Elon Musk was on the receiving end of seemingly-endless media head-scratching and criticism this week.
The media frenzy to question Elon Musk’s state of mind was rooted in comments he made during the first quarter earnings conference call.
Earnings conference call:
During a highly unusual earnings call, Tesla Inc.’s chief executive officer cut off analysts and got defensive about probing questions pertaining to the electric-car maker’s finances.
–“Elon Musk’s Most Dumbfounding Moments on Tesla’s Earnings Call,” Bloomberg, May 2, 2018
Next, next. Boring bonehead questions are not cool.
–Elon Musk, Tesla Q1 2018 Financial Results and Q&A Webcast, May 2, 2018
And he tolerates day traders even less.
We have no interest in satisfying the desires of day traders, like we couldn’t care less,” he insisted. “Please sell our stock and don’t buy it.”
–“Tesla Slumps After Musk Advises ‘Don’t Buy Our Stock’ in Bizarre Conference Call,” The Street, May 3, 2018
There’s a comprehensive compilation of all of Musk’s “strange” responses in a CNBC story, linked to below.
Morgan Stanley’s Adam Jonas said it was ‘the most unusual call I have experienced in 20 years on the sell-side.’
–Here are highlights of Elon Musk’s strange Tesla earnings call: ‘They’re killing me’ CNBC, May 3, 2018.
Musk takes to Twitter: Here’s a sample of his tweets post conference call:
The sheer magnitude of short carnage will be unreal. If you’re short, I suggest tiptoeing quietly to the exit …
Oh and uh short burn of the century comin soon. Flamethrowers should arrive just in time.
Reason RBC question about Model 3 demand is absurd is that Tesla has roughly half a million reservations, despite no advertising & no cars in showrooms. Even after reaching 5k/week production, it would take 2 years just to satisfy existing demand even if new sales dropped to 0.
The reason the Bernstein question about CapEx was boneheaded was that it had already been answered in the headline of the Q1 newsletter he received beforehand, along with details in the body of the letter
The 2 questioners I ignored on the Q1 call are sell-side analysts who represent a short seller thesis, not investors
–Elon Musk, Twitter
Autonomous vehicle coverage “outrageous”:
And Musk thinks the way autonomous cars are covered is “misleading” and “outrageous.”
Broadly there’s over a 1 million, I think 1.2 million automotive deaths per year. And how many do you read about? Basically, none of them. However…if it’s an autonomous situation, it’s headline news, and the media fails to mention that actually they shouldn’t really be writing the story, they should be writing the story about how autonomous cars are really safe, but that’s not the story that people want to click on. So they write inflammatory headlines that are fundamentally misleading to the readers. It’s really outrageous.
–Elon Musk, Tesla Q1 2018 Results – Earnings Call Transcript, Seeking Alpha.
All-wheel-drive Model 3: the AWD Model 3 will arrive after Tesla hits a production rate of 5,000 per week, which should happen in about two months, according to the Tesla First Quarter Update.
After achieving a production rate of 5,000 per week, we will begin offering new options such as all-wheel-drive and the base model with a standard-sized battery pack.
–Tesla First Quarter 2018 Update (PDF)
About the Model Y coming in 2019: wrong. Apparently that Reuters report about the Model Y starting production in 2019 was wrong. After all, if anyone should know, it’s Elon Musk. The Model Y — expected to be (more or less) a cheaper version of the Model X — won’t begin production for a couple of years.
The Reuters report is based on nothing. Like I don’t know where that came from. We will not be starting production on Model Y at the end of next year. I would say it’s probably closer to 24 months from now. So 2020 is a more likely prospect for Model Y, early 2020.
–Elon Musk, Tesla Q1 2018 Results – Earnings Call Transcript, Seeking Alpha.
