Tesla Q1 2018 Earnings Call 2. Mai 2018 Die berüchtigte Telefonkonferenz zum ersten Quartal 2018, in der Musk Analystenfragen als langweilig abtat und stattdessen Fragen von Kleinanlegern aus YouTube beantwortete.
Die berüchtigte Telefonkonferenz zum ersten Quartal 2018, in der Musk Analystenfragen als langweilig abtat und stattdessen Fragen von Kleinanlegern aus YouTube beantwortete.
Transkript News Anchor
Tesla released earnings Wednesday and the stock fell in after hours trading in the wake of a record loss of almost $785 million. On the earnings call, Elon Musk expressed irritation with the media. Ignoring a question from an RBC analyst, he decided to mix things up. Take a listen.
Ross Rubin
We're going to go to YouTube. Sorry, these questions are so dry, they're killing me.
Co-anchor
Thank you. Our next question is from Galileo Russell with hyperchange.
Galileo Russell (HyperChange)
Hey, great quarter. Thanks for having me on the call to represent retail investors. I was wondering with Waymo's plans to launch an autonomous taxi service in limited markets this year, if you could give us an update on the Tesla network and any details surrounding the launch date or geographic rollout. Thanks.
Ross Rubin
Sure. So, I mean, thank you for an interesting question.
News Anchor
All right. Joining us now is Ross Rubin, columnist at zdn.net and the reporter, the YouTube reporter on that call, Galileo Russell, founder of HyperChange TV. Great to have you both here with us today. Galileo, let's start with you. You spoke with him for about 25 minutes. Did he say anything that surprised you in that conversation?
Galileo Russell (HyperChange)
Nothing too shocking or surprising, but a lot of great insight in terms of the future of let's say the semi truck with fortuning and making that more cost competitive with rail. More details on the Tesla network and how they think about rolling that out. So I think we got a ton of awesome clarity. The call that long term investors are really valuing.
Co-anchor
And let's go to you as well, Ross, pulling you in here on some of the numbers. So Tesla of course reporting its biggest loss while also beating on the, on the revenue side. So how do you think investors should be weighing all the information they got yesterday and how should they really be feeling about Tesla at this point?
Ross Rubin
Well, this is really the cause for concern on the investor side. The cause for the questions about the, the fundamental, the technical fundamentals. It's Musk saying that they're going to turn it around, they're going to start being profitable in the next few quarters. And that's really what investors are trying to get at in terms of nailing him down on that.
News Anchor
Okay, Galileo, I want to come back to you. This, you know, in spite of some of the fandom that has spurred and swirled around Tesla for so long, you've been a very big supporter of Tesla. You've got to admit that this Elon that we saw last night was an off the rails Elon. It was much far from his traditional or a, the traditional manner of an exec on a call like this?
Galileo Russell (HyperChange)
Yeah, I mean, Elon and Tesla are innovative and disruptive and I think that's just what we saw on the earnings call. Like they realized that the quality of the questions from the analysts and the analysts, incentives to ask good questions that long term investors care about just isn't there. And retail investors need a voice and there's a ton of questions that need to be asked. And I've gotten like hundreds of tweets and hundreds of emails from shareholders saying that this is the best and most informative conference call they've ever heard from Tesla. So I think that validates it. And I want to bring up one thing on the profitability. Everyone likes to point at Tesla's loss, but doesn't actually look at where they're spending the money. Tesla always loses significant capital right before a vehicle launch or right during a vehicle launch because they have to invest in capex. Tesla's cash balance only fell 700 million this quarter and they spent 655 million on capex. The operating business is actually not that capital intensive. And we've literally. This is Tesla's business model. Like, it's not that I believe in Elon. I believe that history repeats itself. And every single time they launch a vehicle it goes cash flow positive, the entire company, two to three quarters later. And then they say, okay, we proved it, now let's ramp up and spend on the next vehicle. And that' just what we're witnessing with Model 3.
