AI Summary:
Tesla’s 2024 financial results were disappointing, with several key points highlighted:
- Automotive Revenues: Fell by 8% in Q4 2024 compared to Q4 2023, totaling $19.8 billion.
- Energy and Storage Revenues: More than doubled, growing by 113% to $3 billion in Q4 2024.
- Services: Grew by 31% in Q4 2024, contributing $2.8 billion.
- Total Revenue: Increased by 2% in Q4 2024, but income fell by 23%, with an operating margin of 6.2%.
- Net Profits: Dropped by 71% to $2.3 billion in Q4 2024.
- Annual Performance: Automotive revenues decreased by 6% to $77 billion in 2024. Energy generation and storage increased by 67% to $10 billion. Services grew by 27%, bringing in $10.5 billion.
- Gross Profits: Fell by 1%, with net profits dropping by 53% to $7.1 billion for the year.
- Free Cash Flow: Decreased by 18% to $3.6 billion.
- Regulatory Credits: $2.8 billion of profit came from selling regulatory credits, not from core business activities.
- Future Predictions: Tesla expects energy storage revenues to grow by at least 50% year-over-year and aims to grow automotive sales by more than 60% in 2025.
Despite the poor financial results, Tesla’s share price increased by 103% over the same period.
This is a capitalist system. You might be referring to a free-market system, but those are rare and short-lived. Almost every capitalist system has subsidies, back-handers, state-protected monopolies and oligopolies, corruption, dirigiste policies, regulatory capture, and so forth. You can claim that none of it is capitalism, but it occurs in the only capitalist systems that exist in real life, so I suggest that you’re confusing “should” and “is.”