Famed short-seller Jim Chanos says there is one big risk Tesla investors are overlooking and that the company looks like a dot-com bubble stock

Jim Chanos is still short Tesla via put options, the famed short-seller told Bloomberg's Odd Lots podcast this week.
Chanos compared Tesla to a poster child of the 1999 dot-com bubble and said there are still big risks the company faces.
"Tesla... is also trading on a monster multiple of a profit stream that is going to get competed," Chanos said.

Famed short-seller Jim Chanos is still short Tesla via put options and sees various downside risks ahead for the electric vehicle company, including one significant risk that he thinks investors are not taking into account.

According to Chanos, a big risk to Tesla that is underappreciated by the market is the company's reliance on its Shanghai auto plant for profits. Chanos highlighted that Tesla turned the corner on profitability around the same time it opened its China car plant.

"And we have a large suspicion that a disproportionate amount of the profits are coming out of Shanghai. And that raises all kinds of other risks to the multiple," Chanos said. "Make no mistake about it, Tesla is a car company. They're building car plants. They're capital intensive."

The investor told Bloomberg's Odd Lots podcast this week that Tesla today looks a lot like Cisco Systems in 1999, in that a lot of investors are buying the company's stock based on hopes and dreams.

Cisco was a poster child of the dot-com bubble and investors bought the stock despite its sky-high valuation on the prospect of Cisco dominating the internet hardware market. Cisco's stock price has yet to return to its 2000 peak.

"It's sort of the same thing now. So whether it's EVs or solar, or what have you, Tesla is seen as the one stop shop for that," Chanos said, adding that the company is still trading at an expensive valuation of 10x revenues and more than 30x gross profits.

Those valuations being sustained into the future likely hinge on Tesla dominating the EV market for years to come, and Chanos highlighted that another big risk for Tesla is the arrival of fresh competition.

"Tesla, which is earning, you know, trading at just a monster multiple, is also trading on a monster multiple profit stream that is going to get competed," Chanos said. "And that is the risk of Tesla that becomes just an established EV company amongst a whole bunch of established EV companies."

He pointed to what looks like viable competition to Tesla in Ford's electric F-150 Lightning truck, which recently began customer deliveries.

Tesla stock fell 6% on Thursday after the company raised its car prices. The stock is down 47% year-to-date, as it has seen pressure from both a declining stock market, higher interest rates, and investor concerns about CEO Elon Musk's deal to purchase Twitter for $44 billion.

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