Should Elon be in this profits call?
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To those who doubt my deep desire to listen to Elon Musk any and every day, I just say, “chill”. I do. Hear me out, please.
An Earnings Call is not about Elon’s vision, his next projects, Twitter, peas making and defense contract payments.
It is about, well, Tesla’s earnings. And guidance for the next quarter.
The stock has been in rough waters for quite some weeks, and it is important to communicate clearly on the Q3-2022 financials. I expect the profits to beat Wall Street expectations (by more than 10%), and this should not be watered down by discussions of other, non-related matters. The wording of the guidance is going to be crucial for the assessment of analysts and investors in the days after the call. This profits call is really the ideal moment to refocus and to provide clarity on the current status and near term goals of Tesla.
For all other communication and product developments, annual shareholder meetings and specific events are organized, and Twitter will continue to perfectly serve as the daily town square to exchange ideas on most current discussions in a timely fashion.
Elon himself addressed the matter in July 2021 (here) and indicated that “he's planning to skip Tesla earnings calls going forward unless there's 'something really important' he needs to say”.
I ran a poll on Twitter just now with this question (participate and see current results here), and after one hour, with a respectable participation, the result is surprisingly close:
Earning calls are conference calls between a public company's management team and interested parties to discuss earnings for a specific period. The company addresses important aspects of its quarterly 10-Q report and annual 10-K report, particularly from the management discussion and analysis (MD&A) section.
It would be greatly beneficial to use Wednesday’s call for
a recorded message from Elon to address the main successes and challenges of the reporting period and a general guidance.
a detailed dive into numbers and strategies by the management team, and in particular Zachary Kirkhorn (Master of Coin), who I am very much looking forward to listening to.
a Q&A session based on analysts’ and retail investors’ questions, which can still be deposited and voted for here
We will of course all enjoy if Elon does participate, but I for one, will be fine if he decides not to.
See you all on Wednesday, enjoy the ride. And let’s put in place the hashtag #TeslaProfits on Wednesday, so that all our tweets can be found.
Couldn't have said it any better myself.
Only thing I'll add is that I'm a "fan boy" of Elon, $TSLA and a big proponent of free speech. I say this because, as you wrote, this is about the business and Elon tends to go off on tangents and doesn't like to play wallstreet games (can't blame him).
Either way and quite ironically when he's on calls he isn't adding much quantitative value.
Hearing Elon’s voice on the call, while often pleasing to retail shareholder fans, is certainly not necessary. Zach, Drew, and Martin are easily able to handle this quarterly ‘corporate chore’. Given the date of this particular Earnings Call and its proximity to the expected Twitter deal close, agree any Elon participation is best delivered via prepared recorded statement after the statement has been vetted by legal. With a big deal in play, the stakes are too high for any verbal ambiguity.