Elon Musk used Tesla’s (TSLA) recent earnings call to make a case that Tesla is primarily a tech company — and yes, he’s now betting its entire future on his dream of fully autonomous vehicles.

“If you value Tesla as just an auto company, fundamentally, it’s just the wrong framework,” Musk emphasized amidst mounting pressure from investors worried about Tesla’s future. Stockholders are especially concerned about potential delays on the much-hyped “affordable” Tesla model, as Musk signaled pouring resources into self-driving technology.

Tesla attempted to walk two paths at once: It announced an accelerated timetable for its new car models, moving production from late 2025 to early 2025 — perhaps even late 2024. 

Yet Musk was adamant that the real investment thesis should hinge on their tech advances.

“If somebody doesn’t believe Tesla is going to solve autonomy, they should not be an investor in the company,” Musk said boldly, calling to mind his obscenity-laden tirade against reluctant X advertisers several months ago. 

He went on to claim that, even without him, Tesla is close to a self-driving breakthrough: “Even if I’m kidnapped by aliens tomorrow, Tesla will solve autonomy — maybe slower, but for vehicles at least.”

Bad Quarter For A Car Company

This high-stakes earnings call downer came as no surprise after a dismal quarter for Tesla. Deliveries were down 8.5% year-over-year, the first such decline in four years. Revenue and net income took similar hits. 

Perhaps the only bright spot was the acceleration of new affordable models, calming investor nerves after rumors of total delays, but Musk declined to offer specifics about this cost-conscious model. 

“We’ve said all we will on that front,” he deflected, but the news itself was enough to drive shares up over 13% after the market closed, proving TSLA still has some juice even as a quasi-meme stock.

Musk sees Tesla as primed to flip the switch, turning millions of existing vehicles into self-driving robotaxis overnight. “It might be the biggest asset value appreciation in history when that happens, when you can do unsupervised, full self-driving,” he asserted.

Despite the lack of truly self-driving Tesla cars and recent price cuts on current software, executives worked to allay investor concern about the poor quarter. Musk sees this as a lull before the self-driving wave, the second major growth stage for the company, which means in turn that Tesla anticipates slower sales growth for the rest of 2024.

Musk is betting big, and investors will be on edge until August 8th, when a glimpse of Tesla’s robotaxi app and prototype are scheduled to be unveiled. Musk made a similar promise about robotaxis in 2019 for a 2020 reveal. Four years on, the verdict is still out.