2 Standout AI Stocks That Can Plunge Up to 93%, According to Select Wall Street Analysts

Analysts cited in the article see substantial downside for two AI-linked stocks: Jefferies’ Brent Thill targets Palantir at $80 per share, implying up to 59% downside, while GLJ Research’s Gordon Johnson targets Tesla at $24.86, or roughly 93% below its prior-week close. Their concerns center on valuation—Palantir’s P/S ratio is approximately 82, and Tesla trades at 172 times forward earnings—as well as growth sustainability and Tesla’s FSD and other innovation prospects.

Analysis

The actionable signal is valuation fragility, not the analysts’ extreme downside targets: neither target should be treated as a base case without a broader estimate distribution and evidence on execution. For PLTR, sustained growth may still fail to protect the multiple if comparisons tighten; large enterprise software vendors bundling AI tools could also limit pricing power or raise customer acquisition costs. Conversely, strong customer retention and measurable adoption would make a simple multiple-compression short vulnerable. For TSLA, the market appears to price substantial value for autonomy and robotics before those businesses have independently demonstrated commercial scale. Regulatory setbacks or weak safety and deployment evidence could unwind that optionality; credible validation could drive a sharp squeeze. Energy storage and vehicle economics are important offsets, so assess them separately rather than treating TSLA as a pure autonomy bet. Over days, analyst targets may affect sentiment more than fundamentals. Over 1–3 months, watch company guidance, growth quality, and autonomy milestones; over 6–18 months, realized monetization and competitive substitution matter most. The contrarian risk is that both companies deliver enough adoption to sustain premium multiples, even if the most bullish promises arrive later than expected.

Key Decisions for Investors

• PLTR: Avoid adding solely on the AI theme; consider a relative-value short only if growth or guidance weakens while valuation remains demanding. Before sizing, verify current valuation, revenue growth by segment, customer retention, and the range of analyst estimates. Falsifier: durable growth and adoption that support estimates despite tougher comparisons.
• TSLA: Prefer an underweight or defined-risk bearish exposure over an outright short at this stage; only use options after checking implied volatility, skew, and premium at risk. Reassess on independently verifiable autonomy deployment and regulatory evidence, as well as vehicle and energy results. Falsifier: credible expansion of autonomous operations or material evidence that newer businesses are earning commercial traction.
• Treat the quoted downside estimates as scenario inputs, not price targets for a trade. Track estimate revisions, valuation against demonstrated—not promised—earnings, and the next company guidance updates; avoid acting if the thesis depends only on one bearish analyst’s assumptions.
• No trade in JEF is indicated: its appearance as the source of one analyst view does not establish material exposure to either company.