Tesla beats Wall Street expectations with Q4 profit

REUTERS/Mike Blake

Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

• Tesla earned $386 million during the fourth quarter of 2019.
• The company's adjusted earnings amounted to $2.14 per share on revenue of $7.4 billion.
• Financial analysts had expected an adjusted gain of $1.74 share and $7.1 billion in revenue, according to Bloomberg.
• The results sent Tesla's shares up 7% in after-hours trading.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Tesla earned $386 million during the fourth quarter of last year, the electric-car maker said on Wednesday. The results sent Tesla's shares up 7% in after-hours trading.

The company's adjusted earnings amounted to $2.14 per share on revenue of $7.4 billion. Financial analysts had expected an adjusted gain of $1.74 share and $7.1 billion in revenue, according to Bloomberg.

Tesla earned a 18.8% gross margin during the quarter. Analysts had predicted an 18.3% gross margin.

The company's fourth-quarter results represented an improvement from the prior quarter, when it made $1.91 per share and $6.3 billion in revenue, and the fourth quarter of 2018, when it made $1.93 per share and $7.23 billion in revenue.

Since Tesla released its third-quarter results in October, its stock price has more than doubled, from $255 to $581 when markets closed on Wednesday. In addition to its surprise third-quarter profit, Tesla's shares have been buoyed by record sales in 2019 and the rapid construction of its factory in Shanghai, which began delivering vehicles to customers at the end of last year.

Are you a current or former Tesla employee? Do you have an opinion about what it's like to work there? Contact this reporter at mmatousek@businessinsider.com. You can also reach out on Signal at 646-768-4712 or email this reporter's encrypted address at mmatousek@protonmail.com.

• Read more:
• Tesla's electric-car business is now so good that it might be able to forget about self-driving cars. That could be a significant bonus for the company.
• Andrew Yang uses Tesla's Autopilot feature in a new ad - and he breaks the same rule Elon Musk has on TV
• Tesla CEO Elon Musk was spotted cruising in the futuristic Cybertruck again
• Elon Musk's road to a $55 billion payday is as complicated and full of detours as a video game - and he just unlocked the first level

NOW WATCH: I switched to Google Photos after using iCloud for 5 years and I'm never going back