Gordon Johnson, Tesla‘s most bearish investor, reiterated on Tuesday his Sell rating on the stock, citing a low probability of the Optimus humanoid robot becoming commercially successful.
The founder, CEO, and Senior Equity Research Analyst of GLJ Research published a new research note on Tuesday — first obtained by PriceTarget — in which he addressed a topic he said “Wall Street’s TSLA bulls refuse to ask honestly: what if Optimus actually works?”
The analyst showed skepticism, citing “an exhaustive review of independent engineering assessments, competitive data, and Tesla‘s own disclosures.”
“Even in an aggressive bull case where Optimus achieves commercial viability, the probability-weighted value is a fraction of what the market currently embeds,” Johnson wrote.
The analyst believes that “the stock is pricing in a robotics outcome that has, at best, a 15–20% probability of occurring — and assigning near-certainty to it.”
Optimus V3
Tesla‘s CEO Elon Musk has reaffirmed several times over the past few months that the Optimus humanoid “will be the biggest product ever.”
According to him, it’s “probably true” that people will forget Tesla ever built cars after the company launches the Optimus V3, which is scheduled for later this year.
The humanoid robot will be built at GigaTexas, on the manufacturing lines formerly dedicated to production of the Model S and Model X.
The company announced late last month that it would discontinue the flagship models, as it continues to switch its focus towards robotics and autonomy.
Musk also previewed a month ago that the “Optimus 4 will be built in Texas at much higher volume.”
Speaking about production figures last month, Musk wrote on X that for both “Cybercab and Optimus [V3], almost everything is new, so the early production rate will be agonizingly slow, but eventually end up being insanely fast.
For the CEO to earn his most recently approved pay package — which could be worth up to $1 trillion and is tied to ambitious goals regarding valuation and product rollout — Tesla must deliver 1 million Humanoid robots by 2035.
Speaking at a panel at the World Economic Forum (WEF), Musk said that the Optimus humanoid will be available for public purchase “by the end of next year.”
Optimus “will begin to transform things in 2027, be obvious in 2028 and have a massive impact by 2029,” the company’s Chief Executive Officer stated in early February.
Optimus Functions
Elon Musk has been pointing the Optimus robot towards multiple purposes.
In an X post made on January 23, the executive said the robot “will be amazing for protecting and taking care of your elderly parents,” for instance.
Speaking on Stripe‘s Cheeky Pint podcast, Tesla‘s CEO said that the company will “build a lot of robots and put them in a king of like a ‘Optimus Academy’ so they can do self-play in reality.”
“We’re gonna have at least 10,000 Optimus robots, maybe 20,000 or 30,000, that are doing self-play and testing different tasks,” he added.
Bearish PT
The analyst has a $25.28 price target on the Elon Musk-led company, which implies a 93.7% downside considering Monday’s close at just below $400.
The share value has dropped nearly $100 — or 20% — since hitting its all-time high of $498.83 two months ago.
As of press time, Tesla shares were trading 0.8% higher at $403.
