with Hardware 4 free of charge, at least for those who purchased FSD.
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“There is some chance that HW3 does not achieve a safety level that allows for unsupervised FSD. If that turns out to be the case, we will upgrade those two have bought HW3 FSD for free,” Musk said.
17:24 CDT – A question about the Roadster is asked. Musk admitted that the Roadster’s reservation holders have been suffering for a while. He adds that the Roadster is the cherry on top of the icing on the cake. He did, however, state that the Roadster would have to be behind some of the company’s more prudent products.
17:18 CDT – All of the Tesla Semi that have been deployed, around 200 so far, are equipped with the necessary equipment for FSD. Musk noted that FSD would be a huge step for safety for trucks.
Another question is asked about Unsupervised FSD’s deployment in CA next year. Elon Musk noted that California loves regulations, but he would be shocked if Tesla does not get approved next year. Companies like Waymo are able to deploy driverless cars in the state, after all.
Musk quipped that there should be a federal approval process for autonomous vehicles. “I think we should have this national approval process for autonomy,” Musk said.
17:13 CDT – Another question is asked about the Tesla Semi. Tesla executives noted that the facility is on track to start initial builds next year, with production ramping full blast in 2026. Musk noted that there is “ridiculous demand” for the Semi considering the vehicle’s extremely low cost per mile.
Tesla executives noted that the Semi’s potential is already being proven by clients like PepsiCo. PepsiCo’s drivers do not want to drive any other truck once they try out the Semi.
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17:09 CDT – Musk highlighted that the Cybercab is technically a $25,000 car, but it is an autonomous car, not manually driven.
Another question is asked about alleviating wait times at service centers. Company executives highlighted that Tesla is still focused on making vehicles that require as little service as possible.
Tesla, however, is coming up with a system that is inspired by a factory, where there are different lanes that are dedicated to different types of repairs. Automation is also a huge priority.
17:05 CDT – Elon Musk highlighted that the Cybercab does not just feature revolutionary design. It also features revolutionary manufacturing. “It is just really something special,” Musk said.
17:03 CDT – Investor questions begin! First question is about the more affordable car. Tesla executives reiterated that plans are underway to produce more affordable cars in the first half of next year. This, however, likely involves lowering the cost of current vehicles.
As for the $25,000 non-Robotaxi car, executives highlighted that Tesla is all in on autonomy. So there are no plans to produce a non-autonomous version of the Cybercab.
17:00 CDT – The CFO highlighted Tesla Energy’s margins, which passed 30% in Q3. This was due to a mix of projects during the quarter. He also noted that Tesla Energy is already filling in its 2024 production slots.
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Tesla’s operating expenses declined quarter over quarter and year over year, partly due to the company’s restructuring, which happened in Q2.
16:58 CDT – Tesla’s CFO takes the stage. He noted that Tesla’s automotive revenues grew quarter over quarter and year over year. Tesla’s sales grew despite ASPs dropping.
He notes that Tesla is determined to grow unit volume while avoiding a buildup of inventory. To support this strategy, Tesla is rolling out compelling financing options that make its vehicles more attainable to consumers.
Automotive margins improved quarter over quarter as well. The executive also highlighted that Tesla is focused on the cost per vehicle, and there are numerous work streams within the company to squeeze that cost without compromising on customer experience.
16:53 CDT – Elon Musk noted that progress is being made in the Optimus program. He mentioned Optimus’ next-generation hand, which features 22 degrees of freedom.
“I feel confident saying that we have the most advanced humanoid robot by a long shot,” Musk said, adding that rival robots are missing the AI brain, if not the ability to produce the robots at very high volumes. Tesla has both, so the company’s potential to lead the sector is notable.
““I think Optimus will be the most valuable part of Tesla,” Musk said.
Musk also discussed Tesla Energy, particularly its Megafactories. He noted that Lathrop is ramped, and Shanghai is progressing well. “It won’t be long before we’re sipping 100 GWh a year of stationary storage at Tesla,” Musk said. Musk noted that Tesla needs its energy business to scale so the company can move the needle in the energy sector.
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16:48 CDT – Elon Musk reiterated Tesla’s target of rolling out a ride-hailing service next year in California and Texas next year depending on regulatory approval.
He also noted that Tesla is no longer training compute-constrained. “The FSD is actually getting so good that it takes us a while to find mistakes. It takes a lot to figure out if Software A is better than Software B, since neither one of them are making mistakes,” Musk said.
16:46 CDT – Musk noted that Tesla’s internal estimate is that FSD would be safer than a human driver by Q2 next year.
“There’s no need to wait for the Robotaxi or the Cybercab to experience full autonomy. We expect to achieve that next year, with our existing vehicle line,” Musk said. He also noted that Tesla employees in the Bay Area now have an autonomous ride-hailing service. The service still uses safety drivers, though.
16:41 CDT – This does not mean to say that Tesla will not be relying on battery suppliers, of course. The growth of Tesla Energy and the company’s other businesses requires a lot of suppliers.
