Investor's Corner
Tesla board to formally review Elon Musk’s plan to go private, TSLA reacts after hours
After two days of confusion, it appears Elon Musk’s plan to take Tesla private may be beginning to take shape. CNBC is reporting that Tesla’s board is planning on meeting with financial advisors next week to finalize a formal review plan for Musk’s proposal.
Musk first announced plans to take the company private midday Tuesday on Twitter. He simply tweeted, “Am considering taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured.” The stock immediately shot up before trading was halted. The company then posted an official blog post elaborating on Musk’s reasoning for the move.
Yesterday, Tesla’s board issued a short statement saying they first heard of Musk’s plans last week and was taking the “appropriate steps” to evaluate Musk’s plan. The new CNBC report claims that Tesla’s board plans to ask Musk to recuse himself from next week’s discussion. Musk’s brother, Kimbal Musk, presumably will also recuse himself from the discussion. Kimbal Musk was notably excluded from the board’s previous statement. Elon Musk recused himself from the board’s review of the SolarCity acquisition in 2016.
“Last week, Elon opened a discussion with the board about taking the company private. This included discussion as to how being private could better serve Tesla’s long-term interests, and also addressed the funding for this to occur. The board has met several times over the last week and is taking the appropriate next steps to evaluate this.” – Statement from the following members of Tesla’s Board of Directors: Brad Buss, Robyn Denholm, Ira Ehrenpreis, Antonio Gracias, Linda Johnson Rice, and James Murdoch
While Elon Musk has claimed that funding is “secured” for the company to go private, he has yet to reveal financial backers. There’s a flurry of speculation surrounding the backers’ identities, ranging from Google to The Saudi Arabian Wealth Fund. Musk’s bid at $420/share values the company at $70B, excluding the company’s debt. Short sellers and skeptics alike have been rebuffing the notion that a financial backer even exists. The board’s move to formally review the bid seems to poke holes in that theory.
“What the board is doing is exactly what boards are supposed to do… They’ll evaluate the proposal from Musk and whoever is this investor and they’ll make their recommendation,” said Ross Gerber, chief executive of Gerber Kawasaki Wealth and Investment Management, which owns positions in Tesla.
“We’re estimating about a $20B cost to buy out the weaker shareholders, and I think they can get that money very easily,” he added. Gerber said he was shocked at the level of skepticism surrounding Musk’s deal and that his firm was confident in Musk’s financial backing.
Musk’s motivation to go private surrounds the company’s ability to think long-term, operate more efficiently and remove the distraction of a volatile stock price. While taking the company private would achieve those goals, the stock has been anything but stable since his announcement, trading at record-level volume on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Tesla’s stock was down nearly 5% during the day today and is up 2.5% after-hours on this news.
(Update: Comments from Ross Gerber were added in the sixth and seventh paragraphs)
Disclaimer: Christian Prenzler does not have a position in Tesla Inc. or any of its competitors and does not have plans to do so in the next 48 hours.
Tesla bear Michael Burry got blunt with his beliefs over the company’s valuation, which he called “ridiculously overvalued” in a newsletter to subscribers this past weekend.
“Tesla’s market capitalization is ridiculously overvalued today and has been for a good long time,” Burry, who was the inspiration for the movie The Big Short, and was portrayed by Christian Bale.
Burry went on to say, “As an aside, the Elon cult was all-in on electric cars until competition showed up, then all-in on autonomous driving until competition showed up, and now is all-in on robots — until competition shows up.”
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For a long time, Burry has been skeptical of Tesla, its stock, and its CEO, Elon Musk, even placing a $530 million bet against shares several years ago. Eventually, Burry’s short position extended to other supporters of the company, including ARK Invest.
Tesla has long drawn skepticism from investors and more traditional analysts, who believe its valuation is overblown. However, the company is not traded as a traditional stock, something that other Wall Street firms have recognized.
While many believe the company has some serious pull as an automaker, an identity that helped it reach the valuation it has, Tesla has more than transformed into a robotics, AI, and self-driving play, pulling itself into the realm of some of the most recognizable stocks in tech.
Burry’s Scion Asset Management has put its money where its mouth is against Tesla stock on several occasions, but the firm has not yielded positive results, as shares have increased in value since 2020 by over 115 percent. The firm closed in May.
