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A Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) analyst sees the electric vehicle company at a pivotal moment in the company's history after reporting weaker-than-expected first-quarter deliveries Wednesday.
The Tesla Analyst: Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives maintained an Outperform rating on Tesla with a $550 price target.
The Analyst Takeaways: Ives said the almost 337,000 vehicle deliveries were below analyst estimates with weakness reported in China, America and Europe.
"The company Model Y refresh across factories led to several weeks of lost production in the quarter, however the brand crisis issues are clearly having a negative impact on Tesla ... there is no debate," Ives said.
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The analyst said Tesla needs to "navigate brand crisis or else."
"This delivery number was a disaster for the bulls with continuous negativity around the TSLA brand. We are not going to look at these numbers with rose colored glasses ... they were a disaster on every metric."
Ives said that while expectations were low for Tesla, the numbers were worse than expected, which could show the damage to the brand being done by Tesla CEO Elon Musk's increasing role in politics.
"The more political he gets with DOGE the more the brand suffers, there is no debate."
Ives cited protests at Tesla dealerships and brand worries related to Musk as causing "continuous negativity" for Tesla.
"The time has come for Musk ... it's a fork in the road moment."
Ives said the first-quarter deliveries are an example of the damage Musk is doing to Tesla.
"This continues to be a moment of truth for Musk to navigate this brand tornado crisis moment and get onto the other side of this dark chapter for Tesla with much better days ahead."
Ives said there could be darker times ahead for Tesla if Musk doesn't "get his act together."
The analyst sees autonomous driving as being one of the biggest transformations for the automotive industry in modern-day history with Tesla having the ability to be a leader.
"Musk needs to stop this political firestorm and balance being CEO of Tesla with DOGE."