New Delhi, July 23 -- Tesla delivered a record 480,000 vehicles in the second quarter of 2026 and posted $28.2 billion in revenue, a 26% increase over the same period last year, yet the company missed earnings estimates for the quarter as its profit margin compressed and free cash flow turned negative, reflecting the cost of Elon Musk's accelerating bet on artificial intelligence and humanoid robotics.

Tesla now runs an automotive business generating strong top-line growth and channels nearly all of that cash into a parallel set of AI businesses that have not yet produced comparable revenue.

Analysts entering the earnings call had already flagged free cash flow as the critical variable, and the actual result was worse than their median ...