In 2020, it launched its short position, but by October 2021, it had ditched that position.
Tesla has had a tumultuous year on Wall Street, dipping significantly to around the $220 mark at one point. However, it rebounded significantly in September, climbing back up to the $400 region, as it currently trades at around $430.
It closed at $430.14 on Monday.
Investor's Corner
Mizuho keeps Tesla (TSLA) “Outperform” rating but lowers price target
As per the Mizuho analyst, upcoming changes to EV incentives in the U.S. and China could affect Tesla’s unit growth more than previously expected.
Mizuho analyst Vijay Rakesh lowered Tesla’s (NASDAQ:TSLA) price target to $475 from $485, citing potential 2026 EV subsidy cuts in the U.S. and China that could pressure deliveries. The firm maintained its Outperform rating for the electric vehicle maker, however.
As per the Mizuho analyst, upcoming changes to EV incentives in the U.S. and China could affect Tesla’s unit growth more than previously expected. The U.S. accounted for roughly 37% of Tesla’s third-quarter 2025 sales, while China represented about 34%, making both markets highly sensitive to policy shifts. Potential 50% cuts to Chinese subsidies and reduced U.S. incentives affected the firm’s outlook.
With those pressures factored in, the firm now expects Tesla to deliver 1.75 million vehicles in 2026 and 2 million in 2027, slightly below consensus estimates of 1.82 million and 2.15 million, respectively. The analyst was cautiously optimistic, as near-term pressure from subsidies is there, but the company’s long-term tech roadmap remains very compelling.
Despite the revised target, Mizuho remained optimistic on Tesla’s long-term technology roadmap. The firm highlighted three major growth drivers into 2027: the broader adoption of Full Self-Driving V14, the expansion of Tesla’s Robotaxi service, and the commercialization of Optimus, the company’s humanoid robot.
“We are lowering TSLA Ests/PT to $475 with Potential BEV headwinds in 2026E. We believe into 2026E, US (~37% of TSLA 3Q25 sales) EV subsidy cuts and China (34% of TSLA 3Q25 sales) potential 50% EV subsidy cuts could be a headwind to EV deliveries.
“We are now estimating TSLA deliveries for 2026/27E at 1.75M/2.00M (slightly below cons. 1.82M/2.15M). We see some LT drivers with FSD v14 adoption for autonomous, robotaxi launches, and humanoid robots into 2027 driving strength,” the analyst noted.
Tesla stock (NASDAQ: TSLA) has landed an elusive “must own” status from Wall Street firm Melius, according to a new note released early this week.
Analyst Rob Wertheimer said Tesla will lead the charge in world-changing tech, given the company’s focus on self-driving, autonomy, and Robotaxi. In a note to investors, Wertheimer said “the world is about to change, dramatically,” because of the advent of self-driving cars.
He looks at the industry and sees many potential players, but the firm says there will only be one true winner:
“Our point is not that Tesla is at risk, it’s that everybody else is.”
The major argument is that autonomy is nearing a tipping point where years of chipping away at the software and data needed to develop a sound, safe, and effective form of autonomous driving technology turn into an avalanche of progress.
Wertheimer believes autonomy is a $7 trillion sector,” and in the coming years, investors will see “hundreds of billions in value shift to Tesla.”
A lot of the major growth has to do with the all-too-common “butts in seats” strategy, as Wertheimer believes that only a fraction of people in the United States have ridden in a self-driving car. In Tesla’s regard, only “tens of thousands” have tried Tesla’s latest Full Self-Driving (Supervised) version, which is v14.
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When it reaches a widespread rollout and more people are able to experience Tesla Full Self-Driving v14, he believes “it will shock most people.”
Citing things like Tesla’s massive data pool from its vehicles, as well as its shift to end-to-end neural nets in 2021 and 2022, as well as the upcoming AI5 chip, which will be put into a handful of vehicles next year, but will reach a wider rollout in 2027, Melius believes many investors are not aware of the pace of advancement in self-driving.
Tesla’s lead in its self-driving efforts is expanding, Wertheimer says. The company is making strategic choices on everything from hardware to software, manufacturing, and overall vehicle design. He says Tesla has left legacy automakers struggling to keep pace as they still rely on outdated architectures and fragmented supplier systems.
Tesla shares are up over 6 percent at 10:40 a.m. on the East Coast, trading at around $416.
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