Jim Cramer Calls Elon Musk 'Bankable' And Visionary As Tesla Shares Fall Over 12%: Why The Stock Picker Recommends To 'Buy This Weakness'

CNCB host Jim Cramer, who on Wednesday slammed those selling shares of Tesla, Inc. TSLA, defended the electric-vehicle maker and its CEO Elon Musk further in the most recent episode of CNBC Mad Money show.

Musk – Bankable CEO: While Tesla missed the earnings estimates, Musk told a great story of self-driving technology, energy production and humanoid robots, Cramer said. If not for the rotation out of big techs, Tesla would have been up in Wednesday’s session, he said.

After Tesla reported an earnings miss and issued a disappointing volume guidance for 2024, investors sold off the stock. Tesla settled Wednesday’s session down 12.33% at $215.99, according to Benzinga Pro data.

Cramer said the 12%+ drop in Tesla shares came despite the market discounting a weak quarter.

Tesla is for the long term, the stock picker said, adding that its “bankable” CEO is himself a reason to believe. “No matter how hard I worked, no matter how hard I studied, I could never be as smart as this guy,” Cramer said.

See Also: How To Buy Tesla Stock

Tesla’s Sum-of-the-Parts: “Tesla’s conference call was like nothing I’ve ever heard, even from Tesla,” he said. The CNBC host noted the auto business disappointed as the company didn’t sell as many cars as expected. The company isn’t doing anything overly revolutionary, either on fast charging or range, he said.

Instead, Musk talked about the most advanced humanoid robots in the world and said he thinks that the long-term value of Optimus will exceed that of everything else Tesla has done, Cramer said. The billionaire thinks the humanoid robot business will be worth trillions, he added.

Cramer said he thinks even if a fraction of that humanoid robot story comes true, shareholders will make fortunes.

He also noted that Musk talked about autonomy and the full self-driving vehicle that he thinks will soon be ubiquitous in every country. The FSD will be part of a customer-owned fleet like an “Airbnb on Wheels,” and autonomous driving could be a $5 billion business, Cramer noted.

Then there is Tesla’s energy business, with the energy storage deployments more than doubling this quarter, giving the division record results, Cramer said, adding that “small but doing incredibly well.” The EV maker said it has got into the high-end chip business as it can’t get enough of the best semis from its supplier Nvidia, he said. “I believe it but not anytime,” he added.

Despite Musk’s best efforts, Wednesday was a day when people said “Tesla’s just a car company and nothing more, doesn’t have anything new….that can justify the stock’s current valuation,” Cramer said.

Delving into the potential reasons for the sell-off, Cramer said Musk told a great story on the call but nobody cared, given the downbeat environment for the megacaps. “Perhaps you have to buy this weakness because of the future which seems very bright,” he said.

Good Entry Point: The current stock price makes sense at least as a place to start buying what matters is “you have to wait, you have to be patient, you have to be long-term oriented – traits that are in short supply,” Cramer said.

With Tesla, the key risk was the likelihood of Musk leaving Tesla over his package, the stock picker added. “Now that he’s staying, I recognize that he’s just better than everyone else when it comes to envisioning the future perhaps with the sole exception of Jensen Huang from Nvidia.”

Read Next:

• ‘Bubble-Fraud Tesla Worth Around $8.40 Per Share:’ Stock Valuation Under Scrutiny As EV Maker Gets Sizeable Profit From One-Time ZEV Credit

Image Via Shutterstock