00:00 Speaker A
Well, as you can see Tesla shares continue their move to the downside this morning. A reverse of fortune for the car maker after five straight winning sessions, but declines coming amid concerns that CEO Elon Musk’s politics are beginning to hit company sales. Joining us now, we’ve got Craig Irwin, Roth Capital Partners senior research analyst. Craig, thanks so much for being here. We’re taking a look at your analyst ratings on the stock, a longtime bear. You were neutral as of October of 2024, you switched to a buy rating in December, and then you increased your price target as recently as January 30th. What’s your bull case currently?
01:01 Craig Irwin
So right now the bull case is that um, autonomous, they’re the world leader by a wide, wide uh, wide margin. Um, and uh, robotics, and uh, AI and and those are the things that, you know, get investors dreaming. Tesla is a hopes and dreams stock. And know, by the way, they dominate the EV market, right? They might not be uh number one anymore because of BYD, but I I don’t think they really want to focus on commodity cars. Um, the Seagull probably won’t do so very well here in the in the US when it eventually gets launched, if it gets launched. So, you know, Tesla’s kind of the the right place for EVs has demonstrated success on innovation and has, you know, a solid line of sight on executing in robotics, um AI and uh, and obviously autonomous. And autonomous, we got some great near-term catalysts.