Photo: Instagram / Elon Musk
Tesla’s most recent earnings report, released on April 29, shows a profit of $16 million for the first quarter of the year, which makes it the carmaker’s best quarter yet. However, Tesla is bracing for a dire Q2 in the current health crisis, and you can tell by Elon Musk’s angry tweets.
Tesla closed 2019 as its best year yet and was looking forward to a solid, very promising 2020, perhaps more so than any other carmaker. Like for all those carmakers, 2020 proved the most unexpected and unpleasant surprise for Tesla, too, leading to factories shutdowns under shelter-in-place orders and health recommendations to avoid large gatherings.
Elon Musk was looking to reopen the Fremont, California Gigafactory, which was also the slowest to shut completely, on May 3. An internal memo was sent to key workers, asking them back to work on April 29, one day before the existing shelter-in-place order expired.
The Alameda County has just extended that order, while the California governor Gavin Newsom announced a four-phase process for reopening the economy. In other words, the Fremont Gigafactory stays shut down, at least for the time being.
All this explains Musk’s most recent tweets in which, among others, he’s crying “FREE AMERICA NOW,” while praising other governors who have allowed businesses to reopen and posting about how hospitals in California are basically ghost towns and that medical staff is being sent home because they have nothing to do. He’s also saying keeping Tesla factories closed, along with other businesses, is akin to fascism.
“To say that they cannot leave their house and they will be arrested if they do, this is fascist. This is not democratic, this is not freedom, give people back their god damn freedom,” Musk explains.
Musk has made no secret of his thoughts on the current pandemic, from saying it’ll blow over within weeks to claiming panicking is “dumb.” In recent weeks, he seemed to have turned around, ordering and delivering ventilators and PPEs to hospitals that needed them, and even getting Tesla to work on its own ventilators.
The earnings report explains why he’s changed his mind again: like every carmaker out there, Tesla is looking at the future and shuddering at the thought of even more production delays and low sales. Things are so bleak even making forecasts for the next quarter is proving impossible.
“It is difficult to predict how quickly vehicle manufacturing and its global supply chain will return to prior levels,” the report notes. “Due to the wide range of potential outcomes, near-term guidance of net income and free cash flow would likely be inaccurate.”
Elon Musk was looking to reopen the Fremont, California Gigafactory, which was also the slowest to shut completely, on May 3. An internal memo was sent to key workers, asking them back to work on April 29, one day before the existing shelter-in-place order expired.
The Alameda County has just extended that order, while the California governor Gavin Newsom announced a four-phase process for reopening the economy. In other words, the Fremont Gigafactory stays shut down, at least for the time being.
All this explains Musk’s most recent tweets in which, among others, he’s crying “FREE AMERICA NOW,” while praising other governors who have allowed businesses to reopen and posting about how hospitals in California are basically ghost towns and that medical staff is being sent home because they have nothing to do. He’s also saying keeping Tesla factories closed, along with other businesses, is akin to fascism.
“To say that they cannot leave their house and they will be arrested if they do, this is fascist. This is not democratic, this is not freedom, give people back their god damn freedom,” Musk explains.
Musk has made no secret of his thoughts on the current pandemic, from saying it’ll blow over within weeks to claiming panicking is “dumb.” In recent weeks, he seemed to have turned around, ordering and delivering ventilators and PPEs to hospitals that needed them, and even getting Tesla to work on its own ventilators.
The earnings report explains why he’s changed his mind again: like every carmaker out there, Tesla is looking at the future and shuddering at the thought of even more production delays and low sales. Things are so bleak even making forecasts for the next quarter is proving impossible.
“It is difficult to predict how quickly vehicle manufacturing and its global supply chain will return to prior levels,” the report notes. “Due to the wide range of potential outcomes, near-term guidance of net income and free cash flow would likely be inaccurate.”
FREE AMERICA NOW
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 29, 2020
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