Tesla (TSLA) shares jumped as much as 3% on Tuesday before turning red at the time of writing after strong global EV sales data and reports that Chinese officials might allow Elon Musk to buy TikTok’s U.S. operations. The potential sale by ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, would help the platform avoid a U.S. ban ahead of a looming divestiture deadline. However, a TikTok spokesperson dismissed the reports as “pure fiction.”
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More importantly for Tesla, its initial boost coincided with Rho Motion’s report showing that global EV and plug-in hybrid sales climbed 25.6% year-over-year to 1.9 million units in December, despite a slowdown in recent months. Overall, 2024 was a record-breaking year with 17.1 million units sold.
Wall Street Is Watching Musk’s Growing Influence
Wall Street has been closely watching Musk’s growing influence across sectors, from EVs and satellites to social media. This led to Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas raising his price target on Tesla yesterday from $400 to $430 per share, with a bullish long-term case of $800 per share.
Indeed, Jonas predicts that 2025 will be the year when the market fully appreciates Tesla’s unique strengths and sees big potential for Tesla to generate consistent, high-margin revenue through autonomous ridesharing and subscription services.
Is Tesla Stock a Buy, Hold, or Sell?
Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Hold consensus rating on TSLA stock based on 13 Buys, 12 Holds, and nine Sells assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After an 81% rally in its share price over the past year, the average Tesla price target of $323.56 per share implies 18.8% downside risk.
