Elon Musk Had a Great Year. Tesla Sales? Not So Much
The EV maker’s first drop in annual sales in more than a decade suggests proximity to political power has its limits.
Weak finish.
Photographer: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
The strange thing about Tesla Inc.’s latest results, released Thursday morning, is that a company touting leadership in artificial intelligence and self-driving cars struggles to predict where its own sales will be in a couple of months.
In late October, Tesla surprised markets by announcing it expected a “slight increase” in annual vehicle sales in 2024, implying the company would move around 515,000 in the fourth quarter. Wall Street analysts, who had been slashing their forecasts for fourth-quarter sales for the best part of a year, duly reversed course and the consensus estimate jumped to almost that number. As it turns out, sales came in at about 496,000. Companies do miss guidance, of course. But in this case, Tesla had pointedly challenged the prevailing view on the street about one of the easiest figures for any enterprise to predict, let alone one that has rebranded itself as an AI giant.