Elon Musk 'Really Doing Some Damage To His Brand' Says Tesla Analyst, Downgrades The Stock

Tesla Inc TSLA shares threaded lower by 2.3% on Monday, hitting new 52-week lows following a high-profile Wall Street downgrade for the stock.

The analyst who downgraded the stock said Tesla CEO Elon Musk had done substantial damage to Tesla's brand and it would take time for the company to rebuild that trust.

The Analyst: Oppenheimer analyst Colin Rusch downgraded Tesla from Outperform to Perform and removed his $436 price target.

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The Thesis: In the downgrade note, Rusch said Musk's behavior since he acquired Twitter for $44 billion in October had "severely damaged" Tesla's investor sentiment, sending the stock to new lows and creating an unpredictable environment.

Unfortunately, Rusch said negative sentiment associated with Tesla could linger, and it would take Musk and the company some time to regain investor trust.

Rusch said his downgrade had nothing to do with Musk dumping another $3.6 billion of Tesla shares last week.

"The engagement with journalists and banning folks without consistent methodology about who was getting banned and why and the application there was really a problem for us, for someone that's working toward free speech, from his own words, but really doing some damage to his brand," Rusch told CNBC on Monday.

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Tesla's stock price is now down 63.1% year-to-date and 34.2% since Musk took over Twitter in October. On Sunday evening, Musk posted a poll on Twitter asking whether or not he should step down as head of Twitter, pledging to honor the results of the poll. The poll concluded with 57.5% voting yes and 42.5% voting no.

Benzinga's Take: Even after losing more than 63% of its value in 2022, Tesla shares still trade at a steep premium to legacy automakers based on the company's sales and earnings. Much of that valuation premium comes from investors betting on Musk's long-term leadership, which has seemingly been absent in recent months since Twitter became his top priority.

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