Bloom Energy Corp.’s chief executive sat down with MarketWatch for a phone interview on the day his company’s stock debuted on Wall Street, to answer questions about an initial public offering that this column had openly questioned.

His answers only did more damage.

When asked about the company’s profitability, KR Sridhar told three MarketWatch staffers that Bloom was “a profitable company as of [the second quarter],” and he expected that to continue going forward. When asked in a follow-up question whether he meant profitable in GAAP terms — in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles — Sridhar answered affirmatively. MarketWatch led with those comments in a story published July 25, when Bloom Energy’s stock was rocketing upward in its post-IPO debut on the New York Stock Exchange.

Hours later, past midnight on the West Coast, a Bloom Energy BE, -4.13% spokesman reached out with a “clarification,” explaining that Bloom expected to be GAAP-profitable on an operating basis this year, but not on a net basis. MarketWatch updated its story with a clarification the next day.

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But it turns out that more of that statement, as well as the clarification, was misleading, as Bloom Energy quietly disclosed in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday that was brought to light Tuesday morning by Axios. Bloom, in reality, was not profitable on a standard operating basis in the second quarter, only on an adjusted operating basis, and does not stand by any forecast Sridhar made.

“The Company disclaims any statement regarding its expectations for future profitability or cash flows, makes no such forecast or prediction at this time regarding its future operating results, and undertakes no obligation to do so in the future,” reads the filing, which explicitly walks back several of the CEO’s comments in the July 25 interview with MarketWatch. A spokesman for Bloom declined to comment beyond the SEC filing.

Sridhar’s seeming inability to honestly discuss core financial performance of his company should be another red flag for this company, though its stock-market momentum is unimpeded so far. Bloom priced its shares at the high end of its estimated range on the evening of July 24, at $15 a share, and its stock had increased more than 40% through Monday’s close. After gaining more than 10% early in Tuesday’s session, shares retreated to decline 3.4%.

Bloom, a maker of fuel cells it calls “energy servers,” which use natural gas, is a company with many risky attributes from an investment standpoint. The company is what’s called a controlled company, with a dual-class share structure, under which Sridhar, fellow board members, executives and certain other investors hold 95% of the voting power, leaving public-market investors with little to no power. That is especially troublesome in light of Sridhar’s seeming incapacity to frankly discuss important financial metrics.

The company is also heavily reliant on federal tax credits to offset the cost to customers of its energy servers. Those tax credits were allowed to expire in 2016, and in 2017, Bloom lowered the price of its servers to make up the difference, and revenue declined. The tax credits were later reinstated by President Donald Trump in a retroactive manner, leading to a revenue surge in the first quarter of 2018 that Bloom highlighted in its well-timed IPO prospectus as proof of growth.

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Additionally, 53% of Bloom’s 2017 revenue came from just two customers, Southern Co. SO, +0.99% and Delmarva Power of Delaware, which has deployed enough Bloom Box energy servers to power 22,000 homes, the largest full utility-scale deployment of fuel cells in the U.S. But last year, Bloom had to repay $1.5 million to the state of Delaware, after its economic-incentive deal with the state did not pan out as promised.

Bloom took over a defunct Chrysler automobile plant in Newark, Del., for a new manufacturing center, but it did not create the 900 jobs in the state that it had promised. In fact, it delivered only about a third as many jobs. Delmarva Power customers also have a surcharge on their utility bills to cover certain costs of fuel-cell energy providers. In 2012, the statute that approved the surcharge became the subject of a lawsuit claiming that Delaware had discriminated against out-of-state fuel-cell companies. Sunnyvale, Calif.–based Bloom was not a party in the case, which was settled in 2015.

Those are just some of the issues Bloom faces — massive debt and a continuing dispute over an EPA fine could also make the list — so it was surprising that Bloom was able to sell so much stock, and even more surprising that it received such a warm welcome from Wall Street. Then again, Sridhar admitted in the MarketWatch interview that nearly one-third of the IPO shares were earmarked for people close to the company, such as board members and employees. Bloom also disavowed those comments in Friday’s filing.

Bloom Energy was a troubling investment before the stock skyrocketed, and it is more so after the admission that its chief executive misled MarketWatch on its current and future financial performance less than two hours after it became a publicly traded company. Investors who have bought in can only hope that Sridhar and Bloom can build some trust after a bewildering and inauspicious beginning.