This investor says Tesla's worth $14 per share - and if it fell that far, it'd go bust

By Steve Goldstein

Tesla's had a bad year. This investor expects it to get a lot, lot worse.

Per Lekander, managing partner at investment management firm Clean Energy Transition, told CNBC that Tesla is worth $14 per share - a far cry from Wednesday's closing value of $168.38. Tesla stock (TSLA) has dropped 32% so far this year.

Lekander, whose firm is shorting Tesla, bases that on his estimate that the electric vehicle maker will earn $1.40 per share this year - well below the FactSet-compiled consensus expectations of $3.12 - and that it deserves a price-to-earnings ratio of just 10 because it's not a growth stock.

But he said that if Tesla fell to $14, it would keep falling and would go bust. "I think however Tesla cannot be at $14. If it falls under a certain level because of everything that's been going on, it's going to go bust," he said.

Tesla has been suffering from a price war in China as well as a lack of new models apart from the hard-to-build Cybertruck.

Tesla said it delivered 386,783 electric vehicles in the first quarter, well below expectations of 457,000.

According to Visible Alpha, target prices on Tesla range from $85 at Roth MKM to $300 at Wedbush.

ARK Invest's Cathie Wood says Tesla is worth $2000.

-Steve Goldstein

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04-04-24 0710ET

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