Shares in Tesla (TSLA) stock continue to decline following the approval of Elon Musk’s $1T bonus payment plan last week. Exactly one week ago, at the Tesla shareholder meeting, Elon Musk was granted his $1T pay package. Musk, who is currently the richest person in the world, will receive 12 portions of shares as part of his compensation package if Tesla achieves specific goals over the course of the next ten years. Additionally, it would grant Musk more voting authority over the business.
Tesla stock ended Thursday trading just above $401, a 6% decline in 24 hours, its worst performance since the summer. The stock is also down 10% this week and 7.8% in the past 30 days. However, with the saga of Musk’s $1 trillion pay package behind it, analysts like Wedbush’s Dan Ives remain bullish on Tesla shares, and he believes the automaker’s AI future is where investors should be looking.
“In my opinion, it’s going to be the most important chapter ever in Tesla’s story,” Ives said from the Yahoo Finance Invest event in New York. Ives has called passage of Musk’s pay package a “bright green light” for Tesla’s AI and autonomous tech plans, and has an Outperform rating on the stock and a Street-high $600 price target.”You have to have the understanding of what Musk and Tesla are trying to do here,” Ives added. “They’re building out the AI future, autonomous. I mean, they’re going to own 80% of the autonomous landscape, in my opinion, over the next decade.”
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Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Hold consensus rating on Tesla (TSLA) stock based on 14 Buys, 10 Holds, and 10 Sells assigned in the past three months. After a 38.38% rally in its share price over the past year, the average TSLA stock price target of $382.54 per share implies 4.6% downside risk. At press time, TSLA is trading near the top of its 52-week range and above its 200-day simple moving average.