Tesla stock plunges 26% in July after earnings miss sends investors running

Tesla just had the kind of month that makes portfolio managers reconsider their career choices. The stock cratered roughly 26% in July after the company’s Q2 2026 earnings report revealed an uncomfortable truth: selling a lot of cars doesn’t necessarily mean making a lot of money. The earnings release, which dropped after market close on July 22, showed revenue of $28.24B, handily beating the $25.71B consensus and marking a 26% year-over-year jump. The problem was the bottom line: adjusted EPS landed at $0.33, a full 35% below the $0.51 analysts were expecting. The stock shed nearly 15% in intraday trading the following session, and things only got worse from there. Record deliveries, record disappointment The company posted record quarterly vehicle deliveries of 480,126 units in Q2, exceeding some forecasts. Revenue was strong. But the gap between what Tesla brought in and what it kept was wide enough to drive a Cybertruck through. The weekly losses approached 18%, eventually compounding into that brutal 26% monthly decline. Depending on the timeframe you’re measuring, Tesla’s year-to-date drop now sits somewhere between 17% and 29%. Investor attention initially fixated on the del...