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Dan Ives Slams Tesla and CEO Elon Musk, Removing Tesla From Its "Best Ideas" Until Elon Musk and Tesla Do These 10 Things

Dan Ives slammed Tesla and CEO Elon Musk recently, saying that Tesla and its CEO must do these 10 things.
Dan Ives Slams Tesla and CEO Elon Musk, Removing Tesla From Its "Best Ideas" Until Elon Musk and Tesla Do These 10 Things

Tesla and Elon Musk slammed by Dan Ives and Wedbush

Recently, Dan Ives called Tesla's latest earnings call a Train Wreck, with Tesla giving no guidance on how many vehicles it thinks it can deliver in 2024 and that Tesla is missing the boat on many different things. Wedbush also removed Tesla from its "best ideas" list until Tesla and CEO Elon Musk addresses these 10 concerns.

1. Announce a $10 Billion Share Buyback With Roughly $30 Billion of Cash on hand. Walk the walk, not just talk the talk and show confidence to investors

Tesla has never bought any of its stock back so far. With the recent over 13% drop in Tesla stock, now is as good as any time to start buying some of that stock back.

Tesla won't - or shouldn't stay at its current suppressed prices forever. At some point, it will have to show investors that it's confident in the business by buying its own stock.

2. Create an “X Holding” Structure That Will Include Al Initiatives (Dojo, Optimus, FSD) to give Musk More Control and could get him to ~25% voting level

Elon Musk recently talked about how he needs more voting power in Tesla so that the very powerful AI being created cannot be usurped by a single entity. Elon Musk doesn't want full control, but he does want to have a say in what happens.

I don't know what the hold up is in the Delaware courts for whatever is needed for a compensation package to happen. Apparently, Elon's last compensation package is under scrutiny there, so it's unclear when this will be resolved.

This is a big risk to Tesla, and I agree with Dan Ives that it needs to be resolved soon. However, with a court, one never knows when things will be resolved...

3. Stop the price cuts now and maintain margin leverage over other auto players

I don't agree that Tesla should stop price cuts just because people tell them too. However, Tesla has cut prices quite a bit on its existing vehicles that if they continue to do it, the compact model becomes a little less compelling. If you can get a Model 3, which will likely have better specs than a compact car for $35,000 - that's only $10,000 more than the compact...

Maintaining margin leverage does give Tesla an earnings advantage over other auto companies. If you've been following Tesla, you know that Tesla is much more than an auto company. They are playing the long game with AI and self-driving cars.

4. Hold an Al Day before the summer timeframe, so investors can better understand the goals for Dojo, Optimus, FSD

I am not sure that Tesla will hold another AI Day, after hearing the latest conference call because of the fear of competitor's stealing Tesla's ideas. However, it would be good to have an AI day when Tesla showcases what its AI can do for the customer - that is something worth doing.

You May Also Be Interested In: A Billion Tesla Humanoid Robots In the 2040s, Says Elon Musk

Further "Homework" For Tesla

5. Get outside capital for X/Twitter with assurances of no more Musk stock sales

Elon Musk has sold quite a bit of stock in the past in order to fund his acquisition of Twitter - now X. In total, it was $44 billion and not all of it was Elon Musk's money.

It's unknown if X will need any further money, however, with the risk of his compensation package in the air, it's important that Tesla investors know for sure that Elon Musk won't sell more billions of stock, which will only put downward pressure on share prices.

6. New comp package with the proxy to lock in Musk as CEO Through 2030 along with settling Delaware legal issue holding things up

Elon Musk needs a new compensation package - whatever it looks like - so that he works with an incentive and has his concerns resolved. As I mentioned earlier, there is a holdup in the Delaware court system regarding Elon's prior compensation package. I do not know what the hold up is, but it's a risk that it's still lingering without a solution.

7. Hittable production/delivery timeline for Model 2 and sub $30k vehicle in 2025

I think this one Tesla can and should do. It's pretty simple - start with a low number, like you are doing with the Cybertruck for the first year, and then ramp it like crazy afterward. Plan on 2 million units from every Giga factory where this vehicle is produced.

All that seems pretty straightforward to me, however, I don't think Elon Musk cares about Wall Street and what people want to hear about guidance anymore.

8. With Zach (former CFO) gone, conference calls have been horror shows; return to formal guidance and goalposts and make messaging changes on calls

The last conference call had some good and bad to it. The bad was that communication was a little strange and Elon Musk was incongruent with the past. Elon Musk is now talking about Tesla being the largest company in the world.

He used to say that Tesla could be bigger than Apple and Aramco. His wording has changed, and there must be some reason for that.

Fortunately, Tesla has a lot of talented leadership, such that it probably won't matter if Tesla gives guidance or not. Elon Musk and Tesla are going to do whatever they want.

9. Do aggressive Al acquisition spree and bring in outside capital to build out the Al component of Tesla...~$30 Billion of cash to fund deals

I don't think Tesla should do this. They have almost $30 billion dollars - why waste that money raising more money and going into debt?

10. Give long-term targets around Al revenue to the Tesla ecosystem. We believe Tesla could be the biggest Al company in the world around FSD, autonomous, Dojo, Optimus, robotaxis...give this key Al framework to the Street/investors

Tesla doesn't give much in the way of strategy, plan, and future numbers for AI anymore. Elon Musk did talk about robotaxis many years ago and their potential revenue.

Tesla has turned much more conservative, though, as evidenced by their over $29 billion war chest now...

With uncertain economics times (even though the S&P 500 is at all-time highs), Tesla is choosing to take things slow and easy before spending too much money on any one thing.

In Other Tesla News: Getting Launched In An Original Tesla Roadster - The Moment That Changed Everything For Me About Tesla

What do you think about Dan Ives and Wedbush removing Tesla from its "best ideas" lineup? Will this prove to be a problem for Tesla?

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Hi! I'm Jeremy Noel Johnson, and I am a Tesla investor and supporter and own a 2022 Model 3 RWD EV and I don't have range anxiety :). I enjoy bringing you breaking Tesla news as well as anything about Tesla or other EV companies I can find, like Aptera. Other interests of mine are AI, Tesla Energy and the Tesla Bot! You can follow me on X.COM or LinkedIn or watch my short Tesla videos on TikTok to stay in touch and follow my Tesla and EV news coverage.

Image Credit: Teslerati & CGTN America

Article Reference: Herbert Ong

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