Markets can remain high on LSD longer than you can remain solvent.

Tesla sales have dropped because people hate Elon Musk. But they'll go back when he starts spending more time at the company.

— New York Times Pitchbot (@nytpitchbot.bsky.social) April 23, 2025 at 11:20 AM

I'm not sure there has ever been an earnings call as disastrous as Tesla's three days ago. I'm absolutely certain there has never been one this disastrous that was followed by such an inexplicable reaction. As for the disaster: just over a 70% drop in profits, an enormous—perhaps unprecedented—level of brand damage, and a flagship product they couldn't sell before the CEO became one of the most hated men in the world. Musk basically dropped the pretense of arguing that the car manufacturing business could ever justify the stock price of his company. Instead, he went all in on robots and robotaxis, despite a report leaked to the press a few days ago revealing that Tesla's own internal auditors had determined the self-driving taxi business would actually be a money loser. But here's the truly amazing part: the markets responded to this train wreck of dumpster fires—this once-in-a-lifetime chance to see a company absolutely implode—by pushing the stock up 17 points over the next couple of days. The P/E ratio is now an eye-watering 142.83. Tesla now has the worst of both worlds. Musk said he will continue his involvement with (and being the face of) the toxic DOGE movement, while also spending more time in the office tweeting, playing video games, and randomly rage-firing people. Edward Niedermeyer, who wrote the definitive book on Tesla, probably does the best job capturing the profound insanity of  the call. Here are a few excepts of his very long thread.

future of Tesla is all based on autonomous vehicles and robots, Musk says, which has long been his way of saying that somehow the car business which generates the majority of the company's revenue doesn't matter... but "there will be some bumps in the road," he admits

— e.w. niedermeyer (@niedermeyer.online) April 22, 2025 at 2:43 PM

"somehow the car business which generates the majority of the company's revenue doesn't matter" because Tesla will never make enough selling cars to justify its valuation, not even if it sold more than Toyota, VW, Ford, and GM combined. The fact that sales are cratering only highlights what has always been obvious.

Musk claiming to have a general solution to self-driving, present tense

— e.w. niedermeyer (@niedermeyer.online) April 22, 2025 at 2:49 PM

Make a mental note of that last one.

"hundreds" of Optimus robots "doing useful work" at Tesla factories by the end of this year one million units/year of Optimus by 2029/30 why would anyone believe any of this until they deliver FSD in any kind of meaningful way?

— e.w. niedermeyer (@niedermeyer.online) April 22, 2025 at 2:51 PM

As recently as October, his robots required human operators to perform tasks as simple as pouring drinks. 

"Closest thing to heaven on earth," Musk says of the "sustainable abundance for all" that he says the Optimus robots will deliver. I mean, there it is

— e.w. niedermeyer (@niedermeyer.online) April 22, 2025 at 2:54 PM

my magical robots are going to create heaven on earth by overturning the laws of economics is the kind of message that really speaks to wall streets spiritual side

— e.w. niedermeyer (@niedermeyer.online) April 22, 2025 at 2:55 PM

When Noah Smith and Ezra Klein wax poetic about abundance, remember they're getting their ideas from people like Marc (crypto, WeWork 2.0) Andreessen and Elon Musk.

Musks says only Model Ys will be available for fully autonomous rides in June well that is interesting...

— e.w. niedermeyer (@niedermeyer.online) April 22, 2025 at 3:05 PM

It looks like the proposal is for a modest geo-fenced version that at best matches what competitors have been offering for years. Not an option you'd go with if you had "a general solution to self-driving, present tense."

I also wouldn't be surprised if this was the last we saw of the Cybercab.

"large scale autonomy" is now what Musk predicts to be a year away, by which he means "millions" around the middle of next year

— e.w. niedermeyer (@niedermeyer.online) April 22, 2025 at 3:06 PM

Musk has been promising a million robotaxis on the road next year since 2019.

"the issue with Waymo's cars is that they cost waymo money... *chuckles from other executives* ... rimshot" uh, so that just happened, Elon literally said "rimshot" for his own "joke," like a Steve Carrel character

— e.w. niedermeyer (@niedermeyer.online) April 22, 2025 at 3:17 PM

Because Waymo has waymo advanced technology. 

Elon thinks Tesla will have "ninety something percent" market share in autonomous driving, with millions next year, he thinks nobody can keep up

— e.w. niedermeyer (@niedermeyer.online) April 22, 2025 at 3:18 PM

About that...

Tesla still doesn't have a robotaxi service. Waymo is now doing 250,000+ paid trips a week across its markets in the US. www.cnbc.com/2025/04/24/w... brief update from me @cnbc.com w/ my colleague on the Alphabet beat @jennelias.bsky.social [image or embed]

— Lora Kolodny (@lorak.bsky.social) April 24, 2025 at 3:08 PM

ELON DOUBLE DIPPED ON THE WAYMO MONEY JOKE

— e.w. niedermeyer (@niedermeyer.online) April 22, 2025 at 3:19 PM

God, what a loser. This next part is fun.

Colin Langdon (who was at the event I put on earlier in the month) asks about dust/fog/glare issues with cameras as a safety issue in Tesla's approach to driving automation. Musk claims Tesla uniquely "bypasses the digital signal processer" and does "direct photon counting"

— e.w. niedermeyer (@niedermeyer.online) April 22, 2025 at 3:55 PM

Langdon: "So the camera works when there is direct glare on it? Because I'm a little surprised by that" Musk: yeah... yeah, yeah 💀

— e.w. niedermeyer (@niedermeyer.online) April 22, 2025 at 3:55 PM

respect to Colin Langdon of Wells Fargo, that was one of the most pointed and direct (and IMPORTANT) question on one of these calls in a while

— e.w. niedermeyer (@niedermeyer.online) April 22, 2025 at 3:57 PM

As mentioned many times before, Musk learns most of his engineering lines phonetically. Currently there are a number of conversations on Blue Sky with actual experts trying to figure out the original line he mangled.

Paging @drskyskull.bsky.social for comment on "bypasses the digital signal processor" for "direct photon counting." He's a professor of optics, I'm sure he'll confirm that's totally a real thing Musk is talking about and totally something cheap enough to install on every Tesla camera.

— Max Kennerly (@maxkennerly.bsky.social) April 22, 2025 at 4:06 PM

Um I can't even imagine why he's talking about "photon counting." That implies discriminating the influence of individual photons at a detector and nobody is doing that except for folks doing low-light quantum optics experiments.

— Dr. SkySkull (@drskyskull.bsky.social) April 22, 2025 at 4:27 PM