Tesla Stock Downgraded Following Model 3 Cancelation Reports

Following an investor analysis report which claimed that Tesla’s Model 3 cancelations now outweighed its orders, Tesla’s stock has been downgraded resulting in a drop in stock price.

According to a report released yesterday, refunds now outpace deposits for Tesla’s Model 3 sedan. Just weeks after Tesla finally managed to hit their production milestone of 5,000 Model 3 cars a week, demand for their new car has reportedly plummeted. This new issue was first reported in an analyst note from Needham & Co. analyst Rajvindra Gill.

Gill also downgraded Tesla’s stock, resulting in a 3 percent drop in the company’s stock price. By market close, Tesla’s stock price had gone up to $320.23 a share, an overall 1.1 percent decrease for the company on their price before the stock downgrade.

Tesla stockholders have become worried about the company and its CEO Elon Musk, who has become increasingly erratic in recent months, attacking journalists critical of his companies and referring to a British cave rescuer as a “pedo guy.”

Gordon Johnson, the managing director of Vertical Group, a new-york based investment research group told the Washington Post: “This thing is unraveling. You had a very big shareholder last week say they want him to focus on executing and stop with the tweets — and then, this weekend, you get more tweets. What’s his angle? What is he doing? … He keeps promising all of these things, and he keeps missing, and he’s not being held to task.”

Johnson is referencing comments made by Tesla’s fourth-largest shareholder, who urged Musk for “a time of quiet and peace,” four days before Musk attacked Unsworth via Twitter. Gene Munster, an analyst for Loup Ventures, said that Musk’s latest comments bring his credibility into question. “This crossed a line, and it needs to stop,” he said. “They have such a great story to tell, and it’s getting lost in this noise.”

Jim Chanos, a long time short seller of Tesla stock, slammed Tesla CEO Elon Musk for over-promising on car production times in a recent interview with CNBC. “I don’t think you get to tell people you’re going to make 20,000 Model 3s a week when you know that’s not going to be the case,” said Chanos referencing the “production hell” the Tesla’s Model 3 went through to reach a milestone of 5000 cars produced a week. In order to reach this milestone, Tesla allegedly stopped brake testing their cars and assembled many of them in a makeshift outdoor assembly line constructed of spare parts.

It would appear that Musk has now turned his attention away from Tesla and towards efforts to fix the Flint, Michigan water crisis — which has largely been solved — and the topic of artificial intelligence, with Musk joining other tech leaders in pledging to not develop “lethal autonomous weapons.”