Tesla store in Berlin-Reinickendorf smeared with blue paint

Activists have smeared the facade of the Tesla store in Berlin-Reinickendorf with blue paint in March (Carsten Koall/Getty Images)

What Tesla investors want to know from Elon Musk during tomorrow’s earnings report

Investors have a lot of questions about Tesla’s timelines and tariffs.

Rani Molla

4/21/25 2:34PM

Tesla reports its first-quarter earnings after the bell tomorrow and investors have a lot of questions about the future of the company, which has been among the worst-performing in the S&P 500 this year.

The FactSet analyst consensus estimates call for earnings per share of $0.41 and revenue of $21.345 billion, up slightly from the $21.301 Tesla reported in Q1 of last year. Both of those estimates have been trending downward since the start of the year, as delivery numbers released earlier this month came in way worse than expected and as the brand’s popularity sank to new lows. Meanwhile, the stock is down more than 40% this year and more than 7% just today.

As Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives has written, Tesla is going to have to make a lot of major changes — including CEO Elon Musk stepping down from his position at the Department of Government Efficiency — to turn things around.

Based on a survey of the most upvoted questions shareholders posted on the company’s investor relations website, Tesla investors are very concerned with the company’s timelines — something it’s been notoriously bad about — for promised products like affordable models, full self-driving, and the robotaxi. They’re also worried about how tariffs and political brand damage might affect the company’s future.

Here are some of the top questions on investors’ minds, listed by the number of upvotes on the Tesla investor relations site, and what we know so far about those topics:

Question: Is Tesla still on track for releasing “more affordable models” this year?

What we know: Reuters reported over the weekend that Tesla’s lower-cost, stripped-down Model Y, which was supposed to roll out in the first half of this year, is delayed “at least several months.”

Question: When will unsupervised full self-driving be available for personal use on personally owned cars?

What we know: Musk has been promising unsupervised FSD “next year” for at least the last five years. Musk in January said the technology was “limited simply by regulatory issues, not technical capability.”

“I’m very confident we have released unsupervised Full Self-Driving, fully autonomous Teslas in Austin and several other cities in America by the end of this year, as probably everywhere in America next year, at everywhere in North America at least.”

For now it seems that full self-driving will be confined to a Tesla-owned fleet of vehicles in Austin, not to personal vehicles. Musk has said this would start in June.

Question: How is Tesla positioning itself to flexibly adapt to global economic risks in the form of tariffs?

What we know: Because Tesla assembles its US-sold cars in the US, it’s insulated compared to other carmakers that finish their cars outside the US. That said, Tesla is heavily reliant on parts shipped from abroad, so its prices and bottom line could certainly be negatively affected by auto parts tariffs that go into effect next month; Musk and other Tesla execs have said as much.

Recently, Tesla suspended shipments of Cybercab and Semi parts from China because the tariffs were so onerous.

Question: Is the Robotaxi still on track for this year?

What we know: As far as we know, Tesla is still on track to roll out paid Cybercab rides in Austin in June (Google’s Waymo beat Tesla on that count), but we’ll believe it when we see it.

Recently, The Information reported that internal analysis from Tesla suggests the self-driving taxis might never be profitable.

Question: Did Tesla experience any meaningful changes in order inflow rate in Q1 relating to all the rumors of “brand damage”?

What we know: Tesla’s sales in Q1 saw the biggest drop ever and many analysts said brand damage related to Musk’s role in the government as well as the ensuing protests were at least partly to blame. Tesla bull Ives said brand damage from DOGE could create “15%-20% permanent demand destruction.” Indeed, surveys from YouGov found that while most Americans were aware of Tesla, they wouldn’t buy one — people interested in EVs would be much more likely to go for a Toyota or Honda.

Regarding DOGE, Musk himself said, “It’s costing me a lot to be in this job.”

And Tesla’s Cybertruck seems like it’s been especially difficult to sell. Just take a look at all of them stashed outside Tesla’s Texas production plant.

Rani Molla1h

“Tesla killer” Slate Auto switches CEOs ahead of launch later this year

Just months before the expected launch of its $25,000 truck, so-called “Tesla killer” Slate Auto has swapped out its CEO. Former Amazon Marketplace Vice President Peter Faricy is the new leader of the Jeff Bezos-backed company, while the previous CEO, Chris Barman, one of the electric truck maker’s first employees, is now president of vehicles.

