A Tesla Optimus robot <\/p>\n
(Bloomberg) — Elon Musk may be trying to pivot Tesla Inc. away from electric vehicles and toward humanoid robots, but to skeptical investors there\u2019s no hiding from its stagnating sales and eye-watering stock market valuation that leaves little room for error.<\/p>\n
Eager to transform the carmaker into an artificial intelligence powerhouse, Musk earlier this month declared on his social-media platform X that about \u201c80% of Tesla\u2019s value will be Optimus,\u201d referring to the company\u2019s robot initiative. But that\u2019s for the future. In the here and now, Tesla\u2019s 2025 earnings are expected to sink nearly 30%, while its robotaxi business is still years from turning a profit and faces stiff competition from Alphabet Inc.\u2019s Waymo, among others.<\/p>\n
Most Read from Bloomberg<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can pin any kind of valuation to robots at this point,\u201d said Thomas Thornton, founder of Hedge Fund Telemetry. \u201cThe markets have not done an ounce of research on robots. What companies are out there? How good is their technology? How much are they making? And is there really a demand for personal robots?\u201d<\/p>\n
Tesla\u2019s performance has suffered an industrywide EV slowdown that hit in 2023 and worsened in 2024. But at the same time, its stock has gotten increasingly expensive. The shares are priced at around 155 times the company\u2019s earnings over the next 12 months, roughly where they were during the tech frenzy in 2021, the year Tesla\u2019s market value first crossed the trillion-dollar threshold driven by optimism around EVs becoming mainstream.<\/p>\n
Priciest Stock<\/p>\n
That valuation makes Tesla by far the priciest stock in the Magnificent Seven, which also includes tech giants Alphabet, Amazon.com Inc., Apple Inc., Meta Platforms Inc., Microsoft Inc. and Nvidia Corp. The next closest company in the group is AI chip giant Nvidia at 31 times forward earnings. Among all US-listed stocks worth at least $100 billion, only Palantir Technologies Inc. trades at a higher multiple.<\/p>\n
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\u201cTesla is priced like a growth company but has seen little meaningful revenue growth in the past two years,\u201d said Dmitry Shlyapnikov, an analyst at Horizon Investments who works with portfolio managers. \u201cElon Musk needs to provide a different growth story for investors. And Optimus is the answer.\u201d<\/p>\n
That explains why Musk\u2019s unprecedented $1 trillion pay package leans heavily on Optimus robots. But you can\u2019t blame Tesla investors for feeling a sense of whiplash as Musk keeps changing his pitch as to what the company will be.<\/p>\n
Story Continues <\/p>\n
The first bet was on Tesla dominating the electric-vehicle business globally, which it did for a while. In April 2024, Musk changed his ambitions, declaring that self-driving vehicles would be the company\u2019s main focus. Investors lapped it up, sending the stock soaring.<\/p>\n
Then came the CEO\u2019s all-out support of President Donald Trump during his 2024 bid for the White House. When Trump won, it sparked a gigantic rally in Tesla shares on hopes that Musk\u2019s proximity to the administration would ease any hurdles blocking Tesla\u2019s self-driving ambitions.<\/p>\n
\u2018Elon Exposure\u2019<\/p>\n
Fast forward to today, and Musk is no longer involved with Trump, while Tesla\u2019s autonomous driving effort is sputtering. The company had trouble on day one launching a robotaxi service with a handful of cars in its adopted hometown of Austin. Its ride-hailing service in California isn\u2019t driverless, and starting up in new cities is taking time. On Thursday, Tesla was approved to start testing autonomous vehicles in Nevada.<\/p>\n
However, the path to adoption of self-driving technology looks rocky \u2014 and confidence in Tesla\u2019s ability to dominate that field is waning.<\/p>\n
In the meantime, Tesla\u2019s car sales have been slowing globally and fears of stricter auto tariffs have battered the stock price. The shares are down about 25% from their mid-December high and have been trading in a tight range since mid-May. They\u2019re down over 10% this year, putting the company among the 100 worst performers in the S&P 500 Index, which is up 12% for 2025.<\/p>\n
\u201cTesla has never been valued strictly as a car company and instead as a bet on Musk\u2019s ability to bring a sci-fi future to life,\u201d said Steve Sosnick, chief strategist at Interactive Brokers. \u201cThe promised robotaxi revolution doesn\u2019t seem to be enough, so a pivot to humanoid robots is another move to try to make that happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
Whether Musk\u2019s renewed focus on Optimus can shake the stock out of its torpor is up in the air, particularly since a key piece of Tesla\u2019s problem appears to be its technology. For example, the flush door handles, mechanical releases and electrical power that are hallmarks of Tesla cars and trucks can be deadly in crashes because drivers and passengers have struggled to get out of the burning vehicles, Bloomberg reported this week.<\/p>\n
Of course to many investors, Tesla\u2019s value is about more than just electric vehicle sales or numbers on an earnings report. To them, it\u2019s really a bet on Musk\u2019s ability to keep making money as the future of transportation and technology keeps transforming.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you truly believe that Elon Musk is a genius that will change the world with his inventions, there is no other stock to buy,\u201d Horizon\u2019s Shlyapnikov said. \u201cInvesting in Tesla is the only way to add \u2018Elon exposure\u2019 to a public portfolio.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tech Chart of the Day<\/p>\n
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SK Hynix Inc.\u2019s stock climbed to a record after the company announced it had completed development of HBM4, the next generation of high-bandwidth memory crucial for artificial intelligence work.<\/p>\n
Top Tech Stories<\/p>\n
Paramount Skydance Corp., the Hollywood studio taken over in August by independent filmmaker David Ellison, is preparing a bid for rival Warner Bros. Discovery Inc., according to people with knowledge of the matter.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
OpenAI said it\u2019s closer to converting into a more traditional for-profit company \u2014 nearing the resolution of painful negotiations with top shareholder Microsoft Corp. and outlining terms of at least $100 billion in equity for its nonprofit arm.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.\u2019s stock gained the most in about two weeks after the company initiated a series of moves intended to shore up its place in China\u2019s AI development boom.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
The leaders of OpenAI and Nvidia Corp. plan to pledge support for billions of dollars in UK data center investments when they head to the country next week at the same time as President Donald Trump, according to people with knowledge of the matter.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
Apple Inc. said its hypertension detection system for its smart watch will arrive next week after receiving clearance Thursday from the US Food and Drug Administration.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Earnings Due Friday <\/p>\n
–With assistance from Subrat Patnaik.<\/p>\n
Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek<\/p>\n
\u00a92025 Bloomberg L.P.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Tesla Optimus robot (Bloomberg) — Elon Musk may be trying to pivot Tesla Inc. away from electric…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":59574,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[261],"tags":[291,289,290,2006,18,1647,21742,19,17,10595,82,13670,42797],"class_list":{"0":"post-59573","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-company","12":"tag-eire","13":"tag-elon-musk","14":"tag-humanoid-robots","15":"tag-ie","16":"tag-ireland","17":"tag-president-donald-trump","18":"tag-technology","19":"tag-tesla-inc","20":"tag-tesla-optimus"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59573\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}