Elon Musk promises to take question from this YouTuber on Tesla earnings call

Published: May 2, 2018 2:44 p.m. ET

‘I’m in shock myself,’ Tesla investor says after ‘total moonshot’ lands him in queue typically reserved for financial analysts

A self-described “financial nerd” with a YouTube channel and a passion for Tesla Inc. waged an online campaign that succeeded in its quest Monday evening: Chief Executive Elon Musk agreed to answer a question from the investors during the Silicon Valley car maker’s post-earnings conference call.

Members of the media and retail investors are not usually allowed access to the call’s queue. Reporters have had questions answered in at least one, apparently isolated, instance, and no retail investors have gone through during the call.

That would change on Wednesday if Musk follows through with his Twitter reply to Gali Russell, a 25 year-old New York University grad striking out on his own as an independent analyst and chief executive of his YouTube venture after a brief stint at a startup.

Russell has 795 followers on Twitter, up from about 600 when Musk replied to his request, and 8,797 subscribers on his YouTube channel, HyperChange, which is mostly about Tesla. TSLA

Russell told MarketWatch in an interview that he’s polling his audience to choose the one question he assumes he’ll be allowed to ask, and has put forth questions around Tesla’s profitability, hyperautomation and other topics.

On his own, he would ask Musk where he thinks the Model Y, a compact SUV Tesla hopes to add to its lineup, and the Tesla Semi, the company’s all-electric commercial heavy-duty truck, will be built, Russell said.

Russell had started a campaign of sorts to be allowed a question, saying he’d represent retail investors, and said he convinced nearly 200 people to email Tesla’s investor relations department asking for it. The next step was to tweet at Musk.

“I just put it out there and it worked,” he said. “It was a total moonshot. To be honest, I’m in shock myself.”

Tesla did not immediately respond to when asked if it plans to follow through with Musk’s promise.

Russell, a Seattle native and New York City resident, said he hopes his time in the spotlight will be the start of more opportunities for retail investors and independent analysts to question companies’ decisions. Analysts associated with investment banks and financial companies are perhaps too passionless, too distracted by their own company’s politics or bosses to stay focused on the long-term prospects for companies they cover, he said.

Tesla is scheduled to report first-quarter results on Wednesday after the bell. A conference call with Wall Street analysts is to follow at 2:30 p.m. Pacific.

Analysts surveyed by FactSet expect Tesla to report an adjusted loss of $3.54 a share on sales of $3.28 billion, which would compare with an adjusted loss of $1.33 a share on sales of $2.69 billion a year ago. Shares of Tesla have fallen nearly 9% in the past 12 months, contrasting with a 10% advance for the S&P 500 index SPX and 14% gains for the Dow Jones Industrial Average. DJIA

Analysts are likely to grill Musk about the Model 3 production rate, promised at 5,000 sedans a week by the end of the second quarter, and whether Tesla will turn to capital markets in the near term to shore up its balance sheet.

Russell promises no softball question when his turn comes.

“I want to get the hard stuff answered,” he said.

Claudia Assis

Claudia Assis is a San Francisco-based reporter for MarketWatch.