Waiting for Apple or Amazon to buy Tesla?
In an invitation-only call with institutional clients of Morgan Stanley on Wednesday, research analyst Adam Jonas — a long-time Tesla bull — expressed skepticism about the electric vehicle maker and said not to count on a buyer like Apple to bail the company out.
“Tesla is not really seen as a growth story,” Jonas said on the call, which CNBC heard in a recording. Today, “It seems like a distressed credit and restructuring story.
Some details of the call were previously reported by Business Insider.
Jonas spent some time on the call responding to the hope that a big tech company like Apple or Amazon might buy Tesla. in a CNBC interview on Tuesday, analyst Craig Irwin of Roth Capital Partners rekindled the rumor that Apple once made a bid for Tesla.
But Jonas poured cold water on the notion of a big tech acquisition today.
He explained, “For risk mitigation and liability containment, they may not want to expose themselves to the unlimited liability of being involved in owning a business where occasionally a car catches on fire, takes down a building, or accidentally kills a pedestrian or passenger, things that happen. The auto industry has an ugly side to it. The roads are very dangerous. There’s a lot of stored energy in a vehicle. And the regulatory environment [around autonomous cars] has not had time to cure yet.”