Co-anchor
Right. I also want to give Ross a moment to reflect as well on sort of how the earnings call panned out. Do you agree with Galileo here in that, you know, it was one of the most informative earnings call that they've had so far. And how do you sort of take Elon Musk's demeanor during the call?
Ross Rubin
Well, sure, you know, Musk clearly an ideas guy, has positioned Tesla and many of his other ventures as long term plays. And there was a comment earlier about not Tesla perhaps not being the vehicle for you, no pun intended. If you're concerned about a volatile business, I mean, that's the kind of statement that companies make on their S1s, but, but it's true. And you know, they're still ramping up the portfolio. They're entering the Model 3. Model 3 coming to market at a time when, when other automakers are retreating from the sedan market. So, you know, obviously just a different stage in the business and they're going to be really building out the portfolio and trying to reach a more mainstream consumer market over the next few years.
Galileo Russell (HyperChange)
Galileo.
News Anchor
Tesla stock down today about 6.6%, 7% at the Open. So take it off for just a bit when we look at that. Are you buying more Tesla here today? We've talked about your bullish sentiment.
Galileo Russell (HyperChange)
Oh yeah. I mean I'm all in on Tesla. I have no money or free capital or otherwise. I would definitely be buying Tesla right now. I think a big reason the stock is taking a hit is because analysts are really frustrated that they sort of got ousted on the conference call. Like even Adam Jonas is no, and almost seem to be taking it personally and attacking Musk and the company because of that. And I think they realized that Tesla really doesn't need to raise capital going forward, so their banks are going to miss out on those fees to raise capital. And I think that's really what we're seeing happen.
News Anchor
Is anybody from Tesla reached out to you since the call took place?
Galileo Russell (HyperChange)
Not after the call. I'm sure they're really busy actually. Although Elon did retweet my video that recap the conference.
Co-anchor
Very cool. Ross, I also want to ask you about one thing Elon Musk brought up in the call yesterday and that was sort of the coverage on the autopilot and the accident there. So he was very angry at the way that it was handled by the media in saying that, you know, there are fewer accidents and injuries when someone's using autopilot versus not. So do you have any comments on, on sort of his reaction to that?
Ross Rubin
Sure. I mean this is going to be a really challenging space in terms of the development of self driving cars and autonomy. There's going to unfortunately be accidents, there's going to continue to be deaths and the trade off is that over the long term we're going to wind up with a safer road environment than we have today. But you know, unfortunately there's, there's still going to be collisions and we just have to keep that in mind as the technology keeps developing.
Co-anchor
And Ross, what are some of the things that Tesla and Elon Musk can do proactively sort of to avoid this sort of, I guess, backlash against these sort of events? When it comes to Autopilot and continuing
Ross Rubin
to test new technologies, I think transparency is important. For example, after the, the Uber collision in Arizona, you know, the company certainly stopped trials immediately and move to sharing as much information as they could about the investigation. Which by the way, I thought was a, you know, pretty, pretty nice turnaround for Uber in terms of how they often handle these kinds of controversies. Really, really the same for Tesla, you know, as they continue to develop the technology, as they continue to get data on what's working and where the faults in the system are, it's just important to share that with the public. I think that's something that Musk understands in terms of the Space X work that has, you know, a high degree of risk involved with it as well.
News Anchor
Angela, you had a response?
Galileo Russell (HyperChange)
Yeah, I think this is an extremely important question and that's why I asked about it on the conference call. And Elon Musk, in response to my question, said that they would be releasing quarterly data to make it more transparent on sort of the status of this progress. So I think it's a really interesting angle to see the evidence of. Like these are the things that are being discussed now in the media as evolving Tesla's story, and those stem from the questions that I asked on the call.
News Anchor
Galileo Russell joining us here on set. He's the founder of HyperChange TV. And Ross Rubin joining us as well via Skype, columnist at ZDNet. Thank you both for joining us here today.