Wedbush 's Dan Ives cut his price target onTesla to $1,000 from $1,400 as China's COVID lockdowns slow car production.- The Tesla
stock bull added thatElon Musk 'sTwitter bid may be too much of a distraction.
Wedbush analyst Dan Ives lowered his price target on Tesla stock as China's current bout of COVID lockdowns creates more production slowdowns and supply-chain bottlenecks.
He's still bullish on the electric car maker over the long-term as new plants in Austin and Berlin drive future growth, but must acknowledge "a new reality for Tesla in China with headwinds abound in a shakier macro backdrop."
Ives said Wedbush is scaling back its price target to $1,000 from $1,400 per share over "bumps in the road" in China.
The country notoriously employs a "zero-covid" policy that seeks to eradicate the virus down to every singular case. It has previously disrupted production for carmakers including Toyota and Volkswagen.
Ives also pointed to Elon Musk's pursuit of Twitter as another potential headwind for Tesla stock. On Tuesday, Musk demanded that Twitter prove its platform maintains less than 5% of spam accounts, or risk the Tesla CEO walking away from the deal.
"While the Twitter situation in theory does not impact the Tesla fundamental story, the distraction risks for Musk (perception is reality) are hard to ignore at a time that the Tesla ecosystem have never needed Musk more with the worst supply chain crisis seen in modern history," Ives warned.