Tesla electric vehicles are parked at a Tesla service center on Aug. 2, 2025 in San Diego, California.
Kevin Carter | Getty Images
There are generally two ways for a company to increase its profit: increasing sales or cutting costs. Preferably both at the same time — because a rise in revenue might be overshadowed by spiking expenses.
That’s what happened to Tesla in the third quarter. Revenue at Elon Musk’s electric vehicle company rose 12% year on year, the first increase in three quarters. Despite that, net income plunged 37% from a year earlier.
The culprits? Lower vehicle prices, presumably in a bid to compete with Chinese manufacturers that are vacuuming up market share, as well as a 50% increase in operating expenses partly due to artificial intelligence and “other R&D projects,” according to Tesla.
Investors didn’t appear too pleased by Tesla’s after-the-bell report, sending its shares 3.8% lower in extended trading. The company’s earnings report followed disappointing ones from Netflix and Texas Instrument the day prior, which caused their shares to sink 10% and 5.6% respectively during regular trading Wednesday stateside.
Those moves dragged down the broader market. The three major U.S. indexes fell, though they managed to regain some losses by the session’s close. Still, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite are now looking at declines for October, for now.
There’s just six more days of trading before October ends. But that’s six days packed with earnings reports from tech behemoths such as Alphabet, Apple, Meta and Microsoft, which could very well turn around the fate of stocks.
What you need to know today
And finally…
The biggest crypto wipeout was led not by bitcoin, but much smaller tokens. Here’s what happened
The crypto industry recently had one of its worst days ever. More than 1.6 million traders suffered a combined $19.37 billion erasure of leveraged positions over a 24-hour period beginning Friday, Oct. 10.
More than a week after the event, its ripples are being felt mostly in smaller coins. Bitcoin is trading roughly 11% below its Oct. 10 highs. But lesser-known coins such as XRP, solana, dogecoin and BNB are trading between 15% and 24% off their pre-liquidation prices.
— Liz Napolitano