*By Kavitha Shastry*
Tesla posted a surprise profit in the third quarter, setting CEO Elon Musk well on his way to keeping a promise he made back in May.
The electric automaker on Wednesday reported adjusted earnings of $2.90 a share in its latest quarter ー analysts had been expecting a per-share loss of $0.19. Revenues rose more than 70 percent to $6.2 billion, and free cash flows came in at $881 million.
The news sent shares of Tesla ($TSLA) up more than 10 percent after hours to their highest level since late August.
"As a Tesla bull, this is the quarter we've all been waiting for," HyperChange TV founder Galileo Russell said in an interview with Cheddar shortly after the results. "This is proving that Tesla can make money ー they're on their way to being the most profitable auto maker in the world. This justifies the company's valuation."
Tesla has come under pressure for years over how quickly it's burned through cash as it tried to ramp up production of its latest Model 3 vehicles, considered key to achieving and maintaining profitability. Last spring Musk forecast the company would be able to hit a run rate that would make it profitable in the second half of the year. After multiple delays, Tesla finally met its goal of manufacturing 5,000 Model 3s a week at the end of the second quarter, and it put out 5,300 of the mass-market vehicles in the last week of September.
The surge in production was enough to get one long-time Tesla short to change his mind on the company. On Tuesday, Andrew Left of Citron Research said he was [positive on the stock](https://citronresearch.com/citron-reverses-opinion-on-tesla/), calling its story "too compelling to ignore."
In its report, Tesla said it expected to continue to generate positive cash flow in the fourth quarter and that it would focus on further lowering costs as it increases production.
Whether that results in another profitable remains to be seen ー Tesla had only posted two quarterly profits in its 10 years as a public company before this and has never had two profitable quarters in a row.
For full interview [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/tesla-soars-after-positive-earnings).
Joe Cecela, Dream Exchange CEO, explains how they are aiming to form the first minority-controlled company to operate an exchange in U.S. history. Watch!
A Michigan judge is putting sponges in the hands of shoplifters and ordering them to wash cars in a Walmart parking lot when spring weather arrives. Genesee County Judge Jeffrey Clothier hopes the unusual form of community service discourages people from stealing from Walmart. The judge also wants to reward shoppers with free car washes. Clothier says he began ordering “Walmart wash” sentences this week for shoplifting at the store in Grand Blanc Township. He believes 75 to 100 people eventually will be ordered to wash cars this spring. Clothier says he will be washing cars alongside them when the time comes.
The State Department had been in talks with Elon Musk’s Tesla company to buy armored electric vehicles, but the plans have been put on hold by the Trump administration after reports emerged about a potential $400 million purchase. A State Department spokesperson said the electric car company owned by Musk was the only one that expressed interest back in May 2024. The deal with Tesla was only in its planning phases but it was forecast to be the largest contract of the year. It shows how some of his wealth has come and was still expected to come from taxpayers.
At 100 years old, the Goodyear Blimp is an ageless star in the sky. The 246-foot-long airship will be in the background of the Daytona 500 — flying roughly 1,500 feet above Daytona International Speedway, actually — to celebrate its greatest anniversary tour. Even though remote camera technologies are improving regularly and changing the landscape of aerial footage, the blimp continues to carve out a niche. At Daytona, with the usual 40-car field racing around a 2½-mile superspeedway, views from the blimp aptly provide the scope of the event.
You'll just have to wait for interest rates (and prices) to go down. Plus, this deal's a steel, the big carmaker wedding is off, and bribery is back, baby!
It’s a chicken-and-egg problem: Restaurants are struggling with record-high U.S. egg prices, but their omelets, scrambles and huevos rancheros may be part of the problem. Breakfast is booming at U.S. eateries. First Watch, a restaurant chain that serves breakfast, brunch and lunch, nearly quadrupled its locations over the past decade to 570. Fast-food chains like Starbucks and Wendy's added more egg-filled breakfast items. In normal times, egg producers could meet the demand. But a bird flu outbreak that has forced them to slaughter their flocks is making supplies scarcer and pushing up prices. Some restaurants like Waffle House have added a surcharge to offset their costs.
