Investor's Corner
Tesla gets ‘Outperform’ rating amid improving ‘fundamentals’ and Model 3 ramp
Tesla shares (NASDAQ:TSLA) received a vote of confidence from Wall Street on Thursday, as Oppenheimer reiterated its “Outperform” rating on the company and Loup Ventures managing partner Gene Munster noted that the electric car maker’s fundamentals could outweigh the controversy currently surrounding CEO Elon Musk.
Oppenheimer analyst Colin Rusch wrote in a note to clients on Thursday that Tesla seems poised to meet its targets for Model 3 production and profitability in Q3. Rusch’s note comes amidst Musk seemingly expressing his support of a report recently published by electric car-themed website InsideEVs, which listed the Model 3, Model S, and Model X, as the Top 3 best-selling electric cars in the United States for August.
“While InsideEVs‘ estimates are just that, estimates, we believe the service has been effective in identifying directional and order of magnitude trends on monthly shipments for Model 3 in lieu of verified data from the company. We believe TSLA is tracking toward achieving its 3Q:18 guidance. We believe TSLA has the potential to be a transformational technology company and deliver outsized returns,” Rusch noted.
Rusch reiterated Oppenheimer’s “Outperform” rating on TSLA stock, while also reaffirming his 12-18 month price target of $385 — a 37% upside to Wednesday’s close.
Loup Ventures managing partner Gene Munster also expressed his optimism about Tesla’s Q3 performance in a recent interview with FOX Business. When asked about his views on the controversies currently surrounding Elon Musk and the stock’s recovery this Thursday, Munster noted that behind the CEO’s questionable online behavior is a company whose fundamentals are improving.
“There’s two sides of the ledger. The side of Elon Musk as a leader — and as someone who has been an investor, an adviser, and an analyst for many years — that has been, to say, concerning is an understatement, his behavior over the last six months, and the last few weeks in particular. The other side of the ledger is how the business is doing, and I suspect that the reason why the stock is up is that he’s out today saying that their sales are going well. He made some tweets related to that. They (also) had an order of 30 other Semis from Walmart.
“If, in fact, they do exit the September quarter profitable, which is what they’ve predicted, I think that that will basically trump any of the negativity we’ve seen around him. So our bet is that the fundamentals are gonna outweigh this concerning and inexcusable behavior,” he said.
Robots assemble electric cars in Tesla’s Fremont factory.
Tesla stock has seen a wild August, particularly after Elon Musk posted a tweet stating that he is thinking of taking the company private at $420 per share, and that he had “funding secured.” The days and weeks following the announcement were tumultuous in the least, with lawsuits, reports of SEC investigations, and Elon Musk’s capability to lead Tesla being questioned by the company’s critics. Tesla’s stock mostly dropped in August after Musk’s tweet, culminating in Wednesday’s close when the stock ended the day at $280.74 per share.
Based on strategies that Tesla adopted over the past two quarters, there is a good chance that the company will push the Model 3 even more this September, which is the final month of Q3 2018. Tesla, after all, has a tendency to adopt radical strategies during the last month of a quarter, as seen in its production blitz during the final week of March when it built more than 2,000 Model 3 in seven days, as well as its initiatives in June when it built GA4 and air-freighted robots from Europe in an attempt to hit its target of producing 5,000 Model 3 in one week.
Tesla is attempting to produce 50,000-55,000 Model 3 this quarter while hitting profitability at the same time. While these are ambitious goals, the company has been showing signs that it is capable of actually meeting its Q3 targets. The company, for one, has shown that it can sustain its pace of manufacturing 5,000 units of the electric car in a week, which was confirmed by Elon Musk during the Q2 2018 earnings call. Tesla might also be within reach of its goal in terms of profitability, especially considering that Detroit veteran Sandy Munro concluded that the Long Range RWD Model 3, which would likely comprise a significant number of the company’s deliveries this Q3, exceeds 30% profit after a thorough teardown and analysis of the vehicle.
Elon Musk
Tesla stock gets latest synopsis from Jim Cramer: ‘It’s actually a robotics company’
“Turns out it’s actually a robotics and Cybercab company, and I want to buy, buy, buy. Yes, Tesla’s the paper that turned into scissors in one session,” Cramer said.
Tesla stock (NASDAQ: TSLA) got its latest synopsis from Wall Street analyst Jim Cramer, who finally realized something that many fans of the company have known all along: it’s not a car company. Instead, it’s a robotics company.
In a recent note that was released after Tesla reported Earnings in late January, Cramer seemed to recognize that the underwhelming financials and overall performance of the automotive division were not representative of the current state of affairs.
Instead, we’re seeing a company transition itself away from its early identity, essentially evolving like a caterpillar into a butterfly.
The narrative of the Earnings Call was simple: We’re not a car company, at least not from a birds-eye view. We’re an AI and Robotics company, and we are transitioning to this quicker than most people realize.
Tesla stock gets another analysis from Jim Cramer, and investors will like it
Tesla’s Q4 Earnings Call featured plenty of analysis from CEO Elon Musk and others, and some of the more minor details of the call were even indicative of a company that is moving toward AI instead of its cars. For example, the Model S and Model X will be no more after Q2, as Musk said that they serve relatively no purpose for the future.
Instead, Tesla is shifting its focus to the vehicles catered for autonomy and its Robotaxi and self-driving efforts.
