It is reasonable to predict TSLA stock will, someday, drop to something roughly reflective of the value of the company. It has a long way to fall to reach that point, but, there's no reason to think it won't happen eventually. The market can remain irrational for a long time, but the facts are what they are.
Well, if Tesla gets merged into SpaceX at a record valuation (as was rumored is the intention recently), people with short positions would end up shorting SpaceX.
There are a lot of high stakes bets wrapped up in that company at this point already. AI, orbital launch business, communications networks, a little bit of Twitter/X, etc. And soon robots, grid battery, solar panels, electrical vehicles, autonomous driving, etc. They don't all have to work out to justify the combined valuation. Of course the facts are that quite a few of these lines of businesses are generating many billions in revenue already. It's at least a more diversified bet if a merge happens. Which might be why some share holders might prefer this. I don't have shares but I think that's a pretty rational attitude.
Still a risky bet of course. But betting that it will all fail might be the riskier one. Maybe it will just end up somewhere in between and not quite live up to expectations but still be a business generating lots of revenue with some healthy growth.
Apple and Microsoft seem to be doing okay after many decades. Edison is 200 years old and is on the stock market. It is about finding the right product that will last. Tesla could be one of them if it can survive the next decade.
AAPL and MSFT have a P/E an order of magnitude lower than TSLA whilst both having revenue growth % yoy in the teens. They both make over a $100b in PROFIT a year. TSLA's? $4b and shrinking btw. Their highest P/E's since 2005 was under 50. AAPL reached 100 in June 2003 (around the time of the iTunes Store release.. mid iPod era but pre iPhone).
Comparing with MSFT and AAPL makes TSLA look even more insane.
Some of the pessimists are absolutely perma-bears who hate any thing to do with Elon to the point of madness, but still doesn't change the fact that this IPO makes no financial sense no matter how reasonably you try to look at it.
I listened to all 3 hours of the Dwarkesh interview with Elon. I would really really love to see mass drivers on the moon, but all the facts were obviously made up on the spot. This wasn't just the usual Elon exaggerating. It was pure fantasy stuff. All the hard engineering questions were just being hand-waved away along with reasons of why the data centers couldn't be here on earth.
Combine that with the fact that Elon will retain complete control of SpaceX. Yeah no. I wouldn't be crazy enough to short the stock but I really don't want any of my money in it either.