Was Jim Cramer Right About Tesla (TSLA)?

We recently published a list of Jim Cramer’s 9 Failed Predictions From 12 Months Ago. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Tesla, Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) stands against other stocks that Jim Cramer discussed 12 months ago.

During a recent episode of Mad Money, which aired on Friday, the 9th of May, Jim Cramer urged investors to stop chasing hot stocks blindly and instead start with the most fundamental question of all: what are you investing for?

“Far too often people will invest in the stock market with the simple poorly defined goal of making money. That’s right. Poorly defined goal. Yeah, we all want to make money. I want it. You want it. But how quickly do you want that return? What are you willing to risk in order to get there? How much can you even afford to risk in the first place?”

READ ALSO: Jim Cramer Nailed These 12 Stock Predictions and 13 Stock Predictions That Jim Cramer Got Completely Wrong.

He stressed the importance of matching your stock choices to your actual financial goals such as retirement, home purchase, and college tuition, rather than treating all money as interchangeable. This, he explained, is the cornerstone of suitability:

“You simply can’t know which stocks you should buy if you haven’t taken the time to really consider what your objectives are. That’s the foundation of good investing judgment.”

Cramer closed the segment by reminding viewers that even though the U.S. remains one of the best markets for long-term growth, discipline must come before stock picking:

“America remains a growth country… But please get to know yourself before you jump down the rabbit hole of getting to know individual companies.”

Our Methodology

For this article, we compiled a list of 9 stocks that were discussed by Jim Cramer during Mad Money episodes that aired on the 7^th and 8^th of May 2024. We then calculated their performance for the past 12 months, until May 7^th, 2025, market close. We have also included the hedge fund sentiment for the stocks, which we sourced from Insider Monkey’s Q4 2024 database of over 900 hedge funds. The stocks are listed in the order that Cramer mentioned them.

Please note that this article mentions Jim Cramer’s previous opinions and may not account for any changes to his opinions regarding the stocks that are mentioned. It is primarily an examination of how his previously provided opinions have panned out.

Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter’s strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 373.4% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 218 percentage points (see more details here).

Tesla, Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 126

A viewer from New York asked about Tesla, Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA), its current valuation and prospects. Cramer admitted to having mixed feelings.

“You know, I’m struggling with Tesla. I’m struggling with Tesla because even after this decline, it’s still a $567 billion company. And I happen to think that there are problems in China, problems in Germany, problems in the United States, problems in the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and problems with the robot. Otherwise? That is still might. […]

I’m tired of hearing about Elon Musk’s Robo taxi. Maybe one day there’ll be a savior but America isn’t set up for him and China wants to do it. They’re going to do it cheaper and homegrown.

Cramer got this one wrong as Tesla surged 55.35% despite the issues he highlighted.

However, Cramer provided a mix of opinions on Tesla, Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) since then. Here’s what he said in April following the EV maker’s earnings:

“It was a changeover quarter.”

“They’re talking about having a million robots. They’re talking about having much better than Waymo in Austin.”

“What I took away from this is that the reason why you had that really bad quarter if you wanna be simplistic about it, is he’s not been focused and they had this changeover and now he’s back. And the magic is back. So, you can have all these hedge fund managers, all the mutual fund managers who love him, they’ll just sit there and take the stock which is up 17 right now, they’ll take it up to 275 over the next couple of days. Because they love him so much. And he is, he’s not a pied piper, he’s a serious guy.”

“Yes he has. . .I think memories are short. I think they’ll have new models. I think he talked very positively about China. He does have a tariff problem.”

“[On rare earth metal constraints due to Chinese ban] They need a break there. They need some sort of deal. Maybe that’s something that would come up. David, I want to go back to this Waymo issue versus . . I mean he just says, look, Waymo is very expensive. It’s not really their own car. Uh, you’re going to see, in Austin, you’re going to see an explosion of Teslas. I think that’s the next big thing that gets to these managers all juiced and says I gotta buy this thing.”

Overall, TSLA ranks 2nd on our list of stocks that Jim Cramer discussed 12 months ago. While we acknowledge the potential of TSLA as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and doing so within a shorter time frame. There is an AI stock that went up since the beginning of 2025, while popular AI stocks lost around 25%. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than TSLA but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about this cheapest AI stock.

READ NEXT: 20 Best AI Stocks To Buy Now and 30 Best Stocks to Buy Now According to Billionaires.

Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.