Tesla Motors delivered on CEO Elon Musk’s promise to make money during its latest quarter after fulfilling his pledge to boost production of its first electric car designed for the mass market.
The company earned $311.5 million during the three months ending in September, swinging from a loss of $619 million at the same time last year. It’s only the third time that Tesla has posted a quarterly profit in its eight-year history as a public company and the first time in two years.
A big jump in Tesla’s output of its mass-market Model 3 car powered the breakthrough. The manufacturing increase and moneymaking quarter are two things that Musk promised would happen in early August.
Revenue more than doubled from last year to $6.8 billion to easily top analyst estimates, just as the profit did.
Tesla’s stock soared 13 percent to $326.12 after the numbers came out.
The third-quarter performance should help restore some of the credibility that Musk lost after he followed up the bold performance with a startling tweet informing the world that he had secured financing to pull off a buyout of Tesla.
Musk later abandoned his plan and the Securities and Exchange Commission subsequently filed a lawsuit alleging that he had misled investors because he was never close to lining up the estimated $25 billion to $50 billion that it would have taken to pull of the deal he envisioned.