Musk also discussed the progress of FSD, such as the release of V12.5 and the Cybertruck’s FSD, as well as Actual Smart Summon (A.S.S.). He notes that FSD V13 is expected to be rolled out soon. V13 is expected to see 5-6x improvement in miles between interventions.
16:38 CDT – Musk noted that Tesla is still on track to deliver more affordable vehicles starting in the first half of 2025. “I do want to give some rough estimate, which is, I think, 20-30% growth next year,” Musk said. He also noted that he is “confident of Cybercab reaching volume production in 2026.” Tesla is estimating a production of 2 million Cybercabs per year.
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Musk stated that the 4680 lines are doing well. Tesla’s 4680 is rapidly approaching the point where it os the most competitive cell in the market. “I think if we execute well, Tesla’s internally produced cell will be the most cost-competitive cell in North America,” Musk said.
16:35 CDT – Elon Musk makes his opening remarks. He gives a quick recap of Q3. He notes that Tesla achieved record deliveries at a time when the entire industry is challenged. “It’s notable that Tesla is profitable despite a very challenging automotive environment,” Musk said, highlighting that this quarter is a record Q3 for the company.
He notes that Tesla produced its 7 millionth car yesterday. He congratulates the Tesla team for pulling the feat off. Musk also stated that Tesla Energy is doing well. He also states that the “Tesla team did a phenomenal job” during the “We, Robot” event.
16:32 CDT – Tesla’s Head of Investor Relations opens the Q3 earnings call. Elon Musk and a number of executives are present.
Let’s go!
16:29 CDT – One minute to go! Let’s see if this call starts on time.
16:28 CDT – Tesla bull Gary Black of The Future Fund summarized the Q3 earnings results pretty well. It’s a beat.
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$TSLA beat solidly on 3Q adj eps ($.72 vs $.60 est and vs my $.56 est). TSLA +9.4% AH. Driving the beat:
– Auto GM ex-reg credits was 17.1% vs 14.9% WS est.
– Energy profits soared +90% (energy GM 30.5% vs 24.4% YoY)
– Service profits soared +91% (services GM 8.8% vs 6.0% YoY)…— Gary Black (@garyblack00) October 23, 2024
16:25 CDT – It’s five minutes before the earnings call and there’s still no music. Oh, boy, I hope they start this one on time. No reason to be late anyway, since the Q3 results were extremely impressive. TSLA stock after hours is up 9.44% as of writing.
Aaand there’s Tesla’s techno music. We’re close, everyone.
16:15 CDT – Hello, everyone, and welcome to our live blog of Tesla’s third quarter 2024 earnings call. Tesla’s Q3 results are the best we’ve seen in a long time, so this upcoming earnings call will probably be pretty memorable. Especially impressive was the fact that the Cybertruck reached positive gross margin in the third quarter. That’s pretty nuts!
Here’s the livestream of Tesla’s Q3 2024 earnings call.
Don’t hesitate to contact us with news tips. Just send a message to simon@teslarati.com to give us a heads up.
Elon Musk
SpaceX’s next trillion dollar bet has nothing to do with rockets, Musk tells staff
Elon Musk told SpaceX staff AI revenue will soon dwarf rockets and Starlink combined entirely.
Elon Musk told SpaceX employees this week that artificial intelligence, not rockets, will soon carry the company’s revenue. In a roughly 29 minute internal address posted on SpaceX’s X account on Tuesday, Musk said AI revenue will pass every other line of business at SpaceX “probably in September” and pull further ahead by the fourth quarter.
The numbers he gave are specific. SpaceX currently runs 1.4 gigawatts of AI compute capacity. Musk wants that at 10 gigawatts by the end of 2027, a jump he tied directly to revenue: “if we bring 10GW of AI online by the end of next year, it will be $300 billion to $500 billion a year in revenue.” He called those “big numbers,” which undersells a projection larger than what most countries produce in a year.
We made rockets reusable and are rebuilding the internet in space. The next challenge: making life multiplanetary and understanding the true nature of the universe
Watch @ElonMusk deliver a company update to @SpaceX employees pic.twitter.com/5c8rxoCQfu
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) August 11, 2026
Musk went further on where AI fits into SpaceX’s future. “Probably in four or five years, AI will be 99% of the value of SpaceX,” he told staff, adding that digital intelligence would eventually run “a trillion times” ahead of biological intelligence as computing scales. He tied that growth to the company’s founding mission, telling employees “we must win on AI, because the future is overwhelmingly AI and robots,” with the payoff meant to help fund Starship and a Mars program that increasingly runs through Terafab, the joint Tesla, SpaceX and xAI chip plant.
Elon Musk launches TERAFAB: The $25B Tesla-SpaceXAI chip factory that will rewire the AI industry
None of this is entirely new territory. SpaceX told investors much the same story during its first earnings call as a public company on August 4, where Musk moved the company’s $1 trillion revenue target up a year to 2030 and said Starlink could someday carry a majority of the world’s internet. What the all hands video adds is a hard deadline and a specific power figure Musk had not given publicly before, along with a franker pitch to his own workforce that AI, not launch cadence, is now the thing SpaceX is betting its future on.
