Elon Musk waves to the crowd during the 56th annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, January 22, 2026.
Denis Balibouse | Reuters
Tesla reports its first quarter results after the bell on Wednesday.
Here’s what Wall Street expects, according to estimates compiled by LSEG:
Earnings per share: 37 cents estimatedIncome: $22.64 billion estimatedTesla has underperformed all of its large-cap 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%, up from $19.3 billion a year earlier. This would mark the company’s most robust period of growth since mid-2023.
The past year has been difficult due to competitors like China’s Xiaomi and BYD, which offer high-tech but less expensive models compared to Tesla’s aging line of electric vehicles. Tesla also faces continued consumer backlash in response to CEO That of Elon Musk working with the Trump administration, its inflammatory political rhetoric and support for far-right political figures.
Earlier this month, Tesla reported 358,023 vehicle deliveries for the first quarter, which was lower than the previous quarter and up approximately 6% from the previous year. Tesla has seen annual declines over the past two years.
Musk has attempted 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 electric vehicle sales for the bulk of its revenue and is not yet selling a robotaxi-ready vehicle.
Tesla does sell a FSD (Supervised) system for $99 per month but it requires the active supervision of a human who remains attentive to the road and ready to steer or brake at any time. The company recently won approval to sell a version of FSD (Supervised) in the Netherlands and is seeking broader approval in Europe.
In its shipments report, Tesla said it deployed 8.8 gigawatt hours of battery energy storage systems in the first three months of 2026, a disappointment for Wall Street after a record 14.2 gigawatt hours in the fourth quarter of 2025.
Musk’s attention was very divided in the first quarter as he merged his aerospace and defense company SpaceX with his artificial intelligence company xAI in a deal valued at $1.25 trillion. Musk is currently preparing the combined entity for what is expected to be a record IPO.
At Tesla latest earnings report in January, the company announced it was investing about $2 billion in xAI, stakes converted into SpaceX stock. Tesla and SpaceX are working on myriad new joint projects, including a Terafab chip manufacturing plant in Texas, and deeper integrations of Grok models and xAI’s AI chatbot into Tesla vehicles and robotics.
Investors who submitted questions online to Tesla ahead of Wednesday’s earnings conference call asked about Tesla and SpaceX and how the companies might continue to work together and whether they might ever merge.
Shareholders are also demanding hard numbers on Tesla’s long-promised driverless technology, as the company plans to unveil the latest version of its Optimus humanoid robots and updates on its ride-hailing business, where it has been lagging. The alphabet Waymo in the United States, and that of Baidu Apollo Go in China.
Tesla’s Robotaxi service, in its current form, mainly concerns vehicles ooperated by human drivers in California or with human safety supervisors in the car. The company recently announced it was expanding its service to Dallas and Houston.
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