Tesla’s quarterly earnings fell short of expectations, and Elon Musk’s comments on the earnings call also appeared to anger a top Wall Street tech analyst. Toni Sacconaghi, Bernstein’s senior research analyst, which rates the EV player as an underperformer, said he wasn’t happy with the Tesla CEO’s performance on the earnings call. “Apart from the financials, we didn’t like the earnings call well,” Sacconaghi said in a note on Thursday. “Responses to many questions on the earnings call were terse and almost dismissive, with CEO Musk instead repeatedly making very bold predictions about Tesla’s future and capabilities.” The analyst said the Tesla earnings call was less informative than usual because of Musk’s concerns and questions about demand, the potential for lower prices and details of the Inflation Reduction Act. Instead, Sacconaghi said Musk was trying to highlight Tesla’s potential and aspirations. Musk said on Wednesday’s conference call that he sees a potential path for Tesla “to be worth more than Apple and Saudi Aramco combined.” The CEO also said that even with a possible looming recession, Tesla is “putting on the gas pedal.” Sacconaghi set its 12-month price target for Tesla at $150, which would represent a nearly 30% decline from Wednesday’s close of $222.04. The analyst said he remains concerned about demand levels, although Musk claimed his company has “excellent demand” and will continue to “sell every car we can make for the foreseeable future”: “Car delivery times have come down dramatically “Particularly in China, and we are concerned about weaker consumer spending and increasing competition,” Sacconaghi said. “We believe Tesla’s backlog declined in the quarter, suggesting orders are lagging current production rates.” Apparently, this wasn’t the first time Sacconaghi had been annoyed by Musk’s comments on Tesla’s earnings call. In the second quarter, Musk cut off Sacconaghi when he asked a question about cutting capital spending, and the CEO called his question “boring.” and “Bullshit.” Tesla did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment — report by CNBC’s Michael Bloom.