The AI revenue itself is not coming from SpaceX training its own models. It is largely Starlink acting as the network layer for xAI’s workloads, plus SpaceX renting out compute capacity directly, the same approach behind the roughly $16 billion the company spent on AI infrastructure in a single quarter.
Musk closed the video with a pitch aimed at recruiting and retention rather than investors, telling employees that anyone who helps SpaceX win the AI race will eventually get the chance to go to the moon or Mars themselves. Whether SpaceX can turn 1.4 gigawatts into 10 in seventeen months is the more immediate question, and one that will show up in quarterly numbers well before anyone leaves Earth.
In a new note to investors on Tuesday, Morgan Stanley analyst Andrew Percoco said that Tesla has one big financial question to answer for investors regarding its Robotaxi rollout, Full Self-Driving software, and Optimus.
Percoco said in the note that, for the most part, investors are still very positive about the direction the company is headed. However, there are some things the firm would like to see, and they have to do with financials.
Tesla (TSLA) Q2 2026 earnings results: miss on EPS, beat on revenue
Tesla bulls are more than convinced that the company’s Full Self-Driving software is proof it can develop physical AI. Financially, however, there are still some questions, especially on elevated spending, which CEO Elon Musk said would occur as the company works to roll out Robotaxi faster and continue developing its Optimus robot.
The latter two are where Tesla will have to prove progress to investors, as Percoco writes that both projects “will require clearer evidence that Robotaxi is scaling and more tangible Optimus proof points to support the ROI on elevated capex.”
Percoco said the second quarter earnings call did not change his long-term thesis of where Tesla is positioned in the AI race, which is out in front. However, there are concerns that weaker gross margins and higher R&D spend will stress financials, and that has “sharpened our (and investors’) focus on measurable progress across Robotaxi and Optimus.”
Additionally, Robotaxi still needs to be proven with more operation in existing cities while maintaining safety but improving how many rides it gives in any given time, he said. For Optimus, Percoco wrote that he is “still looking for evidence beyond commentary around SOP.”
Morgan Stanley put Percoco in charge of covering Tesla after long-time analyst Adam Jonas transitioned to the automotive side.
Currently, Morgan Stanley has a $415 price target on Tesla and a ‘Hold’ rating on the stock. It is trading at around $330 at the time of publication, which was 2:30 P.M. on the East Coast.
SpaceX’s massive investment in AI will make it a big winner, Argus Research said after the company’s successful earnings call last week.
The firm also upgraded shares to a Buy from Hold and set a $160 price target.
SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX) is currently recovering from its heavy AI infrastructure investments, as it spent nearly $16 billion in Q2 alone. The company did this primarily by monetizing high-demand GPU compute capacity at a much faster pace than traditional data center economics would suggest.
Company CFO Bret Johnsen said that SpaceX would be able to pay back anything on new deployments within a year.
There are plenty of ways the company can do this:
Leasing excess compute capacity through contracts
SpaceX has already built Colossus and Colossus II, largely for its own model training. However, much of that capacity is already rented out to third parties. It already has major deals with Anthropic, Google, and Reflection AI. These partnerships are adding billions per month to SpaceX’s spreadsheet.
High utilization driven by industry-wide scarcity
The demand for advanced AI training and inference capacity continues to exceed what is available for use. SpaceX can fill new racks quickly after they come online, so the capital deployed converts into revenue with minimal idle time.
Additionally, management and outside observers have described the new compute capital as behaving more like a cost-of-goods-sold than traditional multi-year capex, especially because of this rapid monetization pattern.
Capacity has already scaled from ~0.4 GW a year to 1.4 GW annually by the end of Q2. There are targets of more than 2 GW by year-end.
High incremental margins on the rental business once capacity is online
GPU cloud providers often operate at strong gross margins. SpaceX can monetize capacity that was already partially built or can be added efficiently. This means that incremental EBITDA margins on the rental revenue are usually high. This accelerates cash recovery relative to the gross capital outlay.
Parallel monetization of its own AI software and applications
Beyond pure infrastructure rental, SpaceX also generates revenue from Grok through subscriptions and usage, from X through ads, data, and other related services, enterprise APIs, and the planned integration of the Cursor coding tools acquisition.
These application layers ride on the same compute infrastructure and provide additional high-margin streams that could offset build-out costs. AI-segment revenue overall rose sharply to about $2.6 billion in Q2, according to Motley Fool. This was driven primarily by the infrastructure contracts, but the software side is also partially responsible.
Efficient, large-scale deployment and vertical integration advantages
SpaceX has emphasized the rapid construction of power and cooling infrastructure and favorable cost-per-megawatt economics relative to industry benchmarks in some disclosures.
Combined with its ability to scale capacity aggressively and the fact that many contracts start generating revenue within months of capacity coming online, the effective payback compresses dramatically compared with more conventional multi-year data-center projects.
SpaceX’s dominant near-term recovery path will turn the AI clusters into a hyperscale-style compute rental business for other leading AI companies while still using a portion for internal models.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk says flying cars are coming
SpaceX’s next trillion dollar bet has nothing to do with rockets, Musk tells staff
