October hasn’t gone swimmingly for Elon Musk and Tesla. In fact, last week the company charted its worst performance on Wall Street this year.
But according to legendary investor Cathie Wood that’s precisely why the company will endure: When faced with tough times, its CEO, Musk, comes back swinging.
Wood, the CEO of ARK Invest, has remained a backer of EV maker Tesla where other investors have lost faith: The auto manufacturer is still ARK’s biggest holding.
Wood justifies her support of Musk on account of his “troubleshooting” abilities, and dismissed fears that the richest man on earth is spreading himself too thin.
Musk, who purchased social media platform X—formerly known as Twitter—for $44 billion in October last year, has concerned some Tesla investors who feared his attention has been overly drawn to the site.
Wood acknowledged that X was facing challenges, potentially drawing Musk’s focus on occasion, but insisted it was no cause for concern.
“Elon is a troubleshooter,” Wood told CNBC’s ETF Edge last week. “The troubles at X are not over yet…These difficult times, though, spur Elon’s creativity. He is a troubleshooter and a brilliant technologist.”
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But such challenges, Wood said, just push Musk further: “We think that each time [Musk] does face turmoil like this, the intensity of his brain cells takes him to new answers.”
Tesla troubles
Wood’s theory on Musk’s bounce back may be tested sooner rather than later.
Just days after Wood doubled down on her support for Tesla, Musk hosted a less-than-buoyant Q3 earnings call, during which he issued warnings about the state of the economy and the costs facing consumers.
Tesla closed last week at $211.99 after posting its lowest quarterly earnings per share in two years at 66 cents, a figure that lagged consensus estimates by 10%. The update spooked Wall Street—by 10:45 a.m. on Oct. 20, a little over one trading day after Tesla announced earnings, the stock was hovering around $211, for a drop of more than 17%.
The decline shrunk Tesla’s market capitalization from $808 billion to $670 billion—a reduction of $138 billion in just over two trading days—while Musk’s personal fortune, usually buoyed by his massive Tesla-share inventory, took a $30 billion hit.
But Wood said prior to the call that she’s seen Musk with his back against the wall before, and that he’s triumphed then.
“We’ve seen this at Tesla every step along the way,” Wood said. “Now that EVs are scaling and he’s got that machine in place, we now have the autonomous side scaling.
“And I think he’s really focused on that. I think it has his attention; he knows and believes, I think, that they’re close to the finish line with this latest software upgrade…We don’t think he’s lost any focus.”
Ride-hail letdown
On the call last week Wood also alluded to her long-standing thesis that Tesla could cash in on the development of autonomous taxis.
She highlighted the company has begun hiring “ride-hail experts” across the country, which she described as a “game changer” should Musk be able to pin down full self-driving software and get the vehicles to market.
But Wood, like many other investors, has been left hanging on further details of the launch.
When questioned by analysts last week Musk declined to give any details on robotaxis, instead describing the prospect as “extremely exciting in the long term.”
