SLINGERLANDS – Plug Power shares rose 20% on Tuesday after new CEO Jose Luis Crespo reported better-than-expected results during a quarterly earnings call with Wall Street analysts on Monday.
Crespo, a longtime Plug Power executive, officially took over as CEO on Monday. He said Plug Power achieved positive gross profits of $5.5 million in the final three months of 2025 as revenue continued to grow and cost cuts and efficiency reforms took effect.
Plug Power makes hydrogen fuel cells and had revenue of $710 million in 2025 and a loss of $1.6 billion. But its ability to turn a gross profit in the fourth quarter of 2025 suggests Crespo is making real progress toward its goal of becoming profitable by the end of 2028.
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Plug Power’s fuel cells can be used to power vehicles and provide mobile backup power for cell phone towers. At scale, fuel cells could power buildings such as data centers. Unlike fossil fuels, hydrogen does not emit harmful gases into the atmosphere when used to generate electricity.
Plug Power’s fourth-quarter 2024 gross margin, which reflects the company’s ability to profit from net sales, was calculated at negative 122.5%. Twelve months later, gross margin for the quarter was 2.4%.
For all of 2025, Plug Power’s operating expenses still exceeded sales by $242 million, resulting in a negative gross margin of 34% for the year. But that’s down from a negative 99% gross margin in 2024, and Crespo said he expects to maintain positive momentum this year.
“The 125 percentage point improvement in gross margin is a meaningful milestone in strengthening our operating performance,” Crespo told analysts. “The results we achieved were no accident.”
As of 2 p.m. Tuesday, Plug Power shares were trading at $2.30, up 20% on the day. The company opened Monday at $1.72 per share, below its 52-week low.
Last week, Plug Power revealed that it had finalized the first of three “asset monetization” deals expected to generate $275 million in revenue for the company.
Last month, the Slingerland-based company finalized terms for the sale of the Genesee County plant where it had planned to build a $290 million hydrogen production plant. Plans for the site were scrapped last fall after the Trump administration withdrew billions of dollars in federal funding previously approved by Congress for clean energy projects across the country.
