Investor's Corner
Tesla maintains gains amid Jim Chanos’ renewed criticisms against TSLA
Tesla stock (NASDAQ:TSLA) continued to recover on Friday, despite noted short-seller Jim Chanos declaring the company’s vehicles as “poorly made.” Speaking recently in front of investors and businessmen, Chanos blasted Tesla for doing away with the auto industry’s established conventions, at one point even suggesting that that people probably buy the company’s electric cars simply because of Elon Musk.
“Musk is re-learning the hard lessons automakers in Detroit learned 100 years ago. It’s one thing to manufacture cars, but Detroit learned the hard way they didn’t want to be at the nexus. Decades ago, Detroit’s big car brands decided to let the dealers do that, and focus on manufacturing and updating models. Musk is now dealing with all of the things car makers have had to deal with…Tesla’s idea was to tear all that up and start from scratch, but sales and services are coming back in a hard way,” Chanos said, arguing that while Musk has created a “very sexy car” that is popular with many drivers, the vehicles are “turning out to be a poorly made car.”
When asked if he would view Tesla at a more positive light if Musk were to resign, Chanos stated that he doesn’t think the CEO can. “He’s the brand… it’s all about Elon Musk. I think a lot of people buy the car because he’s the brand,” the short-seller said. Chanos also scoffed at the idea of Tesla offering own insurance service, remarking “You have to be f-ing kidding me.”
While the noted short-seller has returned to air his criticisms against Tesla, a number of Wall St analysts are beginning to adopt a more positive stance on the electric car maker. Among these is Piper Jaffray analyst Alexander Potter, who stated in a recent note on Friday that concerns about weakening demand for the Model 3, which have pushed the stock down about 40% since the start of the year, are “overdone.”
The analyst mentioned that TSLA stock had been overwhelmed by bearish sentiments since the company released its first-quarter delivery results, which were hurt by logistical bottlenecks. “In a nutshell, we think bears are using weak Q1 deliveries to support a ‘doomsday’ thesis where weak demand drives factory under-utilization, margin degradation, and even insolvency. But the underlying premise (weak demand) requires defending — and so far, convincing evidence has yet to emerge,” Potter wrote.
Potter also highlighted that the real opportunity for the Model 3 is likely bigger than what some clients actually understand, particularly as the vehicle is not only competing with luxury vehicles. “Our analysis suggests that 54% of Model 3 demand should come from consumers who would have chosen mass-market vehicles. This mirrors Tesla’s own trade-in data,” the analyst added.
The Piper Jaffray analyst currently has an “overweight” rating for TSLA stock, as well as an optimistic $396 price target on the company.
Tesla’s first quarter might have been challenging, but indications have emerged pointing to the company ending the second quarter in a positive note. A leaked email from Elon Musk, for one, had suggested that Tesla might be able to meet, or even exceed, the company’s record deliveries in Q4 2018, a time when over 90,000 vehicles were delivered to customers. The company is also rolling out a compelling leasing program for the Model 3, which will likely make the electric sedan even more attractive to potential customers.
As of writing, Tesla stock is trading +0.36% at $206.70 per share.
Disclosure: I have no ownership in shares of TSLA and have no plans to initiate any positions within 72 hours.
Elon Musk
Tesla locks in Elon Musk’s top problem solver as it enters its most ambitious era
The generous equity award was disclosed by the electric vehicle maker in a recent regulatory filing.
Tesla has granted Senior Vice President of Automotive Tom Zhu more than 520,000 stock options, tying a significant portion of his compensation to the company’s long-term performance.
The generous equity award was disclosed by the electric vehicle maker in a recent regulatory filing.
Tesla secures top talent
According to a Form 4 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Tom Zhu received 520,021 stock options with an exercise price of $435.80 per share. Since the award will not fully vest until March 5, 2031, Zhu must remain at Tesla for more than five years to realize the award’s full benefit.
Considering that Tesla shares are currently trading at around the $445 to $450 per share level, Zhu will really only see gains in his equity award if Tesla’s stock price sees a notable rise over the years, as noted in a Sina Finance report.
Still, even at today’s prices, Zhu’s stock award is already worth over $230 million. If Tesla reaches the market cap targets set forth in Elon Musk’s 2025 CEO Performance Award, Zhu would become a billionaire from this equity award alone.
Tesla’s problem solver
Zhu joined Tesla in April 2014 and initially led the company’s Supercharger rollout in China. Later that year, he assumed the leadership of Tesla’s China business, where he played a central role in Tesla’s localization efforts, including expanding retail and service networks, and later, overseeing the development of Gigafactory Shanghai.
