Investor's Corner
10 things Tesla (TSLA) retail investors want to know from Q1 2019 earnings call
Tesla’s retail investors are aggregating a number of inquiries that will hopefully be addressed in the upcoming Q1 2019 earnings call. The questions are aggregated from verified TSLA investors by Say, a startup that aims to create and develop investor communication tools.
Using the platform, Tesla investors have been submitting and voting on inquiries they wish to be discussed and clarified by the electric car maker. The crowdsourced initiative has garnered quite a lot of support from the TSLA investor community, with over 340 retail shareholders representing around $30 million worth of stock posting their inquiries on the platform.
Here are 10 questions that garnered the most votes from the company’s retail shareholders.
- Will Tesla be able to complete their purchase of Maxwell Technologies? What is holding that back?
- Last earnings call, Tesla emphasized the prioritization of improving customer service in Q1. It appears that significant improvements have been made. Can you share some key performance metrics around improving customer service?
- Can we expect the pace of pricing changes to continue? Can you elaborate on the price hike trajectory of the Full-Self Driving option beginning May 1st?
- Elon, most people when they think of Tesla only see it as an automotive company. Can you speak to Energy side of the company, specifically the road map for when you see the energy side of things really taking off and generating major revenue for the company? Thanks.
- When and where will the Tesla Semi begin production?
- When do you expect Powerwall and Powerpack production to meet current orders? What about the solar roof tiles?
- Is Tesla considering creating an insurance program in order to further simplify the ownership experience and to more accurately take into account the safety of driving on autopilot? The insurance market is very unreliable for Tesla owners right now.
- Do you have an updated timeline for the Tesla Pickup Truck reveal?
- Elon, if you were to ask Andrej Karpathy when he believes Tesla will be technically capable of Level 5 autonomy, when would Andrej estimate Level 5 or Full-Self Driving will be technically complete? (not released to customers, nor having received regulatory approval)
- Are you still confident you will be profitable in Q2 and Q3?
Tesla is yet to fully confirm if it will be entertaining questions from its retail investors in its earnings call, though the company has been open to the idea in the past. In the Q2 2018 earnings call, retail investors representing $60 million worth of TSLA shares listed down 305 questions for the company, and five were personally answered by Elon Musk during the Q&A session.
Tesla is quite unique in the way that it is willing to democratize its process of communicating its earnings to shareholders and its institutional investors. Such a strategy is unusual, and is yet another step away from convention, especially since traditional earnings calls primarily feature questions from Wall Street analysts and the occasional member of the media. If Tesla includes crowdsourced questions in its Q1 2019 earnings call, the electric car maker will be ensuring once more that inquiries which are most relevant and pertinent to retail investors are addressed.
Tesla’s Q1 2019 earnings call is expected to be held on Wednesday, April 24, 2019 at 2:30 p.m. Pacific Time (5:30 p.m. Eastern Time).
The full list of questions from TSLA’s retail investors listed on Say could be accessed here.
Elon Musk
SpaceX Starship Flight 13 aborted at Zero and Musk just told us what broke
Four Raptor engines failed to ignite at T-zero, forcing SpaceX to scrub Starship Flight 13 Thursday.
SpaceX scrubbed the Starship Flight 13 launch attempt Thursday evening at the last possible moment, after four of the Super Heavy booster’s 33 Raptor 3 engines failed to ignite during the startup sequence. The 90-minute window had opened at 6:45 p.m. EDT from Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas, and the countdown had proceeded without issue all day, with more than 11.5 million pounds of liquid methane and liquid oxygen being fully loaded into the rocket before the automated abort triggered. SpaceX’s launch directors posted on X, “Standing down from today’s flight test attempt,” and shut down the livestream shortly after.
Musk confirmed the root cause within hours. “Some of the engines didn’t start, triggering an automatic launch abort,” he wrote on X. “To be confident of a good flight, 2 Raptors will be removed and replaced. Most probable launch timing is early next week.” SpaceX engineers began draining propellant tanks immediately and Booster 20 was rolled back to its hangar for inspection.
The timing adds a layer of significance that did not exist during any of the previous 12 Starship flights. This is the first time SpaceX has attempted to launch Starship since the company made its stock market debut in June, listing under ticker SPCX at $135 per share. Public investors are now watching every Starship outcome in real time, and a last-second abort carries more visibility than it would have six months ago.
