Karim Buster says Tesla’s car business can only partly fund its moonshots

Direct answer

Karim, identified in the transcript as Karim Buster, says Tesla’s earnings show a “partially yes” answer to whether the car business can pay for Tesla’s moonshots. He points to $1.5 billion in free cash flow and a two-point improvement in auto gross margins as encouraging, but says that cash flow is small beside the tens of billions in capital expenditure Tesla will need. He also says robotaxi and Optimus need concrete deliverables, milestones and evidence of scaling.