Elon Musk apologizes to analyst on Tesla Q2 earnings call

Tesla CEO Elon Musk began the Q&A session of Tesla’s second-quarter earnings call with an apology.Rashid Umar Abbasi / Reuters

• Tesla CEO Elon Musk apologized to Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. analyst Antonio Sacconaghi and other Wall Street analysts during the company’s second-quarter earnings call on Wednesday.
• During Tesla‘s first-quarter earnings call in May, Musk referred to Sacconahgi’s questions as “boring” and “boneheaded.”
• Musk began the Q&A segment of Wednesday’s call on a more subdued note and answered Sacconaghi’s questions after the apology.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk apologized to Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. analyst Antonio Sacconaghi during the company’s second-quarter earnings call on Wednesday. During Tesla’s first-quarter earnings call in May, Musk referred to Sacconaghi’s questions as “boring” and “boneheaded.”

“I’d like to apologize for being impolite on the prior call. Honestly, I really think there’s no excuse for bad manners, and I was kind of violating my own rule in that regard. There are reasons for it in that I had gotten no sleep, had been working 110 hour, 120 hour weeks, but nonetheless, there’s still no excuse,” Musk said on Wednesday.

Musk spurred controversy by criticizing and rejecting questions from Wall Street analysts on Tesla’s first-quarter earnings call. During the Q&A segment of the call, Musk rejected a question from Sacconaghi about the company’s future capital requirements.

“Excuse me. Next. Boring bonehead questions are not cool,” Musk replied.

The next question came from RBC Capital Markets analyst Joseph Spak, who asked about Model 3 reservations.

“These questions are so dry. They’re killing me,” Musk said, before turning to Galileo Russell, a retail investor who runs a YouTube channel about Tesla. Russell was allowed to ask several questions about a range of subjects, none of which concerned Tesla’s financial health.

The call surprised analysts like Morgan Stanley’s Adam Jonas, who told CNBC it was “arguably the most unusual” earnings call he had heard in 20 years.

Business Insider’s Matthew DeBord wrote that the call was “easily the most bizarre Muskian performance yet.”

Musk began the Q&A segment of Wednesday’s call on a more subdued note and answered Sacconaghi’s questions after the apology.

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