Tesla sell ratings fall to 13.1%, lowest since April 2023

The shift in analyst sentiment has been building alongside Musk's push to reposition Tesla. Sell ratings climbed to a 2026 high of 23.3% in January, when concerns about profit margins weighed on the stock's valuation, before retreating to today's 13.1% — a level last seen in April 2023. Tesla shares are down 21% this year, compared with a 12% gain in the S&P 500, so the softer tone on Wall Street is not the product of a recovering stock price.

What has changed is the story analysts are being asked to price. As Musk steers Tesla from electric vehicles toward self-driving robotaxis and humanoid robots, traditional automotive valuation methods look increasingly incomplete. Ivan Feinseth at Tigress Financial Partners notes that analysts "increasingly recognize that it has potentially significant optionality in autonomy, robotics and AI." Max Gokhman at Franklin Templeton describes a "don't bet against Musk" instinct, pointing out that after long periods of missed deadlines a moonshot may still materialize — and that it is better for an analyst to be seen as having no view than the wrong view.

The caution in that logic is visible in the way the sell ratings actually disappeared. Tesla lost its latest sell rating because longtime skeptic Colin Langan left Wells Fargo, after which the bank suspended coverage of Tesla and 17 other auto companies — not because anyone changed their mind about the stock. Hold-equivalent ratings, meanwhile, have risen to their highest share in more than two years. Tesla's record of delivering on its ambitions has been uneven: the Cybercab debut fell short of investor expectations and prompted a federal probe of its compliance with safety standards, and Wall Street has been waiting for self-driving technology and Optimus robots to become meaningful sources of profit. As Dec Mullarkey at SLC Management puts it, investors "are demanding evidence of revenue potential and are more sober on valuations" — a bar that the greater the valuation attributed to those future businesses, the more Tesla eventually has to clear.