Tesla's profit decline in the third quarter and bet on AI

The American group Tesla, specialist in electric vehicles and energy storage, announced contrasting results on Wednesday, with the third quarter generally satisfactory for analysts, who are impatient with a slowness in the realization of projects. The revenue of the Austin (Texas) group remained almost stable between July and September at $28.05 billion, while the net profit was $787 million, compared to $1.37 billion a year earlier. The consensus of Factset analysts expected $28.08 billion and $782 million, respectively. During this period, according to data published in early October, it delivered 486,532 vehicles worldwide, exceeding market expectations (approximately 461,000) by a good margin but in decline over a year (497,099). "While continuing to implement our innovations to reduce production and operating costs, over time, we expect the equipment-related profits to be accompanied by an acceleration of profits in superintelligence (artificial intelligence, NDLR), software, and fleets," the group stated on Wednesday in its release. The company is even more scrutinized today because its boss, the multi-billionaire conservative Elon Musk, stated on Tuesday evening during the presentation of SpaceX results that a rapprochement between the two groups he leads would be a "good idea." According to him, committees have been established internally to evaluate the opportunity. Union of giants Garrett Nelson, an analyst at CFRA Research, insisted on the "impressive" improvement in margins and the level of generated liquidity. The stock, which lost 14.06% since the beginning of the year, ended up up 3.41% on Wednesday with the prospect of this marriage between titans, but lost 2.10% in electronic trading at the end of the videoconference. SpaceX's market capitalization exceeds $2 trillion, that of Tesla $1.5 trillion. Yorkville Ives analysts estimated an "80%-90%" probability of a merger by the end of 2027. Before that, Tesla will have to accelerate the development and deployment of its multitude of projects, particularly its driverless taxi service (robotaxi and Cybercab), its humanoid robot Optimus, and autonomous driving (FSD). Especially given the significant investment expenditures: Tesla's CFO, Vaibhav Taneja, who had planned expenditures of more than $25 billion in 2026 in July, indicated on Wednesday that the group would ultimately spend $20 billion, adding that the company had "effectively managed its investments." This amount is still more than twice the investment budget of Tesla for 2025, which amounted to $8.5 billion. For Garrett Nelson, investor attention has shifted from these expenditures to focus on the potential merger, and the development of Tesla's products that will "significantly" influence its valuation. Tesla "has done remarkable things but continues to lose some of the most audacious bets of its leaders," indicated Paul Miller, a Forrester analyst, before the results announcement, recalling that Elon Musk had promised one million robotaxis by 2020. However, the service was only launched in June 2025 in a very restricted area of Austin (Texas), before being very gradually expanded. It is currently available in seven American cities (in Texas, Florida, and California). The same must be true for the Cybercab, a vehicle without pedals or steering designed specifically to operate as a robotaxi and commercially launched in early September in Austin. But, on its launch day, the federal road safety agency (NHTSA) opened an investigation to determine if the vehicle complied with federal standards. It must operate in Dallas starting in November, he specified to analysts Ashok Elluswamy, Tesla's head of artificial intelligence, adding that it could be sold to third parties by the second quarter of 2027. Tesla has also made strides with Optimus, promising to manufacture one million per year, but its production has just begun, drip by drip. According to Elon Musk, it should reach an annualized rate of 20,000 per week "in at least one year" and Optimus could then be commercialized. Regarding its original business, electric cars, more than ten million have been delivered since the first in 2008. Tesla aims for a production of "5 million (vehicles) per year by around 2030" – compared to 1.65 million in 2025 -, revealed Elon Musk on Wednesday. But the group, largely leading in global sales for this powertrain for years, has been overtaken by the Chinese BYD in 2025. Competition is now fierce, even in the United States where Chinese manufacturers are absent.