Tesla’s revenue rises again as it prepares for more AI and robotics

Tesla said it earned $477 million in net income on $22.4 billion in revenue in the quarter that ended in April 2026. That’s a 16 percent increase in revenue and a 17 percent increase in profits over the first quarter of 2025, when the company earned $409 million in net income on $19.3 billion in revenue. Tesla missed revenue expectations from Wall Street, which assumed approximately $22.64 billion in revenue.

As part of the earnings update deck, Tesla said that preparations for its first “large-scale” factory to build its Optimus robots will begin in Q2. “The first-generation line, designed for 1 million robots a year, will replace the Model S and Model X lines in Fremont,” Tesla said. Gigafactory Texas will host the second-generation line, “which is being designed for long-term annual production capacity of 10 million robots.” Following Musk’s announcement in January that Tesla was “restarting work” on its Dojo 3 supercomputer — which Musk noted at the time will be “space-based AI compute” — the earnings update deck said that Tesla is “continuing” its work on the project.

The first quarter of the year seemed to offer a glimmer of hope when Tesla reported a modest 6 percent increase in sales year over year. But it’s a misleading comparison considering sales in Q1 2025 were artificially depressed thanks to assembly line shutdowns for the Model Y “Juniper” refresh. The first quarter of 2025 also coincided with Musk’s leadership of DOGE, his Nazi salute at President Trump’s inauguration, and the first Tesla Takedown protests.

The past three months have been a series of ups and downs for Tesla. The company launched a robotaxi service in Dallas and Houston, but the service appeared to be mostly unavailable due to the lack of vehicles. The Netherlands officially approved Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) Supervised, making it the first European country to authorize the use of the company’s Level 2 advanced driving assistance system on its roads. And Tesla seemed to come up with a solution for cratering Cybertruck sales: sell the polarizing electric truck to Elon Musk’s own companies.

Of course, Tesla isn’t as into selling vehicles as it is developing AI and humanoid robots. The company discontinued its Model S and Model X vehicles to make room at its factory for production of its Optimus robot. And the Cybercab, the company’s two-seater autonomous vehicle, has been spotted out on the road — albeit with a steering wheel.

That’s led many Tesla watchers to assume that Musk has lost interest in selling cars, even though the vast amount of his company’s revenues still comes from car sales. Notably, there was a recent Reuters report that Tesla was developing a new, more affordable electric SUV, after having canceled a similar plan two years ago.