獅山巡禮
投資雜談
Tesla earnings calls are rarely completely normal.
In the past, CEO Elon Musk has gone off on tangents, insulted the analysts asking questions, and taken questions from a random Youtuber because the analyst questions were so dry.
Tesla just had a record-setting quarter, delivering 497,000 vehicles and reporting a 29% increase in automotive revenues.
But all is not well in Teslaville, as rising costs hurt profits and the company lowered its capex guidance for the year, despite numerous production initiatives it needs to fund.
The efficiency of that revenue coming through tells us there is something broken down there in terms of the cost of doing business, according to Brian Mulberry, senior client portfolio manager at Zacks Investment Management.
A lot of investment is going into growing the Gigafactories, investments into cybertaxis, Optimus robot ramp some capex spending is legit, and some of it represents inefficiencies.
But while Elon Musk gets to speak his mind on everything on X, the microblogging social media site he owns, he often uses Teslas earnings calls to let his free-flowing imagination roam.
Teslas Q3 2025 earnings call was no different. Here are three of the wildest statements Elon Musk made during this weeks call with investors and analysts.
Elon Musk wonders whether Tesla cars dream of electric sheep
Famed science fiction writer Philip K. Dicks short story Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is one of the seminal pieces of fiction writing in the 20th century, and was the inspiration for the critically acclaimed Blade Runner film from 1982 starring Harrison Ford.
The storys central theme is whether non-sentient beings infused with artificial intelligence, like androids, have the same free will and rights as humans imbued
Elon Musk refers to Teslas as robots on wheels, and he let his mind wander about whether they get bored, considering how intelligent the vehicles are.
It might almost be too much intelligence for a car. I do wonder, like, how much intelligence should you have in a car? It might get bored, Musk said in response to a question about expanding production capacity.
One of the things I thought of, like, well, if weve got all these cars that maybe are bored, well, why theyre sort of, if they are bored, we could actually have a giant distributed inference fleet. If theyre not actively driving, just have a giant distributed inference fleet.
Those idle vehicles would constantly learn and share information as they deduce new details on the streets Tesla robots travel. Musk sees maybe at some point 100 million Teslas all learning and sharing information and solving problems in the real world.
Optimus, the money-making robot, is coming soon
Part of Elon Musks vision is a world free from mundane tasks for the average working person, with humanoid robots tirelessly doing those tasks.
Musk sees Optimus as the key to that future, referring to the still-in-development bot as the infinite money glitch.
Its difficult to express the magnitude of, like, if youve got something that, like, if Optimus, I think, probably achieves five times the productivity of a person per year because it can operate twenty-four seven. It doesnt even need to charge. It can operate tethered, Musk said.
Its plugged in the whole time. Thats why I call it, like, if youre true to sustainable abundance, where working will be optional. Theres a limit to how much AI can do in enhancing the productivity of humans. There is not really a limit to AI that is embodied. Thats why I called [it] the infinite money glitch.
But if Musk believes less intelligent Tesla vehicles can get bored, one has to wonder whether he has considered what else a humanoid robot (with potentially infinite intelligence and that is chained to an outlet so it can work nonstop) might get.
As actor Jared Leto recently discovered, boredom may be the least of its issues.
Elon Musk calls Glass Lewis, ISS corporate terrorists
Elon Musk doesnt seem to take challenges to his authority well, so when investor advisory firms ISS and Glass Lewis recently opposed Teslas pay package that could potentially net Musk
While Tesla has defended the pay package on social media, Musk himself hasnt said much publicly, until now.
I just need enough voting control to give a strong influence, but not so much that I cant be fired if I go insane. I think that sort of number is in the mid-twenties approximately, Musk said.
Like I said, I just dont feel comfortable building a robot army here and then being ousted because of some asinine recommendations from ISS and Glass Lewis who have no freaking clue. I mean, those guys are corporate terrorists, he said.
ISS and Glass Lewis did not return a request for comment.