Flight 13 was designed to be one of the most consequential tests in the program’s history. It was set to carry 20 Starlink V3 satellites, the first operational payload Starship has ever attempted to deploy. Six of those satellites carried external cameras to photograph Starship’s heat shield from the outside during flight, which would act as a self-inspection approach SpaceX has never attempted before. The mission also needed to complete a Raptor engine relight in space, a step SpaceX skipped on Flight 12 in May after losing an engine during ascent. That Flight 12 booster also flipped 90 degrees off course during its boostback burn when five engines failed to reignite.
SpaceX has not announced an official next launch date. Musk’s “early next week” window points to July 21 or 22 at the earliest, pending the engine swap and a return to the pad.
Lucid CEO Silvio Napoli responded to rumors of an imminent bankruptcy that was reportedly being mulled after a report stated the automaker was working with the firm AlixPartners to iron out its next steps.
The company felt a massive loss on Wall Street yesterday, as the report essentially pushed the stock down as much as 55 percent on Tuesday.
The report, published initially by Eletric-Vehicles.com, claimed Lucid was essentially in dire straits and was told by AlixPartners, a commonly used restructuring advisor, to either take shares private or file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
Lucid’s head of Communications, Nick Twork, immediately challenged the report and stated the company “has sufficient liquidity to carry its operations well into next year.”
Now, the company’s CEO is chiming in as well, stating that the report is “so far from the facts that they require a direct response.”
Napoli said:
“Lucid is not considering bankruptcy or a transaction to take the company private. Those reports are false. The Board did not explore either scenario. Period.
As disclosed in our most recent quarterly filing, Lucid has sufficient liquidity to fund its operations well into next year.
We work with outside advisors to improve operational performance and execution. They are not advising Lucid on a take-private transaction or bankruptcy, and any suggestion that they have recommended either course of action to management or the Board is false.
My priority is clear: turn this company around. That is where the leadership team and I are focused.
I look forward to providing a full update during our quarterly earnings call on August 4th.”
🚨 Lucid CEO Silvio Napoli calls rumors of financial issues “so far from the facts that they require a direct response.”
Read his full remarks here: https://t.co/t3Pg1NHvzy pic.twitter.com/LvHUPhO4Qf
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) July 15, 2026
It seems pretty clear that Lucid is confident things will be okay, and, to be honest, they should not have much to worry about, especially considering the company has been backed by the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF) for years. It has solid financial backing, and its sales, while weak, are pretty much right on par with a company of this age.
Lucid also sent a Cease & Desist letter to the publication for their report.
Lucid shares have rebounded nicely and are up nearly 21 percent at the time of publication. As soon as the company dispelled the rumors of bankruptcy yesterday, the stock began to climb back toward more reasonable levels.
Electric vehicle maker Lucid Group has denied rumors of an imminent bankruptcy after a report from this morning sent the stock on a dramatic drop on Wall Street, seeing losses of more than 40 percent during trading hours.
Lucid’s Director of Communications, Nick Twork, responded to the report from Eletric-Vehicles.com, which stated the company’s restructuring advisor, AlixPartners, was asked to review two decisions: taking Lucid shares private or filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
The report also claims AlixPartners told the Lucid board to “concentrate on Gravity production while improving its quality, and to temporarily hold back the Lucid Air, the sedan that has defined the company since its launch.”
Twork said:
$LCID The rumors are completely false. The company has sufficient liquidity to carry its operations well into next year, as recently published in its last quarterly filings, and it has not formed any special Board committee to explore the scenarios reported today. Our focus is…
— Nick Twork (@ntwork) July 14, 2026
Shares rebounded after the response to the report, halving its losses as the trading day neared 3 p.m. Eastern.
Lucid has struggled to get its sales off the ground and into more respectable numbers, but the company is in its early years, when things are hard to begin with. It is also backed by several notable investors, including the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF), which has nearly limitless money and likely would not ditch an investment of this size so soon.
Lucid shares were down just 14 percent at the time of publication, a far cry from the 55 percent its losses topped out at during the day.
Tesla enters two new markets on two different continents in one week
SpaceX announces new Starship 13 test flight target date
