Reuters
Tesla profit tops target; Musk says high prices could hurt demand
(Reuters) -Tesla on Wednesday reported a smaller-than-expected drop in quarterly profit, helped by a string of price increases for its cars, which Elon Musk later said were “embarrassingly high” and could hurt demand. Tesla also sold a majority of its bitcoin holdings, which led to smaller-than-expected impairment charges caused by a decline in the value of the cryptocurrency, analysts said. CEO Elon Musk flip-flopped on a post-earnings conference call, saying at first that macroeconomic uncertainty might have some impact on demand for its electric vehicles, but when pressed for details by an analyst, he said the company did not have a demand problem but a production problem.
