Elon Musk Thinks Tesla Will Become the World's Most Valuable Company. I Predict Its Stock Could Plunge by 70% (or More) Instead.

Key Points

• Elon Musk thinks autonomous vehicles and humanoid robots could make Tesla the most valuable company in the world one day.

• He might be right, but those product platforms are still years away from generating meaningful revenue, and Tesla's core business is faltering.

• To make matters worse, Tesla stock is trading at a sky-high valuation that could pave the way for a sharp correction.

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Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) is one of the world's largest manufacturers of electric vehicles (EVs), but its CEO, Elon Musk, is no longer focused on just selling cars. He's preparing the company for an autonomous future by directing its resources into its full self-driving (FSD) software, its Cybercab robotaxi, and its humanoid robot named Optimus.

Musk believes Tesla will become the world's most valuable company by far if those product platforms are successful. But in the here-and-now, 74% of Tesla's total revenue still comes from its EV business, where sales are declining at an alarming pace.

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Musk held a conference call with investors last Wednesday to discuss Tesla's progress during the second quarter of 2025 (which ended on June 30). His comments suggest that it will be a long time before products like the Cybercab and Optimus are generating enough revenue to offset the struggling EV business, so here's why I predict Tesla stock could plunge by 70% (or more) in the meantime.

Image source: Tesla.

Tesla's EV deliveries continue to sink

Tesla is off to a rough start to 2025. It delivered 720,803 EVs during the first six months, which was a 13% decline compared to the same period last year. The drop in sales had a significant impact on the company's total revenue, which suffered a 9% year-over-year decline during the first quarter, followed by an accelerated drop of 12% in the second quarter.

Competition is a big reason for Tesla's sluggish sales. While the company's Model Y remains the best-selling car in a handful of countries, consumers more broadly seem to be flocking to other brands. In Germany, for example, Tesla's sales crashed by 60% in June, despite EV sales growing by 8.6% across the country overall. In other words, Tesla is rapidly losing market share in Europe's largest car market.

Affordability seems to be a major factor for consumers. China-based BYD sells its entry-level Dolphin Surf EV for around $26,000 in Europe, whereas Tesla's Model 3 (its cheapest EV) starts at $40,000. BYD's sales exploded fourfold in Germany during June, compared to the year-ago period.

Fortunately, Tesla plans to release a low-cost EV to compete. It was reportedly designed on the flagship Model Y platform, minus all of its premium features to bring the price down. It just entered production, but only time will tell whether it's enough to pull Tesla's EV business out of its slump.

Tesla's robotaxi business is still too small to offset weak EV sales

Elon Musk believes the future of Tesla's car business is autonomous. In June, the company launched a supervised, invite-only version of its planned autonomous ride-hailing platform, using its passenger EVs (like the Model Y) with its FSD software installed. They are completing autonomous trips around Austin, Texas, right now, with a human in the passenger seat to keep an eye on things.

The test lays a foundation for the rollout of the Cybercab, which is a purpose-designed robotaxi that won't have pedals or even a steering wheel. It will go into mass production next year, and Musk's goal is to have millions of them hauling passengers and even small commercial loads all day and night, earning revenue for Tesla around the clock.

Regulators currently stand in the way of a broad robotaxi rollout. Tesla's FSD platform doesn't have approval for unsupervised use in any U.S. states right now, but Musk is hopeful that will soon change. In fact, he believes the company's robotaxi business could have enough coverage to serve half of the entire U.S. population by the end of 2025, likely using a mix of passenger EVs and early versions of the Cybercab.

However, during a conference call with investors for the second quarter of 2025, Tesla's Vice President of artificial intelligence, Ashok Elluswamy, said only a "handful" of passenger EVs are currently deployed in Austin for the test program. He did say the operating region around Austin will soon expand tenfold, which should put more cars on the road, but it places the company significantly behind the competition.

Alphabet's Waymo, for instance, is already completing over 250,000 paid autonomous trips every week across five U.S. cities completely unsupervised. The idea that Tesla can go from a handful of cars in Austin to serving half of the U.S. population within the next five months -- leapfrogging Waymo in the process -- feels very unrealistic.

Tesla's sky-high valuation sets up a potential crash of 70%

Tesla's earnings per share (EPS) sank by 18% year over year during the second quarter, which followed a 71% drop in the first quarter. Its trailing-12-month EPS now stands at $1.67, placing its stock at an eyewatering price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 180.7.

That makes Tesla five times more expensive than the Nasdaq-100 technology index, which trades at a P/E ratio of 32.5. It's also three times more expensive than Nvidia -- one of the world's highest-quality and fastest-growing companies -- which trades at a P/E ratio of 54.3.

If Tesla's earnings continue to shrink, which seems likely based on the state of its EV sales, then its P/E ratio is going to keep climbing unless its stock price plunges. As things stand today, Tesla stock would have to plummet 70% just for its P/E ratio to match Nvidia's (and even further to match the Nasdaq-100). I think that's a real possibility in the near term.

The picture might look a little different for investors who are willing to hold Tesla stock for the long term. Dan Ives from Wedbush Securities thinks the company's robotaxi business presents a trillion-dollar opportunity, but that figure might be conservative if it winds up serving half the U.S. population eventually.

Then there is the Optimus humanoid robot, which could be a hot product in every manufacturing facility and even in every household one day. It's still an early-stage product, but Tesla just announced version three, which irons out some of the kinks from the previous models. Musk thinks Tesla will be producing 1 million Optimus robots annually five years from now, and he previously said this product could deliver $10 trillion in revenue for the company over the long term.

Investors who believe in Tesla's futuristic product platforms could be handsomely rewarded in the long run if they buy the stock right now, despite its sky-high valuation. However, I think patient investors might get a cheaper entry point in the coming months.

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Anthony Di Pizio has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Nvidia, and Tesla. The Motley Fool recommends BYD Company. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.