Jefferies Raises Price Target on Tesla, but Maintains Hold Rating
A Jefferies analyst is clearly unexcited by the upcoming earnings report and suggests they will further widen “the gap between vision and execution” at the company. He maintains a hold rating on the stock, but raised the price target to $350 from $300.
There’s no doubt that Tesla’s robotaxi rollout is significantly behind expectations, and in a world where every quarterly result and management statement pertaining to it is closely scrutinized, it’s easy to understand why Wall Street analysts are wary of Tesla.
Back in July 2025, Elon Musk famously promised the rollout would address “half of the population of the U.S. by the end of the year.” It’s April 2026, and there are 17 unsupervised robotaxis in Austin, and 1-2 each in Dallas and Houston as of the time of writing.
Funding concerns
The Jefferies analyst also reportedly references a potential fueling of funding concerns – Barclays touched on a similar point recently. Those concerns are warranted by the Wall Street consensus, which calls for cash burn of $6.9 billion in 2026, driven by a ramp in capital spending to more than $20 billion.
However, while cash burn is always a concern, as would be delayed cash flow from robotaxis, the reality is that Tesla ended 2025 with $35.9 billion in net cash. It can fund a delay in regulatory approvals.
Overpromising and underdelivering
It’s easy to criticize Musk on these matters, but it’s a lot harder to predict what regulators will and won’t allow. Ultimately, Tesla is in the hands of regulators and a jury, and in the hands of social media, whereby every slight discrepancy, or even a perceived one, is an event to be uploaded for hate-watching clicks.
That’s not to say Tesla shouldn’t be subjected to scrutiny. It absolutely should. The point here is that Musk, Tesla, and the regulators are all in uncharted territory, and investors need to be patient. Tesla can execute seamlessly, but if the regulators are taking a cautious approach, which they are fully entitled to do, then there’s little Tesla can do about that.