What Next TBD: Tesla’s No Good, Very Bad Year

Slate Technology

Slate

Society & Culture, Technology, History

4.6 • 636 Ratings

🗓️ 15 January 2023

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Elon Musk was promising an “epic” Q4 at Tesla last year. But 2022 ended closer to what might be considered an “epic fail,” with the stock price down 65 percent. In an uncertain economic environment like this one, how much blame goes to Musk for unloading $40 billion worth of stock and focusing on his shiny new social media network? Or are these just growing pains that every company goes through as they mature? Guest: Dana Hull, automotive and technology reporter for Bloomberg News in San Francisco Host: Lizzie O’Leary If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like zero ads on any Slate podcast, bonus episodes of shows like Slow Burn and Dear Prudence—and you’ll be supporting the work we do here on What Next TBD. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to help support our work. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	There are days when you're hungry for McDonald's.
0:03.0	Then there are days when you're Big Arch hungry for McDonald's.
0:08.0	You'll get to know the difference.
0:10.0	New Big Arch for Big McDonald's hunger.
0:13.0	Until 9th of September, from 11 a.m., participating restaurants only, subject to availability.
0:20.0	Good afternoon, everyone. from 11 a.m., participating restaurants only, subject to availability.
0:28.6	Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Tesla's third quarter, 2022 Q&A webcast.
0:31.5	I'm a name is Martin Vieca, VP of Invest Relations,
0:36.2	and I'm joined today by Elon Musk, Zachary Kirkhorn, and a number of other executives.
0:44.9	In October of last year, a bunch of Tesla executives hopped on a conference call for investors.
0:50.6	It was their third quarter earnings call, a regular update for shareholders and analysts and anyone else who wanted to listen about how the company was doing and what its
0:55.3	future might look like. Elon Musk sounded upbeat. As our factories ran, we're looking forward
1:01.8	to a record-breaking cue pool. So it really, you know, knock on wood, it looks like we'll have
1:08.8	an epic end of year.
1:16.3	An epic end of year.
1:19.3	It's the kind of quote that just dangles out there, tempting fate.
1:24.4	Dana Hall listened to the call.
1:26.5	Of course I did. Absolutely. The epic year that wasn't.
1:30.2	The epic year that wasn't.
1:33.6	Dana's the Tesla beat reporter for Bloomberg News, and she's covered the company for more than a decade.
1:39.3	So she was watching Tesla's numbers closely when just weeks later, the company failed to deliver on that
1:46.1	epic promise, missing Wall Street's estimates for car deliveries. It was the third straight quarter
	...

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