Wall Street Skeptical of Tesla’s Promise to Post Net Profit
The electric car and solar panel maker delivered more than 80,000 vehicles from July through September, and CEO
Still, of 15 analysts who follow the company, not one expects
“We’d be really very surprised if they posted a profit for the third quarter,” said Garrett Nelson, an analyst for CFRA Research. “This is a company that lost over $3 per share each of the last two quarters. To go from that to all-of-a-sudden profitable would take a dramatic improvement.”
There also were warning signs from the company about reduced profit margins in
In a cheerleading email to employees as the third quarter closed in September, Musk wrote that
Musk and
The company has also been plagued with one controversy after another, much of it self-inflicted as a result of Musk’s erratic behavior. During the last quarter, he ran afoul of the Securities and Exchange Commission, which filed a lawsuit alleging that he misled investors by falsely declaring on Twitter that he had lined up financing to take
Now all eyes are back on
Citron Research, which had bet against
Citron wrote that
“As much as you can’t believe you are reading this, we can’t believe we are writing this,” Citron wrote.
But Citron wrote that a strong quarter could make another capital infusion unnecessary. “