Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) bull Dan Ives of Wedbush has defended his bullish position despite the company's ongoing challenges ahead of its first quarter earnings report due after markets close on Tuesday.
“As one of the biggest supporters of Tesla over the last decade we have been through many highs and lows on the Tesla story and each time with the back against the wall [CEO Elon] Musk was able to turn things around on the Tesla story,” Ives wrote in a note.
“The turnaround vision must start this Tuesday night on the earnings conference call for Musk and Tesla.”
Ives wrote Musk needs to lay out for investors the timing and rollout of unsupervised full self driving this summer, provide an update on when its new lower-cost vehicle will hit the production line and how he plans to turn around the company after a “disastrous” first quarter.
He also said it was time for the CEO to lay out the “hard facts” around the autonomous and robotics rollout over the next six to 12 months.
Political symbol
Ives noted that since Musk has joined the Trump administration, Tesla has become a political symbol of Trump and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a government cost-cutting unit headed by Musk.
“Tesla’s stock has been crushed since Trump stepped back into the White House,” he added. “Brand damage to Musk/Tesla resulted in a terrible Q1 delivery number with much lower 2025 deliveries on the horizon.”
Wedbush expect a 15% to 20% permanent impact on Tesla buyer demand due to the brand damage Musk has created with DOGE.
Defending his bullish position on Tesla, Ives wrote that he sees Tesla, along with Nvidia, as two of the most disruptive technology companies over the coming years.
“The unparalleled innovation, engineering scale, autonomous roadmap, and robotics future will unleash massive valuation upside over the coming years in our view, but ....Musk needs to leave the government, take a major step back on DOGE, and get back to being CEO of Tesla full-time.”
Next moves
The company is at a fork in the road, Ives believes.
“If Musk leaves the White House, there will be permanent brand damage...but Tesla will have its most important asset and strategic thinker back as full-time CEO to drive the vision and the long-term story will not be altered,” he wrote.
“If Musk chooses to stay with the Trump White House, it could change the future of Tesla/brand damage will grow. A huge week ahead for Musk, Tesla, and investors.”
Ives repeated his ‘Outperform’ rating on Tesla.
Shares traded down 7.1% at about $224 in the early afternoon on Monday, having slumped almost 45% in the year to date.