Benzinga - by Shanthi Rexaline, Benzinga Editor.
Tesla, Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) shares are trading way off their highs and have been through a volatile bout amid the electric vehicle maker’s fundamental challenges. While detractors don’t give a chance for the company to turn things around, CEO Elon Musk sported optimism laced with caution.
What Happened: A Tesla influencer tried to capitalize on the Nvidia frenzy seen after the release of the AI frontrunner’s stellar quarterly results on Wednesday and commented that “Valuing Tesla based on expectations for the auto business is like valuing Nvidia based on expectations for the gaming GPU segment.”
“Yeah,” Musk said, giving his nod to the view.
Yeah— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 23, 2024
Anybody who has closely followed Nvidia over the years may know that the Jensen Huang-led company has been one of the most dynamic corporations in the U.S., lapping up every new opportunity coming its way.
Nvidia, founded in in April 1993 by the trio of Huang, Chris Malachowsky and Curtis Priem, started off a gaming chipmaker on the premise that PCs would one day become consumer devices for enjoying games and multimedia. Incidentally, the Santa Clara, California-based chipmaker is being credited as the inventor of graphic processing units, which power PCs used for gaming
Up until the fourth quarter of 2022, Nvidia’s Gaming segment was its biggest revenue earner. Revenues from Gaming, and Data Center, its next-highest revenue-raking segment, were at $3.42 billion and $3.26 billion, respectively, in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2022.
Come 2023, with the advent of the AI revolution, Nvidia quickly pivoted to designing high-performance chips used in AI applications as well as training and inference. The most recent quarterly results showed Data Center revenue was at $22.56 billion compared to the $2.65 billion contributed by the gaming business.
Tesla’s Sum-Of-Parts: Musk’s reply reflects the fact that he considers Tesla as being much more than an automaker. The billionaire has sounded this out in the past. As recently as this year, on the first quarter earnings call, Musk quoted Ark Invest founder Cathie Wood to make the point.
Replying to an analyst question, the CEO said, “I think Cathie Wood said it best. Like really, we should be thought of as an AI or robotics company.”
The strategic direction of the company also confirms this. When demand faltered amid the economic uncertainties in 2022, the company began aggressively cutting EV prices, prioritizing market share over volume. Musk said at one of the earnings calls that he was okay with Tesla selling EVs at zero profits and make up for the losses with high-margin, recurring full self-driving revenue. This is commonly referred to as the “razor-razorblade” approach.
Tesla’s price-cutting strategy backfired as competition followed suit with their own cuts, although it did place newbie startups on the course of bankruptcy.
Musk’s view of Tesla being more than an auto company is not ill-founded. The company has several moving parts, with the valuation being the sum of those parts.
In a note released in late 2023, Morgan Stanley’s Adam Jonas broke down the sum of the moving parts as follows:
- Core auto business ($86 per share)
- Tesla mobility autonomous car business, aka robotaxi ($82 per share)
- Supply of car parts and technology ($42 per share)
- Solar and energy storage business ($48 per share)
- Insurance business ($8 per share)
- Network services business, namely its FSD, Supercharger network and others ($115 per share)
One of his followers shared a video clip of Wood’s CNBC interview in which the fund manager mentions Ark’s $2,000 price target. Calling Tesla the biggest AI project on the earth, Wood said Tesla is in the convergence of technologies such as AI robotics and energy storage.
Musk said the price target, though “possible,” is “extremely difficult.”
Possible, but extremely difficult— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 23, 2024
The $2,000 price target was announced by Ark in April 2023. At that time the firm said, “Tesla’s Robotaxi business line is a key driver, contributing about 58% of expected enterprise value and 45% of expected EBITDA in 2027.” Ark’s analysts expected EVs to make up 62% of the revenues.
Ark then assumed that robotaxis would roll out by late 2024. This appears to be a tall ask now, given Tesla is yet to perfect its FSD, which is an integral part of the service. The technology should also be vetted by regulators. That said, more details could be forthcoming at the robotaxi unveil event the company has scheduled for Aug. 8.
Tesla shares ended Thursday’s session down 3.54% to $173.74, according to Benzinga Pro data. The shares are down about 30% for the year and about 58% from the all-time intraday highs of $414.50 (hit on Nov. 4, 2021).
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