A Tesla analyst that held the stock’s highest price target on Wall Street once, advises CEO Elon Musk to refocus his efforts on SpaceX and Tesla and avoid the social media platform’s “money pit.”, as per Teslarati.
Musk should get his focus back to Tesla and SpaceX, Dan Ives of Wedbush stated, avoiding the Twitter “money pit” that will “get a lot worse before it gets better.”
Ives’ $250 price target & ‘outperform’ rating
Ives has been a confident analyst on Tesla, and while he brought up his price target of $250 on the stock and kept an ‘Outperform’ rating he held for weeks, he is concerned with CEO Elon Musk’s current focus.
It is no secret that Musk’s recent attentiveness is restoring Twitter’s profitability, his newest venture gained through a long and extended $44 billion saga.
While it’s just another add-up to Musk’s long laundry list of responsibilities, Ives has started to indicate that he is worried about what the Twitter saga will do to SpaceX and Tesla.
“We’re starting to get into brand issues here for Tesla because of this black eye from Elon Musk and the train wreck situation with Twitter,” said Ives on CNBC Overtimelast night.
“Twitter, in all essence, is a money pit.”
Ives detached Tesla stock from Wedbush’s ‘Best Ideas’ list yesterday. While he brought up that Tesla’s deep-rooted story remains relatively constant, he is concerned about the low volatility of the stock based on a brand perspective.
If demand starts to worsen, Ives said it would be an ‘ominous’ sign moving forward.
This morning, Ives emphasized this point while advising Musk to get his focus back on SpaceX and Tesla.
“Best thing for Musk now is to have others with social media backgrounds focus on Twitter; lay out a strategy to monetize and keep advertisers,” said Ives.
“Twitter, at this point, is essentially a money pit. Best thing for Musk now is to have others with social media backgrounds focus on Twitter; provide a strategy to monetize and keep advertisers-which is hard until they know the ground rules. Then Musk focus on Tesla and SpaceX.” Ives tweeted.
Stock’s highest price target
Ives and Wedbush are still bullish on Tesla for an extended time. At one point, Ives had the stock’s highest price target on Wall Street.
That was in November 2021, and Ives had a $1,400 price target.
