Tesla Inc struggled with weakening demand in several global markets throughout 2025, a trend that could challenge the electric-vehicle maker's lofty valuation. One market expert argues the stock remains inflated by Elon Musk loyalists.

Musk’s fan base and Tesla have inflated the stock's valuation in recent years, with shares often trading at a premium to other automotive and technology stocks.

With high expectations for Tesla's autonomous driving, the Future Fund Managing Partner, Gary Black, has a reminder for what too high expectations can mean for the electric vehicle company.

"The current hype that $TSLA will come to dominate unsupervised ride hailing reminds me of 2020-2021, when TSLA bulls were adamant that Elon would reach his goal of delivering 20M vehicles per year by 2030," Black tweeted.

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Instead, the new analyst consensus estimate is 2.8 million deliveries by 2030.

$TSLA losing streak is now at three weeks, extending its YTD decline to -11.8% vs NDX -2.4% YTD. Investors clearly growing wary of Elon's promise that TSLA unsupervised autonomy will be in 25%-50% of the U.S. by year-end, when today only 8 vehicles out of ~400 TSLA robotaxis in…

Tesla bulls expect Musk to solve unsupervised autonomy, or the driverless goal of Tesla’s full self-driving (FSD) technology. Specifically, Tesla investors could be trading the stock now based on Musk's promise for unsupervised autonomy in 25% to 50% of the U.S. by the end of 2026.

"TSLA bulls offer valuation models of $1,000/$2,000 and more that assume Tesla takes nearly All of the autonomous ride hailing market, which is as absurd as TSLA taking 25% of the overall auto market by 2030," Black says.

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Black names Alphabet Inc, Baidu, Pony AI, WeRide Inc and Amazon.com Inc as companies that are also working on autonomous rides each week. Black also names NVIDIA Corporation as a company ready to provide autonomous hardware and software to Tesla's OEM competitors.

"To argue no one else can achieve generalized unsupervised autonomy flies in the face of reality," he adds.

There are three reasons why Tesla bulls are likely wrong about autonomous vehicles once again, Black says.

"TSLA bulls consistently conflate production and demand, believing incorrectly that if TSLA produces it, consumers will buy it despite no marketing."

"TSLA bulls believe no other auto manufacturer has the fully autonomous capabilities and vertical integration to drive ride hailing costs to $.20/mile." Black says others have already shown unsupervised autonomy and are now building scale for profitability.

"Many $TSLA bulls believe everything Elon says and so refuse to acknowledge anything negative about TSLA given his past record of successes."

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Black says he is cautious about Tesla stock going forward due to rising competition in unsupervised autonomy and a forward price-to-earnings ratio of more than 200x.

"One can love TSLA's business without loving TSLA's stock," Black said.

Tesla stock trades at $388.85 on Monday versus a 52-week trading range of $214.25 to $498.83. Tesla stock is down 11.2% year-to-date in 2026, with a current losing streak of three weeks, according to Black.

Shares hit their all-time highs on Dec. 22, 205 and Tesla stock is now down over 20% from their highs set more than three months ago.

Based on Black’s comments, shares could have further downside ahead, and investors in the Musk-led company may want to be cautious not to be lured by the CEO's overly bullish tone.

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This article Tesla's 20% Crash May Be Just The Beginning As Expert Slams 'Absurd' Bull Valuations: 'Bulls Believe Everything Elon Says' originally appeared on Benzinga.com