Musk Giggles as Tesla Tanks

Most CEOs reporting a 12% decline in quarterly revenues would adopt a sober attitude on their earnings call. Not Elon Musk, who opened Tesla’s analyst call on Wednesday with what sounded suspiciously like a penis joke, and then proceeded to make the rather, er, ambitious prediction that Tesla’s robotaxis would be available to half the U.S. population by the end of this year—“subject to regulatory approvals,” a qualifier that renders the projection meaningless. A little later in the call, he started to giggle.

It’s doubtful few investors were amused. The fact that revenue fell in the quarter isn’t surprising, given that Tesla had reported on July 2 that vehicle deliveries fell 13.5% in the second quarter. But it is now clear that the company’s revenue decline is accelerating, even as Musk focuses his attention on longer-term bets like robotaxis and robots. A looming end to government incentives for electric cars will pressure Tesla’s sales even more later this year—Musk acknowledged a “few rough quarters” are possibly coming in the near term, before he added that Tesla’s technological leaps would make up for any tough quarters by mid to late 2026.