Here's how Tesla's stock performed after it erased glut of unsold EVs
Tesla’s stock dropped more than 3% in trading on Thursday, October 22, one day after company CEO Elon Musk addressed investors as the Austin-based automaker erased a record number of unsold EVs it had at the start of the year.
Tesla stock dropped 3.08%, to more than $374 per share by the close of trading Thursday on the NASDAQ stock exchange. The dip came despite Musk touting the fact that his company sold more EVs than it produced for the second straight quarter, which allowed it to eliminate the 50,326 vehicle glut the company reported having in the first quarter of 2026, when Tesla said it produced 408,386 electric cars and sold 358,023.
Musk also touted Tesla’s rollout of its two-seat Cybercab and expansion of its Robotaxi services.
“So the third quarter was very strong, and I’d like to give a big congratulations to the whole Tesla team for working hard to make it happen,” Musk said on a Oct. 21 call with investors. “Demand is growing rapidly for our vehicles. It’s exceeding our production by a significant margin.”
Musk added: “Obviously, we’re going to be ramping and we are ramping production meaningfully.”
“The biggest driver for demand is full self-driving,” Musk continued. “And today, there’s really no competitor for FSD in any car that you can buy. And to be clear, we are producing and delivering as many cars as we can, and we’re pushing very hard for FSD approval in additional markets.”
The comments come as Tesla has reported sales of 1,324,681 electric cars in the first nine months of 2026, compared to production of 1,324,535 EVs in the same period last year.
What did Tesla report for its earnings?
Tesla reported it has more than $28 billion in revenues and an adjusted earnings per share of $0.48 in the first nine months of 2026. Those results were nearly identical to analysts’ projections that the company would end up having $28 billion in revenue and an adjusted earnings per share of $0.45.
“We continued our progress on a lot of fronts in Q3,” Vaibhav Taneja, Tesla’s Chief Financial Officer said in on the investor call.
“This is by far the most exciting time to be at Tesla,” Taneja also said. “The foundation being laid around autonomy, robotics and energy is setting us up for an extremely bright future.”
Why were Tesla’s EVs not selling as fast in the US as they used to?
Tesla sold 589,160 cars in the United States in 2025, down 7% from the 633,762 vehicles it sold domestically in 2024. The drop occurred despite the fact that overall EV sales accounted for represented 9.6% of U.S. auto sales in 2025, which was a only a 0.6% decrease from 2024 levels, according to the Alliance for Automotive Innovation.
Additionally, EV sales overall are down in the U.S this year. Electric vehicles accounted for 6.4% of all U.S. new car sales in the third quarter of 2026, up from 5.8% in the second quarter, according to Cox Automotive. That was down from 10.5% in the third quarter of 2025, the last three months when shoppers could get $7,500 in federal EV tax credits.
Tesla citing a turnaround in its sales fortunes this year, saying it “ended the quarter with the largest backlog for our passenger vehicles in four years” in a presentation to investors after the third quarter of 2026.
Industry analysts noted the impact of Tesla’s bombastic CEO Elon Musk‘s work in 2025 with President Donald Trump and staunch conservative political stances on the sales performance of the company’s cars last year. Musk still comments on politics, but he has left the Trump administration and he keeps a slightly lower political profile now.
Tesla is also facing increased competition from other manufacturers who are debuting new models, even as some automakers are pulling back to recent dips in EV demand and the elimination of federal support for the technology.
What did Musk say about Cybercab and Robotaxi?
Musk said Tesla’s Robotaxi service has grown at a fast pace.
“It really is an extremely fast week-over-week growth in autonomous miles,” Musk said. “And I don’t think there’s any company in the world that can match our scale with autonomous vehicles as we continue to ramp.”
Tesla says on its website its Robotaxis have driven autonomously for over 3 million miles. it currently operates its Robotaxis in limited areas of Austin, Dallas, Houston, Tampa, Orlando and Miami.
The company has announced plans to expand the service to cities such as Phoenix, Las Vegas, San Antonio and Jacksonville.
Musk said “the Cybercab fleet in Austin, for example, has grown by a factor of 10 since launch about a month ago.”
“The cumulative mileage is really — when I look at the weekly chart, it’s wow,” Musk said. “I mean it looks like a rocket going to orbit basically is growing very fast.”
What did Musk say about a potential Tesla-SpaceX merger?
Musk declined to discuss the potential for SpaceX and Tesla to eventually merge as rumors of a potential tie-up continue to swirl.
“With regard to a potential merger with SpaceX, I think I said everything that should be said yesterday, tap-dancing through a minefield there,” he said on the October investor call. “And yes, that’s it.”
Rumors of a SpaceX–Tesla merger have swirled for months, Barron’s reported. A combination of the companies could result in the biggest merger and acquisition deal in history, according to the financial outlet.
Barclays analysts wrote in an Oct. 14 note to clients that an announcement could come before Tesla’s Dec. 3 annual meeting, according to Bloomberg. SpaceX had previously considered merging with Tesla before merging with xAI, Musk’s artificial intelligence company, Bloomberg reported.
Contributing: James Powel, USA TODAY
Keith Laing is an automotive reporter on the National Trending Desk at USA TODAY. Contact Keith at klaing@usatodayco.com.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Here’s how much Tesla’s stock dipped after erasing glut of unsold EVs