Tesla Inc. shares fell six percent before the market on Thursday, after CEO Elon Musk and the team’s four-hour presentation failed to impress investors who were waiting for an affordable electric vehicle and a plan with a concrete timeline.
Musk and more than a dozen executives laid out new plans to cut assembly costs in half, invest in a new factory in Mexico and discussed the company’s innovation in managing its business at its investor day on Wednesday.
However, the event, where Musk unveiled the EV maker’s “Master Plan 3,” was short on timeline details or anything new Tesla Products.
“The markets were ready for a big announcement, perhaps on something like a more affordable new model,” said Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell.
“Tesla had been on a tear until 2023. Then Musk raises his head above the parapet in an investor day presentation and the stock sputters … It may just have been a case of not living up to the hype.”
The stock, which had lost about two-thirds of its value by 2022, has climbed more than 60% so far this year.
“Timeline and cost details were limited, and the event lacked a Tesla-like surprise,” Wells Fargo analyst Colin Langan said.
Tesla’s events have caused an uproar on the internet in the past, with Musk’s dance moves at the opening of the company’s Berlin factory in 2022 and an event in China in 2020 going viral on social media.
The company’s plan to use 75 percent less silicon carbide vehicles without compromising the car’s performance or efficiency also weighed on shares of semiconductor maker and supplier STMicroelectronics.
The reduction plan was “bad news for the entire silicon carbide production chain and for STMicro in particular,” brokerage Equita said. It estimates that Tesla accounted for 70 percent of semiconductor sales in 2022 at STMicro.