Tesla's ‘Game of Thrones’ Approach Leaves Its Audience Cold
Too much has happened in a short time, and now its bar for success is lofty.
Tesla shareholder or “Game of Thrones” fan? Or both?
Photographer: ROBYN BECK/AFP/Getty Images
At the close of trading on August 7 of last year, Tesla Inc.’s market value was $64.8 billion, its highest ever. Not coincidentally, that was also the day CEO Elon Musk claimed on Twitter that he had lined up a take-private deal worth almost $72 billion (he hadn’t). A lot has happened in the nine months or so since then, and the stock has dropped by almost half: Tesla kicked off Monday worth $29 billion less than it was at the end of that frenetic day.
It seems weird to think a stock trading at 108 times forward earnings is suffering a crisis of confidence, but how else to characterize what’s happened in the past few months? Monday morning’s drop, taking the stock below $200 initially and to its lowest level since late 2016, was touched off by another analyst cutting their price target. Granted, it’s best not to set too much store by a target, now at $230, that was $365 as recently as 25 days ago. The consensus target is about $295, according to data compiled by Bloomberg, meaning it’s still at its richest level relative to the stock in more than three years: