Featured Image Credit: Chip Somodevilla / Staff/Smith Collection/Gado / Contributor
Topics: Elon Musk, Tesla, Technology, Money
Emily Brown
Topics: Elon Musk, Tesla, Technology, Money
A Tesla investor didn't hold back when sharing his thoughts on Elon Musk after a call to discuss the car company's financial results for the third quarter.
Tesla announced its Q3 results on 18 October before hosting a live Q&A session to discuss the numbers, which were not as strong as Tesla had expected.
Both earnings per share and the revenue of $23.35 billion fell short of what analysts had estimated the company would earn in Q3, and when Musk addressed the numbers in a call, investors said he turned into a 'little baby'.
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YouTuber, financial analyst and Tesla investor Kevin Paffrath, who runs the YouTube page 'Meet Kevin', described the earnings call as 'terrible' in an interview with Yahoo! Finance.
"I feel bad for [Musk]," Paffrath said. "Look, he's got a lot of things going on, legal battles, custody battles for his kids now, but it doesn't justify acting like Trump on Twitter stonewalling the SEC or the European Union, and quite frankly turning into a little baby on the earnings call."
The investor went on to claim Musk was 'almost in tears', adding: "It showed a complete lack of leadership. Tesla's a leadership-less company right now and it's terrible."
During the call, Musk told investors they had 'dug [their] own grave with Cybertruck', claiming the Tesla product was 'great' but that he wanted to 'temper expectations' for the vehicle.
“Demand is off the charts. We have over 1 million people who have reserved the car, so it’s not a demand issue,” he said. “But we have to make it, and we need to make it a price that people can afford, insanely difficult things.”
Drawing on his knowledge as a financial analyst, Paffrath pointed out that Tesla is beating 'every other American EV manufacturer' with its industry-leading margins, though argued they don't have a 'clear formula'.
"They should advertise to higher-income areas," he said. "And they should provide a clear path for margin expectations. We got none of that.
"We got a leaderless Elon Musk who was afraid to be on an earnings call, who sounded beat down and like somebody who was basically leading Tesla into a directionless path forward. It's disgusting."
Paffrath apparently wasn't the only one to lose faith in Musk after the call, as Tesla's stock price dropped by 15 percent in the two days following the call.
However, the company was still up year-to-date as of 20 October.