• Tesla CEO Elon Musk criticized US infrastructure on Wednesday, calling for new investment.
  • "It's really quite sad that US infrastructure, especially roads and highways, is where it is today," Musk said.
  • The US should focus on infrastructure projects that are oriented toward the future, Musk added.
  • Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk slammed US infrastructure on Wednesday during the electric-car maker's first-quarter earnings call, saying it was in need of new investment.

"I think it's high time we invested in infrastructure in this country," Musk said when asked what message he would send to the US government for the years after the country recovers from the spread of the novel coronavirus.

"We have a lot of crumbling highways and bridges and, frankly, when I visit China, I see their infrastructure as being much better than ours. It's great. Europe has better infrastructure. It's really quite sad that US infrastructure, especially roads and highways, is where it is today," Musk said. "And our airports, in a lot of cases, are an embarrassment."

Improving US infrastructure will require money to be spent wisely on projects that are oriented toward the future, Musk added.

"Sometimes we spend a lot of money on these things, but what do we gain for it? We really need to be thinking about what is the transportation of the future, not the transportation of the past," he said.

The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) has criticized the state of American infrastructure, giving it a grade of D+ in its 2017 report card, the most recent one the organization has published.  At the time, the ASCE estimated the US would have to spend $4.59 trillion by 2025 to make the necessary improvements.

Tesla announced a surprise first-quarter profit on Wednesday, saying it made $1.24 per share, on an adjusted basis, on revenue of $5.99 billion, despite factory closures and sales disruptions caused by the spread of the novel coronavirus. Wall Street analysts had predicted an adjusted loss of $0.34 per share on revenue of $5.8 billion. The first quarter of this year marks the first time Tesla has posted three consecutive quarterly profits in its 17-year history.

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