Tesla’s Valuation ‘Problem’ Could Get Worse Before It Gets Better, Morgan Stanley Says

It’s harder than ever for Tesla (TSLA) investors to justify the stock’s sky-high share price, Morgan Stanley analysts wrote to clients this week, and suggested that’s likely to get worse before it improves.

Tesla’s valuation “problem” Morgan Stanley sees is that many investors conceptualize Tesla solely as an electric vehicle company. Looking at that activity alone, the bank said it values Tesla’s core auto business at $75 per share—well below the stock’s level around $345 in recent trading.

But stopping at Tesla’s car business “is akin to valuing Amazon as solely an online retailer or Apple as a seller of glowing rectangles and earbuds,” the analysts said. 

Putting EVs aside, the Elon Musk-led company represents a tough-to-evaluate portfolio of “startups” that includes autonomous driving technology, energy storage, artificial intelligence, and humanoid robotics as potential growth catalysts. 

That makes a firm valuation tough for investors to pin down, as “the majority of the company’s current $1.1 trillion market cap is based on businesses that have either poor disclosure, no disclosure, or that have yet to be launched into the commercial market at all,” Morgan Stanley said. 

How Morgan Stanley Arrived at Its Bullish Target

The bank has a bullish target of $410, which it breaks down into five buckets: $75 a share for the EV business, $160 for in-car software services, $90 for robotaxis, $67 for energy storage, and $17 for Tesla as a third-party supplier to other companies. It does not currently include a valuation for Tesla Optimus, the humanoid robot division, which the bank said ultimately could serve an even larger addressable market than its EVs do.

Morgan Stanley’s target is almost a 20% premium over Tesla’s closing price Monday and far more bullish than the consensus target of about $296 among analysts tracked by Visible Alpha.

Meanwhile, Musk said in an interview Tuesday that he is committed to remaining Tesla’s CEO for at least the next five years. Musk told attendees of the Qatar Economic Forum said that he is currently spending just about one to two days per week on his work with the Trump administration’s cost-cutting efforts, following up on a promise he made during Tesla’s earnings call last month to spend more time with the EV maker.