Shares of EV maker Tesla close the week lower after its first-quarter earnings miss and its latest decision to hike EV prices after several rounds of price reductions.
Video Transcript
- Been a wild week for Tesla, hasn't it? What a ride, down more than 10% over the last five days, the EV maker's Q1 earnings disappointing the Street. Gross margins really coming in below expectation, and that was the focus going in, revealing a profit miss as the company slashed prices on its vehicles to spur demand. Then today announcing price hikes on models S and X. The stock closing up just over 1% today.
Choose your own adventure here, Seana. We could talk about any number of things for the past week in Tesla.
I was going to say, there's certainly a lot to unpack, a number of headlines coming out. When it comes to the price of the Model S and the Model X, what they were just raising there, the prices of those two vehicles, to put this in perspective, it's still lower than what they were at the end of the first quarter, which was only three and a half to four weeks ago. So yes, we are seeing a little bit of an increase there. But certainly not going to have, you wouldn't think, a huge impact on Tesla, given the fact that the Model Y and the Model 3 are their top sellers there.
But when it comes to how the Street was looking at these results here, the profit margins clearly under pressure. Seven analysts, I believe it was, lowered their price targets on the stock. Truist downgraded it to a hold today. So I think the Street is kind of taking pause, catching its breath, trying to figure out exactly what Tesla looks like, at least in the coming quarters, given the fact that they might be under some pressure in the near term.
- And I'm just quickly watching the 17 shareholders writing a letter. They own a combined $1.5 billion in Tesla shares. They say they've got a governance problem, that Elon Musk, the CEO, is distracted. Far too many duties-- his attention is diverted. Will there be some changes? This has been the call for weeks, months, more than a year. Will he find someone to run Twitter by the end of year? I'm not holding my breath.
- I'm not holding my breath either.
