Why this Tesla bear still sees a 60% crash in the EV maker's stock

JPMorgan's Ryan Brinkman kept an Underweight rating on Tesla and a $145 price target, implying 61% downside from current levels. He flagged unsustainable capex rising to $25 billion in 2025 from $8.5 billion last year, plus concerns around full self-driving liability, slower robotaxi rollout, and the absence of a timeline for the next Optimus robot. Tesla's Q1 revenue rose 16% to $22.39 billion and EPS was $0.41 versus $0.35 expected, but shares still fell 3.5% after earnings.

Analysis

The market is starting to re-rate TSLA less as a car company and more as a capital-intensive platform with deferred monetization risk. The key second-order issue is that a large share of spending is being directed toward assets that do not yet have clear payback visibility; that creates a classic setup where headline revenue growth can coexist with deteriorating equity value if incremental returns on capital compress faster than consensus expects. In that framing, the stock does not need a demand collapse to underperform — it only needs the market to apply a lower terminal multiple to a longer-duration cash burn profile.

The bigger near-term vulnerability is not the quarter itself, but the sequence of catalysts over the next 1-2 quarters: capex cadence, robotaxi execution evidence, and any liability-related noise around autonomy. If the company continues to spend aggressively while product milestones slip, the market will likely treat the business as funding optionality with balance-sheet drag, which historically supports sharp multiple compression before the income statement shows obvious stress. That dynamic is especially dangerous for a name with elevated retail ownership and momentum participation, because the first selloff often forces systematic de-risking rather than fundamental capitulation.

Relative beneficiaries are not just traditional autos but also any EV/AV-adjacent competitors that can frame themselves as lower-capex, higher-visibility businesses. Suppliers tied to compute, sensors, and manufacturing automation may benefit only if Tesla’s spending translates into broader industry investment; otherwise, the market may increasingly discriminate and punish vendors exposed to speculative programs. The contrarian view is that the stock may be overselling capex fears if those investments compress the time to monetization of autonomy/robotics more meaningfully than investors are modeling, but that requires evidence within months, not years. Until then, the burden of proof sits squarely on Tesla, and the path of least resistance remains lower if guidance keeps outrunning cash generation.

Key Decisions for Investors

• Short TSLA on strength over the next 1-2 sessions, targeting a retracement toward prior support levels; risk/reward favors a 2:1 downside setup if the market continues to price in capex and execution slippage.
• Buy TSLA put spreads 1-3 months out to express downside while limiting theta burn; best structure is a bearish catalyst window around capex commentary and any follow-up robotaxi updates.
• Pair trade: short TSLA / long a profitable, lower-capex EV or autos supplier basket over 1-2 quarters; the goal is to isolate valuation compression at Tesla while staying exposed to broader electrification upside.
• Avoid chasing long exposure until there is proof that operating cash flow can absorb 2025 capex without forward FCF deterioration; if that evidence emerges, the bearish case weakens materially.
• Monitor for any disclosure that tightens autonomy liability or delays product launches; if those appear, increase bearish exposure because the stock’s multiple is likely to de-rate faster than estimates fall.