Tesla delivered an earnings beat on Wednesday and signaled a “rebound of demand” in North America. But hold onto your hats, investors: Tesla is planning a big increase in capex spending.

Tesla’s total revenue for the first quarter came in at $22.38 billion — a 16% year-over-year increase and above analysts’ estimates.

Elon Musk’s automaker also grew its profits, posting adjusted earnings per share of 41 cents, up 51% from the same period last year, and above Wall Street’s expectations. Gross margin also grew year over year.“We are excited about Tesla’s positioning in 2026 with tailwinds persisting for the autos business, our continued progress on FSD (Supervised) 4, the ramp of Robotaxi, progress on Optimus ahead of mass production and the growth of our energy production capacity,” the company said in its release.

After a stretch of disappointing car sales, Tesla struck an optimistic tone about its EV business while providing updates on its broader goal of launching new AI products, such as the Optimus humanoid bot, and scaling up its Robotaxi service.

Musk warned that scaling up those products and building the factories required to do so — in addition to investing in other AI-related projects like its Terafab chip fab with SpaceX — will prove costly.
The stock popped 4% after hours immediately following the earnings results, but dipped back into the red as the earnings call progressed.Scroll on for the full play-by-play from Tesla’s earnings release and analyst call.