Zhu’s efforts helped transform China into one of Tesla’s most important markets and production hubs. In 2023, Tesla promoted Zhu to Senior Vice President of Automotive, placing him among the company’s core global executives and expanding his influence beyond China. He has since garnered a reputation as the company’s problem solver, being tapped by Elon Musk to help ramp Giga Texas’s vehicle production.
With this in mind, Tesla’s recent filing seems to suggest that the company is locking in its top talent as it enters its newest, most ambitious era to date. As could be seen in the targets of Elon Musk’s 2025 pay package, Tesla is now aiming to be the world’s largest company by market cap, and it is aiming to achieve production levels that are unheard of. Zhu’s talents would definitely be of use in this stage of the company’s growth.
Tesla analyst Andrew Percoco of Morgan Stanley teased the company’s dominance in its self-driving initiative, stating that its lead over competitors is “not even close.”
Percoco recently overtook coverage of Tesla stock from Adam Jonas, who had covered the company at Morgan Stanley for years. Percoco is handling Tesla now that Jonas is covering embodied AI stocks and no longer automotive.
His first move after grabbing coverage was to adjust the price target from $410 to $425, as well as the rating from ‘Overweight’ to ‘Equal Weight.’
Percoco’s new note regarding Tesla highlights the company’s extensive lead in self-driving and autonomy projects, something that it has plenty of competition in, but has established its prowess over the past few years.
He writes:
“It’s not even close. Tesla continues to lead in autonomous driving, even as Nvidia rolls out new technology aimed at helping other automakers build driverless systems.”
Percoco’s main point regarding Tesla’s advantage is the company’s ability to collect large amounts of training data through its massive fleet, as millions of cars are driving throughout the world and gathering millions of miles of vehicle behavior on the road.
This is the main point that Percoco makes regarding Tesla’s lead in the entire autonomy sector: data is King, and Tesla has the most of it.
One big story that has hit the news over the past week is that of NVIDIA and its own self-driving suite, called Alpamayo. NVIDIA launched this open-source AI program last week, but it differs from Tesla’s in a significant fashion, especially from a hardware perspective, as it plans to use a combination of LiDAR, Radar, and Vision (Cameras) to operate.
Percoco said that NVIDIA’s announcement does not impact Morgan Stanley’s long-term opinions on Tesla and its strength or prowess in self-driving.
NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang commends Tesla’s Elon Musk for early belief
And, for what it’s worth, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang even said some remarkable things about Tesla following the launch of Alpamayo:
“I think the Tesla stack is the most advanced autonomous vehicle stack in the world. I’m fairly certain they were already using end-to-end AI. Whether their AI did reasoning or not is somewhat secondary to that first part.”
Percoco reiterated both the $425 price target and the ‘Equal Weight’ rating on Tesla shares.
Tesla stock (NASDAQ: TSLA) just got a price target boost from its biggest bear, Gordon Johnson of GLJ Research, who raised his expected trading level to one that is 95 percent lower than its current trading level.
Johnson pushed his Tesla price target from $19.05 to $25.28 on Wednesday, while maintaining the ‘Sell’ rating that has been present on the stock for a long time. GLJ has largely been recognized as the biggest skeptic of Elon Musk’s company, being particularly critical of the automotive side of things.
Tesla has routinely been called out by Johnson for negative delivery growth, what he calls “weakening demand,” and price cuts that have occurred in past years, all pointing to them as desperate measures to sell its cars.
Johnson has also said that Tesla is extremely overvalued and is too reliant on regulatory credits for profitability. Other analysts on the bullish side recognize Tesla as a company that is bigger than just its automotive side.
Many believe it is a leader in autonomous driving, like Dan Ives of Wedbush, who believes Tesla will have a widely successful 2026, especially if it can come through on its targets and schedules for Robotaxi and Cybercab.
Justifying the price target this week, Johnson said that the revised valuation is based on “reality rather than narrative.” Tesla has been noted by other analysts and financial experts as a stock that trades on narrative, something Johnson obviously disagrees with.
Dan Nathan, a notorious skeptic of the stock, turned bullish late last year, recognizing the company’s shares trade on “technicals and sentiment.” He said, “From a trading perspective, it looks very interesting.”
Tesla bear turns bullish for two reasons as stock continues boost
Johnson has remained very consistent with this sentiment regarding Tesla and his beliefs regarding its true valuation, and has never shied away from putting his true thoughts out there.
Tesla shares closed at $431.40 today, about 95 percent above where Johnson’s new price target lies.
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