Analyst on Tesla (TSLA): Elon Musk's Political Involvement Did 'Deep, Permanent' Damage

Colin Rusch, Oppenheimer senior research analyst, said in a recent program on CNBC that Tesla, Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) autonomous launch in June will be the key focus of investors, and the event could be decisive for the stock in the coming months. He believes the future of the company is “physical” AI and autonomous driving, while investors will consider the company’s ability to be cash-flow positive as a key benchmark,

However, Rusch thinks Elon Musk’s involvement in politics did some “permanent” damage to the Tesla, Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA):

“I think there is some, you know, deep, permanent damage with a lot of folks on the left. Whether that hinders the company's growth or not over the long term isn’t quite determined yet. I think there is a big enough market for them to grow into, but I do think it limits the ultimate scope and scale of the business. It was once universally respected and loved across both sides of the aisle for a period of time—and I think that time is now permanently over.”

Loomis Sayles Global Growth Fund stated the following regarding Tesla, Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) in its Q1 2025 investor letter:

“Founded in 2003, Tesla, Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) is a global leader in the design, manufacturing, and sales of high performance fully electric (battery) vehicles (EVs). The company’s automotive unit sells its products directly to customers through its website and retail locations and continues to grow its customer-facing infrastructure through a global network of vehicle service centers, mobile service technicians, body shops, Supercharger stations, and Destination Chargers to accelerate widespread adoption of its products. Tesla also designs, manufactures, sells, and installs solar energy generation and energy storage products to residential, commercial, and industrial clients through its energy generation and storage unit. The company generated approximately 90% of its sales from its automotive segment and 10% from its energy generation and storage segment in its 2024 fiscal year. From a geographic standpoint, the US and China are the company’s two largest markets and accounted for approximately 49% and 21% of 2024 sales, respectively, while the rest of the world collectively accounts for approximately 30%.

A fund holding since the first quarter of 2022, Tesla shares declined during the quarter, after appreciating 60% in the fourth quarter following the US election results in which CEO Elon Musk publicly supported President Trump. We believe the election results, which have no impact on our long-term structural investment thesis for the company, brought renewed focus on full-self driving (FSD) and other software opportunities for Tesla. Tesla’s monetization of its growing installed base of vehicles through software sales, primarily FSD, has always been a key aspect of our investment thesis. More recently, Musk’s greater involvement in US and global politics is thought to have brought negative attention to the brand, which is believed to be one of the primary drivers for current share price weakness. While we believe this could be impacting some sales, we believe the greater impact to current sales is customers awaiting the full availability of the new model Y, which is Tesla’s most popular vehicle. Despite this near-term uncertainty, we believe the concurrent pullback in EV investments by many traditional auto manufacturers will enable Tesla to extend its product and technology advantages, driving even further differentiation as consumers consider the full suite of Tesla products, including new models anticipated in 2025. There is no change to our long-term structural investment thesis for Tesla, which continues to trade at a significant discount to our estimate of intrinsic value…” (Click here to read the full text)

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