Cathie Wood Backs Elon Musk's Stock Sales, Says Tesla Selloff 'Nothing But A Blip,' Wouldn't Buy Rivian At Current Levels

Tesla Inc TSLA bull Cathie Wood on Wednesday reiterated her $3,000 price target for the electric vehicle stock for 2025, dubbing the the recent selloff as "nothing but a blip" and said wouldn't buy just-listed Rivian Autoimotive Inc RIVN at current levels.

What Happened: Tesla shares have retreated 13.4% in the past five days after CEO Elon Musk’s Twitter poll over the weekend to check if he should sell 10% of his stake worth billions in the company.

Wood’s money managing firm Ark Invest counts Tesla as its largest holding and owns shares worth billions in the company via its exchange traded funds.

Tesla shares pared losses on Wednesday after the intense selloff earlier in the week.

SEC filings from late Wednesday revealed that Musk has sold $4.83 billion worth of the automaker's shares this week as part of a plan that was set in motion a couple of months in advance.

Wood backed Tesla CEO Musk’s decision to sell and said he has enormous tax bills related to stock options.

“I am sure he didn’t want to use any more of his stock as collateral for loans so I think that’s sensible,” Wood told Bloomberg at the Dynasty Financial Partners’ 2021 Investments Forum held at Nashville, Tennessee.

Ark Invest Not Buying Tesla On The Dip: Wood’s investment firm Ark Invest appears to have paused selling shares in Tesla on the latest dip. Ark has been booking profit in the stock since early September when shares of the company began an upward march.

“For us, we have been taking profits on the way up and receiving a lot of criticism for it, and for us this is nothing but a blip.” Wood told Bloomberg.

Ark Invest last sold Tesla shares on Oct. 29.

See Also: Cathie Wood Sells Another $53M In Tesla And Buys The Dip In Robinhood

Besides being a Tesla bull, Wood is an electric vehicle proponent and expects the average EV prices to come down significantly in the coming years. 

Not A Rivian Bull?: Ark Invest’s daily trade data reveals it has not bought any stake in Rivian after it made a blockbuster Nasdaq debut on Wednesday. 

Wood had reportedly at the same Dynasty event on Wednesday said she won't be buying Rivian at the current valuation.  

Interesting scoop from @downtown Josh Brown: ARK's Cathie Wood tells him during an on-stage conference interview this morning that she wouldn't buy $RIVN at today's valuation. And that was before the market value surged to more than $100b pre first trade. More on @HalftimeReport

— Scott Wapner (@ScottWapnerCNBC) November 10, 2021

Price Action: Tesla shares closed 4.34% higher at $1,067.95 a share on Wednesday. Rivian shares closed 29.14% higher at $100.73 on its debut trading day.

Photo: Courtesy of Tesla