CNBC’s Jim Cramer gives billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk high marks for recognizing the need to apologize to the Tesla analysts he dissed three months ago.
On Wednesday’s post-results conference call, Musk said, “My apologies for not being polite on the prior call.”
The Tesla co-founder and CEO also promised future profitability, after the electric automaker reported it had a second-quarter loss of $3.06 per share, which was wider than estimates, and revenue of $4 billion that was slightly above forecasts.
“Damn this was a good call,” Cramer said Thursday on “Squawk on the Street.” “This was the most thorough, most reasoned, most sane conference call he’s ever given.”
Investors seem to agree, pushing Tesla shares up 9 percent at the open Thursday.
However, Cramer acknowledged the traders betting against Tesla stock, a practice known as short selling, who took a bath after the Q2 results.
“A lot of people think these numbers are made up … completely done with smoke and mirrors,” Cramer said.
Tesla is one of the most shorted stocks out there.
The “Mad Money” host said, “accounting can be fungible,” but he didn’t offer an opinion on whether or not that was the case with Tesla.
He did say, “There’s some bad, bad free cash flow numbers.”
Tesla reported negative cash flow of $742 million for the second quarter.
Cramer did highlight Tesla’s second-quarter cash on hand of $2.2 billion, which the company expects to grow in the second half of the year.
“You do have the Model 3 margins slightly positive,” Cramer said.
Tesla said in its quarterly results statement, “Gross margin should grow significantly to approximately 15 percent in Q3 and to approximately 20 percent in Q4.”
“We expect to produce 50,000 to 55,000 Model 3 vehicles in Q3,” the statement said.
The less expensive Model 3 sedan, aimed at the mass auto buying market, has experienced manufacturing problems and delays that has left Tesla scrambling to meet production promises.
While Tesla stock was soaring Thursday, the $328.44 per share open was more than 15 percent below its all-time high of $389.61 from Sept. 18, 2017.
Tesla was not immediately available to respond to CNBC’s request for comment on Cramer’s remarks.