Cramer recognizes this:
“…we got results from Tesla, which actually beat numbers, but nobody cares about the numbers here, as electric vehicles are the past. And according to CEO Elon Musk, the future of this company comes down to Cybercabs and humanoid robots. Stock fell more than 3% the next day. That may be because their capital expenditures budget was higher than expected, or maybe people wanted more details from the new businesses. At this point, I think Musk acolytes might be more excited about SpaceX, which is planning to come public later this year.”
He continued, highlighting the company’s true transition away from vehicles to its Cybercab, Optimus, and AI ambitions:
“I know it’s hard to believe how quickly this market can change its attitude. Last night, I heard a disastrous car company speak. Turns out it’s actually a robotics and Cybercab company, and I want to buy, buy, buy. Yes, Tesla’s the paper that turned into scissors in one session. I didn’t like it as a car company. Boy, I love it as a Cybercab and humanoid robot juggernaut. Call me a buyer and give me five robots while I’m at it.”
Cramer’s narrative seems to fit that of the most bullish Tesla investors. Anyone who is labeled a “permabull” has been echoing a similar sentiment over the past several years: Tesla is not a car company any longer.
Instead, the true focus is on the future and the potential that AI and Robotics bring to the company. It is truly difficult to put Tesla shares in the same group as companies like Ford, General Motors, and others.
Tesla shares are down less than half a percent at the time of publishing, trading at $423.69.
There are a lot of Tesla bulls out there who have astronomical expectations for the company, especially as its arm of reach has gone well past automotive and energy and entered artificial intelligence and robotics.
However, some of the most bullish Tesla investors believe the company could become worth $100 trillion, and CEO Elon Musk does not believe that number is completely out of the question, even if it sounds almost ridiculous.
To put that number into perspective, the top ten most valuable companies in the world — NVIDIA, Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, TSMC, Meta, Saudi Aramco, Broadcom, and Tesla — are worth roughly $26 trillion.
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Cathie Wood of ARK Invest believes the number is reasonable considering Tesla’s long-reaching industry ambitions:
“…in the world of AI, what do you have to have to win? You have to have proprietary data, and think about all the proprietary data he has, different kinds of proprietary data. Tesla, the language of the road; Neuralink, multiomics data; nobody else has that data. X, nobody else has that data either. I could see $100 trillion. I think it’s going to happen because of convergence. I think Tesla is the leading candidate [for $100 trillion] for the reason I just said.”
Musk said late last year that all of his companies seem to be “heading toward convergence,” and it’s started to come to fruition. Tesla invested in xAI, as revealed in its Q4 Earnings Shareholder Deck, and SpaceX recently acquired xAI, marking the first step in the potential for a massive umbrella of companies under Musk’s watch.
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Now that it is happening, it seems Musk is even more enthusiastic about a massive valuation that would swell to nearly four-times the value of the top ten most valuable companies in the world currently, as he said on X, the idea of a $100 trillion valuation is “not impossible.”
It’s not impossible
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 6, 2026
Tesla is not just a car company. With its many projects, including the launch of Robotaxi, the progress of the Optimus robot, and its AI ambitions, it has the potential to continue gaining value at an accelerating rate.
Musk’s comments show his confidence in Tesla’s numerous projects, especially as some begin to mature and some head toward their initial stages.
Elon Musk
Tesla director pay lawsuit sees lawyer fees slashed by $100 million
The ruling leaves the case’s underlying settlement intact while significantly reducing what the plaintiffs’ attorneys will receive.
The Delaware Supreme Court has cut more than $100 million from a legal fee award tied to a shareholder lawsuit challenging compensation paid to Tesla directors between 2017 and 2020.
The ruling leaves the case’s underlying settlement intact while significantly reducing what the plaintiffs’ attorneys will receive.
Delaware Supreme Court trims legal fees
As noted in a Bloomberg Law report, the case targeted pay granted to Tesla directors, including CEO Elon Musk, Oracle founder Larry Ellison, Kimbal Musk, and Rupert Murdoch. The Delaware Chancery Court had awarded $176 million to the plaintiffs. Tesla’s board must also return stock options and forego years worth of pay.
As per Chief Justice Collins J. Seitz Jr. in an opinion for the Delaware Supreme Court’s full five-member panel, however, the decision of the Delaware Chancery Court to award $176 million to a pension fund’s law firm “erred by including in its financial benefit analysis the intrinsic value” of options being returned by Tesla’s board.
The justices then reduced the fee award from $176 million to $70.9 million. “As we measure it, $71 million reflects a reasonable fee for counsel’s efforts and does not result in a windfall,” Chief Justice Seitz wrote.
Other settlement terms still intact
The Supreme Court upheld the settlement itself, which requires Tesla’s board to return stock and options valued at up to $735 million and to forgo three years of additional compensation worth about $184 million.
Tesla argued during oral arguments that a fee award closer to $70 million would be appropriate. Interestingly enough, back in October, Justice Karen L. Valihura noted that the $176 award was $60 million more than the Delaware judiciary’s budget from the previous year. This was quite interesting as the case was “settled midstream.”
The lawsuit was brought by a pension fund on behalf of Tesla shareholders and focused exclusively on director pay during the 2017–2020 period. The case is separate from other high-profile compensation disputes involving Elon Musk.
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