Ahead of the Viva Tech Conference in Paris on Friday, Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO Elon Musk met Italy Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on Thursday. In a tweet, Meloni stated that they discussed varied topics ranging from the risks associated with artificial intelligence (AI) to birth rates. The meeting comes as European leaders are trying to convince Musk to build a new electric vehicle (EV) manufacturing facility in the region.
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Europe Wooing Musk
Musk also met Italy’s foreign minister Antonio Tajani earlier on Thursday. They held talks on the automotive and aerospace sectors.
In this short European tour, Musk is also likely to meet French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday. “I’m going with an agenda,” said Macron when reporters questioned him about his meeting with Musk. Macron intends to talk about AI, social media, and the regulatory framework. The French president said that he would also promote “French and European attractiveness” to Musk, essentially lobbying for a Tesla Gigafactory.
Over the past few weeks, the billionaire CEO has been meeting officials across several countries, including a surprise China visit where he met high-ranking officials. He discussed the expansion of Gigafactory Shanghai and the build-out of a Megafactory in the country to produce the Megapack grid-scale battery.
Is Tesla a Buy or Sell Today?
Of the 17 top Wall Street Analysts covering the stock, nine have assigned a Buy rating, seven rate it a Hold, while one analyst has a Sell recommendation, taking the consensus to a Moderate Buy. The average price target stands at $207.07, implying a 19.1% downside potential.
Today, Bernstein analyst Daniel Roeska reaffirmed his Sell rating on the stock with a $150 price target. Contrarily, on Thursday, the stock received three Buy ratings from analysts at RBC Capital, Wedbush, and Morgan Stanley. RBC analyst Tom Narayan boosted his price target to $305 from $212, reflecting his optimism about the company’s autonomous driving technology.
