Take your choice Tesla's brand value saw a 26% YoY decline, partly due to Musk: study Tesla (TSLA) receives price target bump to $500 from Piper Sandler
They are not mutually exclusive. Lowering brand value points to continued headwinds for auto sales in the USA and Europe. China sales are unaffected and I doubt the energy sales will be affected. Tesla Energy sales have been growing and are expected to become a larger and larger part of the business.
Why? Because you don’t agree with their conclusion? Have you surveyed owners and a random group of prospective buyers?
Which conclusion did I not agree with? The one that said Tesla was going to go down, or the one that said it was going to go up?
I interpreted brand reputation decline to translate into some number of forgone sales. Time will tell if other things like the Y refresh overcome a decline in perceived desirability.
Brand reputation is a future indicator. Changes in brand reputation will affect future sales. Brand reputation is falling in the USA and Europe only. Brand rep is not falling, due to Musk, in China. 4th quarter was a good example of that. Sales slid in both Europe and the USA, but grew in China. China's growth offset the sales losses in the other areas. In addition, auto sales are not the only thing that affect the stock price. As I mentioned earlier, energy sales are growing rapidly. If Tesla solves FSD and AI, they can stop making cars and still have a soaring stock price. Negative movement of reputation definitely has an impact on auto sales, but it isn't the only factor. Thus, having a loss of rep in part of the world does not preclude the stock price go up.
A bigger threat to TSLA, IMO, is a falling out between Elon and Trump. TSLA price got a huge runup on the idea of fewer regulation and red tape, in addition to Elon and Trump being all buddy-buddy. Points of friction have already appeared. Now, Elon has a ton of money, so perhaps Trump will just deal with it. If Elon falls out of favor, Trump can make very difficult on Elon, and TSLA. I see the price dropping below where it was prior to the bromance.
