When Tesla (TSLA) reports first quarter earnings after the close of trading on Wednesday, you will likely hear the familiar voice of billionaire CEO Elon Musk on the earnings call.
And while the numbers from Musk probably won’t be great given pressure on electric vehicle demand, it will be important to get updates on the growth initiatives he has planned for 2026. They include robotaxi expansion and humanoid robots production. The unpredictable Musk may even drop a hot take on the impending initial public offering of his rocket company, SpaceX (SPAX.PVT).
But through it all, investors would be wise to keep one thing in mind: Musk is a human with a knack for identifying moments he has to pivot a company and shareholder thinking.
The Elon Musk superpower: “I think what Elon constantly does is he looks at what is the existential threat to the business right now,” former Tesla president Jon McNeill said on Yahoo Finance’s Opening Bid Unfiltered podcast (see video above).
For Tesla, it means “you have to have autonomous cars because nobody’s going to choose a car that doesn’t become a chauffeur if they have a choice. And the second is you’ve got to be a low-cost manufacturer. And the proxy for that is robotics … And so [Musk] focuses just on those two things,” McNeill said.
Who is Jon McNeill: Now a board member at General Motors (GM) and Lululemon (LULU), McNeill served as a president at Tesla from 2015 to 2018. During that time, revenue at the EV maker grew from $2 billion to $20 billion.
In his new book “The Algorithm,” McNeill breaks down what made Tesla so successful, from its processes to Musk’s thinking.
About those Tesla earnings: Tesla delivered 358,023 vehicles in the first quarter, missing analyst estimates of 366,000 to 370,000 units. Although this represents a 6.3% increase year over year, the growth came from a depressed baseline, and the absolute numbers showed a significant sequential decline from the record-breaking fourth quarter of last year.
The expiration of the $7,500 federal EV tax credit at the end of last year dealt a major blow to US demand. Additionally, persistent high interest rates have made vehicle financing more expensive for the average buyer.
Read more: How to avoid the sticker shock on Tesla car insurance
Profits are also expected to be pressured by investments in Cybercab and humanoid robot development.
“With expectations for Tesla performance having collapsed for all financial and performance metrics across all time periods through the end of the decade, the +50% rise in Tesla shares and +32% increase in analyst price targets as this collapse has taken place implies an expectation for a sharp pivot to materially better than earlier expected performance in the time beyond this decade,” JPMorgan analyst Ryan Brinkman wrote in a note earlier this month.
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