Elon Musk avoids analyst question on potential Uber partnership
During a conference call discussing Tesla&rsquo;s second-quarter financial results yesterday, Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas asked Elon Musk about recent statements from Uber CEO Travis Kalanick that if Tesla produces autonomous cars by 2020, he would buy all of them for his ride-sharing service. Mr. Jonas also asked Musk if Tesla would consider operating its own ride-share business. Interestingly, Musk did not answer either question, prompting Jonas to state "Sometimes you can tell more from the non-answer than the answer..."
As Tesla Motors Inc. TSLA, +1.91% develops self-driving technology, an analyst asked Chief Executive Elon Musk a provocative question Wednesday: Will his company sell cars to a transportation service like Uber, or try to start something similar on its own?

The lack of an answer leaves the tantalizing question open.

Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas posed the question to Musk in an earnings call Wednesday afternoon, noting that Uber CEO Travis Kalanick has reportedly said he would want to buy Tesla’s self-driving cars when they are released.

Musk called it “an insightful question,” then added, “I don’t think I should answer it.”

“Sometimes you can tell more from the non-answer than the answer,” Jonas commented.

Tesla still has a long way to go in developing self-driving cars. The company plans to roll out the most advanced autonomous-driving features yet this quarter: Musk said in Wednesday’s call that early testers will receive the features in Tesla’s Model S sedans this month, with broader release targeted for one to two months later.

Those features, however, are much more analogous to autopilot for jets than the type of self-driving technology companies like Google are developing.

“We don’t want to set the expectation that you can just basically pay no attention to what the car is doing,” Musk said Wednesday.

In its earnings report Wednesday, Tesla beat expectations with a second-quarter loss of $184.3 million, or $1.45 a share, on revenue of $1.2 billion; after adjustments, Tesla said losses were $61 million, or 48 cents a share. Analysts surveyed by FactSet expected Tesla to report an adjusted loss of 60 cents a share on sales of $1.19 billion.

Tesla did pull back on Musk’s projection that it would deliver 55,000 cars this year, however, bringing that forecast down to a range of 50,000 to 55,000, and shares fell about 6% in late trading after closing with a 1.5% gain at $270.13.