Tesla to Report Earnings Wednesday After the Close

Tesla, a leading manufacturer of electric vehicles, is set to release its fourth-quarter results on Wednesday after the market closes.

Analysts were expecting the following as of Wednesday morning, according to Refinitiv:

Tesla reported revenue of $17.72 billion and adjusted earnings of $2.52 per share in the year-ago quarter.

Earlier this month, Tesla reported vehicle delivery and production numbers for the fourth quarter of 2022. While these numbers set a new record for the company, they fell shy of Tesla's goals and analysts' expectations. Tesla had cut prices on its cars in December in an effort to spur customers to take deliveries before the end of the year.

Tesla reported vehicle deliveries of 405,278 and production of 439,701 vehicles in the period ending December 31, 2022. Full year deliveries amounted to around 1.31 million, a record for Tesla. The company started production at its new factories in Austin, Texas, and Brandenburg, Germany in the same year.

In an interview with an owners' club posted to YouTube in June, Musk said that the factories were akin to "money-burning furnaces" last year.

Tesla has been cutting prices on its cars around the world in 2023, upsetting customers in the US and China who recently bought new Teslas at higher prices. This has caused a decline in used Tesla prices in the US.

Tesla invites questions from both retail and institutional investors ahead of their earnings calls through a site called Say.com.

Investors on that site say they want to know what the recent price cuts will do to Tesla’s automotive gross margins, how much the company expects to grow sales of its cars in 2023, and when Tesla plans to start mass production and deliveries of its long-delayed, sci-fi inspired, pickup truck the Cybertruck.

As Tesla's share price declined by more than 40% over the past six months, shareholders sought answers from Tesla and Elon Musk about his intentions for the company.

Musk is currently dividing his time, attention and resources between Tesla, SpaceX, the defense contractor where he is CEO, and Twitter, the social media business he recently acquired.

The celebrity CEO sold billions of dollars worth of his Tesla holdings last year, including $3.6 billion in the fourth quarter, in order to finance the Twitter deal. He immediately appointed himself "Chief Twit" and took over as CEO.

Since taking over Twitter, Jack Dorsey has made sweeping changes to the business and the service, including allowing people who had been permanently suspended from the platform to come back online. Dorsey has also been outspoken about Twitter's role in the spread of misinformation, and has taken steps to address the issue.

According to research by YouGov, Elon Musk's recent activity on Twitter, including his political statements, has correlated with a sharp decline in his and Tesla's reputation among liberal- to very liberal-leaning people in the United States.