Editor's note: Tesla (TSLA) stock is down 40% since mid-December. Is this a chance to buy an all-time great disruptor on sale? Today, RiskHedge Executive Editor Chris Reilly and Disruption Investor co-editor Chris Wood discuss...
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Chris Reilly: Thanks for joining me today, Chris. Tesla’s down 30% this year. Stephen McBride says US big tech stocks are in trouble, but you both agree Tesla stands apart from the rest. Why?
Chris Wood: Tesla’s on the verge of creating two new multitrillion-dollar markets with robotaxis and Optimus humanoid robots.
Almost none of this potential is reflected in its current stock price. Other big tech companies are facing a changing of the guard, as Stephen and I will discuss in this week’s Disruption Investor issue. But Tesla is in a great position.
Chris Reilly: We’ll get into the robotaxis and Optimus, but first: Tesla reported earnings last week. Big miss. Yet the stock’s rallied since. What’s going on?
Chris Wood: The miss was expected... but the stock’s move is entirely about what Elon Musk said about DOGE (The Department of Government Efficiency). He said starting “probably next month, in May,” his time allocation to DOGE will drop significantly.
That means he’ll be dedicating more time to Tesla again, and that’s the news traders cared about. Also, Musk will be less of a political figure very soon, which has been weighing on the stock. No matter your politics, it’s bad for business to alienate half the country—especially when it’s the half that traditionally bought your environmentally friendly cars.
Chris Reilly: Do you think there’s already been too much reputational damage?
Chris Wood: We’ve seen this movie before when Musk acquired Twitter. Everyone predicted Twitter’s demise, but he managed to increase monthly active users from under 250 million to over 600 million and generated over a billion dollars in adjusted EBITDA last year after previous losses.
Tesla’s brand has taken a hit in the eyes of many. But I believe this will be short-lived. In the long run, it simply won’t matter because Tesla’s technological advantages will overshadow any temporary reputational issues.
Chris Reilly: Let’s talk about competition. Chinese electric vehicle maker BYD (BYDDY) recently released its “God’s Eye” advanced driving assistance system. Many say it’ll challenge Tesla’s full self-driving (FSD) technology. How worried should Tesla investors be?
Chris Wood: Competition is always something to monitor, but Tesla still has a huge advantage. While God’s Eye incorporates cameras, it’s not a full vision-based system. The higher tiers rely on LiDAR, which only works in environments that have been meticulously mapped down to the centimeter.
Tesla’s FSD works anywhere—not just in pre-mapped areas—and improves everywhere with each update.
Chris Reilly: What about Waymo, Alphabet’s (GOOGL) self-driving car service?
Chris Wood: To give you a sense of how far ahead Tesla’s self-driving tech is, Waymo recently featured “Vision-based End-to-End Driving” as one of its four Open Dataset Challenges for 2025.
It’s trying to crowdsource solutions to this “problem,” but Tesla has been doing this essentially flawlessly for over a year, logging over 6 billion miles of autonomous driving data.
Tesla achieved this with its first-generation Dojo artificial intelligence (AI) supercomputer. The next generation of Dojo, already under development, will be about “10X better” according to Musk. The company is on track to launch autonomous robotaxis in Austin in just two months, with other markets following soon.
Chris Reilly: Let’s talk Optimus. With companies like Figure AI and Boston Dynamics developing humanoid robots, what gives Tesla an edge?
Chris Wood: Numerous companies are racing to develop humanoid robots. China has even opened a football field-sized facility supporting over 100 types of humanoid robots, though their approach is relatively low-tech—using humans to train robots on individual tasks.
Tesla and companies like Figure AI are developing neural networks—artificial brains that can learn from simulations, compressing years of training into hours. But Tesla has a unique advantage: The massive data crossover between FSD and Optimus.
Both systems operate using vision-based AI, so every mile driven with Tesla’s FSD helps make Optimus smarter. With billions of miles of real-world data that no competitor can match, Tesla is leading the humanoid robot revolution.
Optimus should be available for sale next year.
Chris Reilly: What if there are delays?
Chris Wood: Even if the timelines for Optimus and Tesla’s robotaxis get pushed back, I’m not concerned. Musk has consistently proven he can deliver, even if sometimes later than initially projected.
What’s crucial is that Tesla has already demonstrated its ability to manufacture at scale. As I said earlier, both robotaxis and humanoid robots can be trillion-dollar markets for Tesla, and neither is baked into its current share price yet.
I sent an update to Disruption Investor members recently calling TSLA an “absolute steal” at current prices. Subscribers can access it here.
Chris Reilly: Thanks, Chris. You and Stephen are buying into “unloved megatrends” right now, and Telsa sure fits that description.
Reader: If you’re not a subscriber yet, you don’t want to miss this Thursday’s issue. Stephen says it’s “the most serious I’ve ever written”... Go here now to become a member.