Elon Musk waves to the crowd during the 56th annual World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting in Davos, Switzerland, January 22, 2026.
Denis Balibouse | Reuters
Tesla reports first-quarter results after the bell on Wednesday.
Here’s what Wall Street is expecting, according estimates compiled by LSEG:
- Earnings per share: 37 cents estimated
- Revenue: $22.64 billion estimated
Tesla has underperformed all of its megacap peers on Wall Street so far this year, with the stock down 14% as of Tuesday’s close, weighed down by lackluster sales in the company’s core automotive business. The S&P 500 is up more than 3%.
Analysts expect revenue growth of about 17% from $19.3 billion a year earlier. That would mark the company’s most robust period for growth since mid-2023.
The past year has been a struggle due to competitors like China’s Xiaomi and BYD, which offer high-tech but lower cost models against Tesla’s aging lineup of EVs. Tesla also faces an ongoing consumer backlash in response to CEO Elon Musk’s work with the Trump administration, his incendiary political rhetoric and endorsements of far-right political figures.
Earlier this month, Tesla reported 358,023 vehicle deliveries for the first quarter, which was lower than the prior quarter and up about 6% from a year earlier. Tesla has recorded annual declines in the past two years.
Musk has been trying to change the narrative by focusing on the company’s efforts in self-driving technology and humanoid robots. While the company is testing a small number of driverless cars in its ride-hailing service in Texas, Tesla still relies on EV sales for the bulk of its revenue, and doesn’t yet sell a robotaxi-ready vehicle.
Tesla does sell an FSD (Supervised) system for $99 per month but it requires active supervision by a human who remains attentive to the road and ready to steer or brake at any time. The company recently scored permission to sell a version of FSD (Supervised) in the Netherlands, and is seeking broader approval in Europe.
In its deliveries report, Tesla said it deployed 8.8 gigawatt hours of battery energy storage systems during the first three months of 2026, a disappointment to Wall Street after a record 14.2 gigawatt hours in the fourth quarter of 2025.
Musk’s attention was very much divided in the first quarter as he merged his aerospace and defense company SpaceX with his artificial intelligence venture xAI in a deal valued at $1.25 trillion. Musk is now preparing the combined entity for what’s expected to be a record IPO.
In Tesla’s last earnings report in January, the company said it was investing about $2 billion in xAI, holdings that converted to SpaceX shares. Tesla and SpaceX are working on a myriad of new joint projects, including a Terafab chip manufacturing facility in Texas, and deeper integrations of xAI’s Grok models and AI chatbot into Tesla vehicles and robotics.
Investors who submitted questions online to Tesla ahead of Wednesday’s earnings call asked about Tesla and SpaceX and how the companies may continue working together, and whether they may ever merge.
Shareholders are also clamoring for hard numbers on Tesla’s long-promised driverless technology, when the company plans to reveal the newest version of its Optimus humanoid robots, and updates on its ride-hailing business, where it trails Alphabet’s Waymo in the U.S., and Baidu’s Apollo Go in China.
Tesla’s Robotaxi service, in its current form, mostly involves vehicles operated by human drivers in California, or with human safety supervisors in the car. The company recently announced it’s expanding its service to Dallas and Houston.
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