Elon Musk may seem distracted with Twitter for now, and Tesla stock may have taken a beating this year, but legendary investor George Soros seems largely unaffected. Based on a regulatory filing, Soros has taken advantage of Tesla’s drop this year and loaded up on shares of the electric vehicle maker, tripling his stake in the past months.
Soros’ Tesla stake was disclosed in the second quarter, which suggested that he started acquiring shares of the electric vehicle maker between April 1 and June 30. At the time, the legendary investor held 29,883 shares. As per a Form 13F filing, Soros now owns 89,647 Tesla shares through his firm, Soros Fund Management (SFM). The stake is currently valued at about $16.4 million considering Wednesday’s close of $183.20 per share.
In a way, Soros’ growing stake in Tesla shows that the billionaire investor is confident that the company could execute and meet its goals even as its CEO, Elon Musk, seems extremely busy with Twitter.
Since completing his acquisition of Twitter, Musk has reduced his Tesla tweets, as most of his posts have been about the social media platform. Tesla, however, could very well be headed for a powerhouse Q4 on its own, with Tesla China firing on all cylinders and Gigafactory Texas and Berlin both ramping up their production and deliveries.
Soros’ views on Tesla seem to be shared by analysts that are covering the electric vehicle maker. In a recent note, longtime Tesla bear and Citigroup analyst Itay Michaeli noted that the electric vehicle maker is poised to benefit from the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).
“To be sure, macro/competitive concerns are likely to remain an overhang with capacity rising, but as we’ve previously written, in a hard landing scenario Tesla’s long-term competitive position likely also improves and potentially further enhanced by (President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act),” the Citigroup analyst said.
Tesla bull and Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas was on the same page, noting that while TSLA investors face risks with Elon Musk’s Twitter activities, the company is still on pace to grow sales by about 37% next year. This should allow Tesla to establish its place as the market’s dominant electric vehicle maker.
“We believe Tesla’s ‘gap-to-competition’ can potentially widen, particularly as EV prices pivot from inflationary to deflationary. With respect to the (Inflation Reduction Act) we believe Tesla is by far the best positioned OEM in terms of potential eligibility for consumer tax and production credits,” Jonas wrote.
Disclosure: I am long Tesla.
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