“ The marketplace component is really important to us. Being able to understand how to sell things in the 21st century is really important because we're gonna be direct to consumer, without dealerships,” Jeff Jablansky, head of communications at Slate, said of the change. “The way Chris put it is, we are adding horsepower at a critical moment when people are going to be able to actually order their trucks.”

In a social media post just last month, then CEO Barman said the company would unveil the exact price tag for its Blank Slate, which goes on sale late in 2026, in June, but reaffirmed it will be in the mid-$20,000s.

Bezos-backed Slate Auto hires new, ex-Amazon CEO

Rani Molla4h

Amazon’s autonomous ride-hailing service now testing in 10 markets

Amazon self-driving subsidiary Zoox announced Monday that it’s testing in two additional markets, Phoenix and Dallas, bringing its total to 10 US markets. The company will begin by mapping select neighborhoods using retrofitted Toyota Highlander SUVs with safety drivers behind the wheel, before progressing to autonomous testing and eventually rolling out its steering-wheel-less, purpose-built vehicles for public users.

The service is currently available to the public in Las Vegas and to select users in the Bay Area, where it’s served 300,000 riders.

Zoox is also opening a third “Fusion Center” facility, in Arizona after Las Vegas and the Bay Area, from which it will provide assistance and coordinate operations for its fleet.

Zoox’s expansion comes as Alphabet’s Waymo recently reached its 10th public market and as Tesla’s Robotaxi says it plans to open in six new markets in the first half of the year.

Zoox is expanding and preparing to bring service to Dallas and Phoenix | Zoox

The service is currently available to the public in Las Vegas and to select users in the Bay Area, where it’s served 300,000 riders.

Zoox is also opening a third “Fusion Center” facility, in Arizona after Las Vegas and the Bay Area, from which it will provide assistance and coordinate operations for its fleet.

Zoox’s expansion comes as Alphabet’s Waymo recently reached its 10th public market and as Tesla’s Robotaxi says it plans to open in six new markets in the first half of the year.

Jon Keegan4h

Microsoft will use Anthropic’s Claude to power “Copilot Cowork”

Microsoft is partnering with Anthropic to power its new agentic offering, Copilot Cowork. The AI world is abuzz with agents that can do your busywork for you, and Anthropic’s Claude Cowork is one of the most prominent and capable offerings in the field.

The tech giant wrote:

“Working closely with Anthropic, we have integrated the technology behind Claude Cowork into Microsoft 365 Copilot. It is this multi-model advantage that makes Copilot different. Your work is not limited by one brand of models.”

Microsoft listed some examples of how Copilot Cowork could help with common tasks such as rescheduling meetings, sending emails, researching companies, working with spreadsheets, and making presentations.

It’s worth stepping back to note how wild it is that Microsoft, the productivity software behemoth that has absolutely dominated the business world for decades, has had to turn to an AI startup to control those apps.

Copilot Cowork: A new way of getting work done | Microsoft 365 Blog

“Working closely with Anthropic, we have integrated the technology behind Claude Cowork into Microsoft 365 Copilot. It is this multi-model advantage that makes Copilot different. Your work is not limited by one brand of models.”

Rani Molla4h

China’s smartphone slump could strengthen Apple

China smartphone shipments fell 22% year over year in January, according to a new Bernstein research note. The drop was partly due to the timing of Lunar New Year and tough comparisons with last year, when government subsidies boosted sales, but rising memory costs are also weighing on demand — especially in the lower-end segment dominated by Chinese brands.

Low-tier shipments fell 37%, hitting brands like Honor and Vivo particularly hard, while high-end sales from Apple and Huawei held up better. Overall average selling prices rose 13%.

That could be good news for Apple, which sits at the more price-insulated upper end of the Chinese market and has been making a comeback in the country. Apple’s market share grew to 18% in January — in line with Huawei — from 14% a year earlier, while the rest of the market fell 2 percentage points to 65%.

With its scale and industry-leading margins, the iPhone maker is better positioned to absorb higher memory costs. To wit: it recently unveiled the $599 iPhone 17e, which keeps its entry price steady with its predecessor while doubling storage.

Rani Molla

Alphabet ties a portion of Sundar Pichai’s pay to Waymo for the first time

By tying up to $260 million of its CEO’s pay to Waymo, Alphabet is making clear the autonomous vehicle unit is no longer just an “Other Bet.”

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