Elon Musk On Tesla Q1 2025 Earnings Call: “I Remain Extremely ‘Optimus’ About The Future Of The Company,” Says DOGE Work “Mostly Done” [Updated]

After enduring a brutal pummeling, one that has seen its stock decline by nearly 50 percent in what is inarguably one of the fastest transitions from outright euphoria to abject despondency in the stock market's long history, Tesla has just disclosed its earnings for the first quarter of 2025, managing to post broadly negative results relative to Wall Street's consensus expectations.

Before going any further, please read through Wall Street's consensus expectations (compiled by the company's IR) for Tesla's key quarterly metrics as detailed in the above snippet (source).

Tesla (TSLA) Q1 2025 Earnings

Tesla has reported $19.335 billion in revenue for the first quarter of 2025, badly missing consensus expectations of $20.01 billion.

The above chart gives a segmental overview of Tesla's top-line metric for the just-concluded quarter. Do note that Wall Street analysts expected Tesla to disclose $14.119 billion in automotive revenue, $3.157 billion in energy-related bookings, and $2.733 billion in revenue from other sources.

The following snippet summarizes the EV giant’s production activities during the quarter:

As we reported earlier this month, Tesla delivered 336,681 units in Q1 2025 against a production level of 362,615 units.

Moreover, Tesla's auto gross margin (ex-Regulatory Credits) printed at 12.50 percent for the just-concluded quarter against consensus expectations of 12.30 percent.

Finally, the EV giant has announced $0.27 in non-GAAP (adjusted) EPS, missing consensus expectations of $0.38.

In a rare bit of good news, Tesla has recorded free cash flow of $700 million for the quarter, though this is still below Wall Street's expectation of $1.1 billion. Also, do note that the EV giant earned $595 million via regulatory credits in Q1.

The following snippet summarizes the company's latest guidance:

Tesla continues to contend with brand damage in the US and the EU, and heightened competition in China. Moreover, due to the recent tariff-driven upheaval, the EV giant has reportedly delayed the start of trial production for the Cybercab and the Semi. Also, Tesla has purportedly delayed the launch of a stripped-down version of the Model Y, originally expected to launch in H1 2025.

However, in its guidance, Tesla has reiterated that the cheaper Model Y will enter production in H1 2025, and the Cybercab's launch is still expected in 2026. Do note that Tesla does not actually project when it would return to growth. This is a major red flag.

Tesla intends to provide a special "company update" during its earnings call. We'll continue to update this post with relevant details.

Elon Musk says he is "extremely Optimus about the future of the company." The CEO of the EV giant thinks autonomy would start to move the needle for the company starting in the middle to the second half of 2026.

Also, Musk just said that his DOGE work is "mostly done," and that he'll spend a lot more time at Tesla starting next month.

The EV giant's CFO underplayed the supposed brand damage to Tesla from Elon Musk's political activities, asserting that the "unwarranted hostility" only had an impact in certain markets. Elon Musk further clarified that "absent from macro issues, we don't see any reduction in demand."

On the autonomy front, Musk said that Unsupervised FSD will launch on the Model Y in Austin, Texas, this June. By the end of 2025, Tesla intends to roll out this service to a number of US cities. Also, the EV giant will start operating between 10 and 20 robotaxis in Austin this June. The version of the FSD that is currently being tested for Tesla's robotaxi service requires a critical intervention every 10,000 miles on average, as per Elon Musk's own admission. For comparison, Waymo requires a critical intervention every 17,000 miles or so.

On the topic of the upcoming more affordable models, Elon Musk detailed that those products would resemble the form factor of the EV giant's current lineup.

As far as the Cybercab is concerned, Elon Musk thinks that it will be built 6x faster than the Model Y, rolling off the assembly line every 5 seconds vs. the 33 seconds for the Model Y.

Tesla shares are up around 5 percent as of the time of the last update (19:37 EDT). Judging from this reaction, Elon Musk seems to have worked his magic one more time.

About the author: Writing is my one incontrovertible passion. Over the past six years, he has authored over 2,200 distinct articles on financial and tech-related topics, spanning nearly 1 million words. And he has been a member of Wcctech mobile team since 2025. As an alumnus of the University of Toronto, Rotman Commerce Program, I bring nuance, in-depth knowledge, and a unique perspective to every topic that I cover. When I'm not writing, I'm traveling the world, exploring hidden confectionaries and restaurants as an aspiring food connoisseur.

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