Tesla profits dropped by 70 percent last quarter

Hot on the heels of Elon Musk's dire email to X employees about how the social media platform is "barely breaking even," another one of Musk's companies had some concerning news to share.

On Wednesday evening, Tesla shared its latest earnings report, covering Q4 of 2024. According to Tesla, the EV company brought in $25.7 billion in total revenue over the final months of last year.

Those Q4 2024 revenue numbers actually show a nearly two percent increase when compared to the same quarter in 2023.

However, while revenue is up, net income is down. Way down.

According to Tesla's quarterly report, the company made $2.3 billion in net income in Q4 2024. Net income is the amount the company actually made after subtracting its expenses from its revenue total. That's a whopping 70 percent decrease in net income compared to Q4 2023.

As The Verge points out, Tesla's net income for the final quarter of 2023 was buoyed by a "one-time non-cash tax benefit of $5.9 billion."

While Tesla's automotive sales rose by two percent year over year, a good chunk of its profit comes from selling regulatory credits to other car companies. These credits are purchased so that those automakers can meet emissions standards. Tesla receives these credits for free and essentially sells them to others at 100 percent profit.

Tesla made $692 million from the sale of regulatory credits in Q4 2024, up from the $433 million from selling credits during the same period in the year prior.

Musk's EV company made $2.8 billion in 2024 from the sale of these regulatory credits, which is more than its net profit for this entire quarter.

President Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress have said that they want to repeal the regulations that allow Tesla to receive these credits. As of now, it's unclear if and when they plan to do so.