It’s been a rough day for electric car maker Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA). It was up in trading at one point after a Twitter poll suggested Musk should resign as Chief Twit. Trading through the morning and into the afternoon saw Tesla lose most of its ground. Meanwhile, a new perspective from Oppenheimer analysts offered no help for the beleaguered automaker.
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Analyst Colin Rusch shifted his perspective on Tesla from “outperform” to “perform.” Rusch noted that the recent troubles at Twitter have left Tesla in trouble. Indeed, Tesla has lost about 30% of its value since Elon Musk first put on the Chief Twit hat. However, it’s not just the recent issues at Twitter, Rusch noted. Twitter has some serious troubles with its business model and has “unclear cash needs.” Worse, the “broad public backlash” could be a bigger problem than expected.
A recent Twitter poll already suggested, by a slight majority, that Musk should step down. Several analysts—including Loup Capital analyst Gene Munster—noted that Musk’s split focus between Twitter and Tesla has the potential to weigh on Tesla results for some time to come. Tesla shares have long enjoyed a premium thanks to Musk’s leadership. With Musk currently off leading Twitter instead, investors are pulling back as the long-term leadership they’d hoped would be in place is much less so.
Analyst sentiment may be souring, but only gradually. Currently, analyst consensus considers Tesla a Moderate Buy, with twice the number of Buy recommendations as Hold. Additionally, the company has upside potential of 92.46% thanks to its average share price target of $288.48 per share.
