“This is the worst performance I’ve seen in Tesla’s history”, said disgruntled Tesla investor Ross Gerber following Tesla’s latest earnings, saying Elon Musk would talk about anything, like “robots taking over the world”, to “get you not to look at the facts”.
Indeed. Tesla’s earnings call was less a financial update than a sermon from Musk’s pulpit of techno-rapture, rhapsodising about humanoid robots, trillion-dollar energy markets, and even “heaven on Earth”.
Musk said Tesla will become “as valuable as the next five companies combined” – some achievement, given their combined market capitalisation is about 15 times larger than Tesla’s.
By mid-2026, millions of Teslas will drive themselves. By 2029, his humanoid robot, Optimus, will be rolling off factory lines at a million units per year.
[ Musk says he will cut back work for Doge as Tesla profit slumps 39%Opens in new window ]
A vehicle every five seconds, a utopia on the horizon. Musk urged investors to ignore “bumps and bundles” on the road.
The real pay-off comes in the “not too distant future”, “kind of next year or two”. Everything, from energy storage to AI, will eventually “move the financial needle” and then “go exponential.”
The message? Don’t focus on the dashboard. Look at the bright hill in the distance.
As Gerber suggested, that’s always the pivot.
From cars to hope, from software to story. When the numbers disappoint, the vision swells. Tesla’s stock always floats on dreams of what’s next. Musk’s style is less chief executive than prophet.
His product isn’t hardware, but belief. And belief, unlike a robotaxi, doesn’t need a working prototype – just an audience willing to wait.
