Tesla stock surges 18% after stellar earnings, one of its biggest gains in years

Tesla investors are in a good mood after the firm’s latest earnings report.

Shares of Elon Musk’s carmaker rallied as much as 18% on Thursday as traders took in the firm’s third-quarter financials, which showed that the company beat earnings while gross margins — a measure analysts have kept a close eye on — rose to 19.8%, better than the expected 16.8%.

The 18% intraday surge is the biggest for the automaker since April and the second-largest since March 2021, when shares were trading roughly $50 below where they are now.

Analysts were upbeat after Wednesday’s earnings report, which assuaged some doubts about Tesla’s core car business after a rough start to the year amid sagging deliveries and lower demand in China.

The company issued better-than-expected guidance for 2025 deliveries, eyeing growth of 20% to 30%.

“Last night Tesla delivered an early Christmas present for investors as the bulls got a monster margin rebound and surprisingly strong delivery outlook for 2025, which we would characterize as an Aaron Judge-like quarter and guidance,” Wedbush Securities analysts said in a note on Thursday, adding that hurt profit margins had been the “major overhang” for Tesla over the past year.

Morningstar said in a note that Tesla’s gross profit margins likely bottomed out in the first half of 2024 and were on track to surpass 20% in the fourth quarter.

Others on Wall Street, though, raised questions about other aspects of Tesla’s business. Uncertainty lingers about Tesla’s Full Self-Driving development, the timing of new models, and the outlook for producing and selling Optimus, the company’s humanoid robot.

“While CEO Musk forecasted strong unit growth in CY25 and praised his company’s opportunities in auto growth, FSD, and Optimus, we’re left asking ourselves, ‘where’s the beef?'” Truist analysts wrote in a note, maintaining their “hold” rating on the stock.

“TSLA offered no details on a CY25 model, no details on improved FSD, and no details on its plans for Optimus. Similar to our views post-Robotaxi day, we were left expecting more.”