LONDON: Tesla shares fell nearly 4 percent on Monday as a $113 cut in JPMorgan Chase’s price target for the electric carmaker added to growing doubts among market players about a plan to take the company private.
Slashing its price target for Tesla from $308 to $195, the brokerage said it did not believe Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk had funds for a plan announced by a tweet that said “funding secured” two weeks ago.
Analysts from the US bank had upped its forecast from $198 to $308 after a roughly $100 surge in Tesla stock following Musk’s tweets on Aug. 7 and the note on Monday was the latest evidence of skepticism about the deal on Wall Street.
People familiar with the matter said on Sunday that PIF, the Saudi Arabian sovereign wealth fund that Musk says had been pressing to help fund the buyout, is in talks to invest in aspiring Tesla rival Lucid Motors Inc.
“Our interpretation of subsequent events leads us to believe that funding was not secured for a going private transaction, nor was there any formal proposal,” JPMorgan analyst Ryan Brinkman wrote in a client note.
“Tesla does appear to be exploring a going private transaction, but we now believe that such a process appears much less developed than we had earlier presumed, suggesting formal incorporation into our valuation analysis seems premature at this time,” Brinkman said.
JPM now targets the stock, which it continues to value at underweight, back at $195, versus Friday’s close of $305.50. The median price target of the Wall Street analysts covering Tesla is $336.
Tesla shares touched a three-month low of $285 in premarket trading before recovering to trade around $290, reducing its market value back below that of General Motors as the biggest US carmaker.
An interview with the New York Times, in which Musk said he was under major emotional stress in the “most difficult year” of his life, on Friday added to investors’ concerns over his leadership after a series of social media spats.
A person with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters last week that the SEC has opened an inquiry related to Musk’s tweets on the buyout and the billionaire is also facing a class action suite from investors who lost money in the share moves.
“The lack of process to (Musk’s) announcement has now caused governance and competency concerns which are starting to snowball,” said Tigress Financial Partners analyst Ivan Feinseth.
Tesla nears 3-month low as JPMorgan adds to private deal doubts
Tesla nears 3-month low as JPMorgan adds to private deal doubts
- Slashing its price target for Tesla from $308 to $195, the brokerage said it did not believe Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk had funds for a plan
- Tesla shares fell nearly 4 percent
Reforms target sustained growth in Saudi real estate sector, says Al-Hogail
RIYADH: The Real Estate Future Forum opened its doors for its first day at the Four Seasons Riyadh, with prominent global and local figures coming together to engage with one of the Kingdom’s most prospering sectors.
With new regulations, laws, and investments underway, 2026 is expected to be a year of momentous progress for the real estate sector in the Kingdom.
The forum opened with a video highlighting the sector’s progress in the Kingdom, during which an emphasis was placed on the forum’s ability to create global reach, representation, as well as agreements worth a cumulative $50 billion
With the Kingdom now opening up real estate ownership to foreigners, this year’s Real Estate Future Forum is placing a great deal of importance on this new milestone and its desired outcomes and impact on the market.
Aside from this year’s forum’s unique discussions surrounding those developments, it will also be the first of its kind to launch the Real Estate Excellence Award and announce its finalist during the three-day summit.
Minister of Municipalities and Housing and Chairman of the Real Estate General Authority Majed Al-Hogail took to stage to address the diverse audience on the real estate market’s achievements thus far and its milestones to come.
Of those important milestones, he underscored “real estate balance” as a key pillar of the sector’s decisions to implement regulatory tools “with the aim of constant growth which can maintain the vitality of this sector.” He pointed to examples of those regulatory measures, such as the White Land Tax.
On 2025’s progress, the minister highlighted the jump in Saudi family home ownership, which went from 47 percent in 2016 to 66 percent in 2025, keeping the Kingdom’s Vision 2030 goal of 70 percent by the end of the decade on track.
He said the opening of the real estate market to foreigners is an indicator of the sector’s maturity under the leadership of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. He said his ministry plans to build over 300,000 housing units in Riyadh over the next three years.
Speaking to Arab News, Al-Hogail elaborated on these achievements, stating: “Today, demand, especially local demand, has grown significantly. The mortgage market has reached record levels, exceeding SR900 billion ($240 billion) in mortgage financing, we are now seeing SRC (Saudi Real Estate Refinance Co.) injecting both local and foreign liquidity on a large scale, reaching more than SR54 billion”
Al-Hogail described Makkah and Madinah as unique and special points in the Kingdom’s real estate market as he spoke of the sector’s attractiveness.
“Today, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has become, in international investment indices, one that takes a good share of the Middle East, and based on this, many real estate investment portfolios have begun to come in,” he said.
Al-Ahsa Gov. Prince Saud bin Talal bin Badr Al-Saud told Arab News the Kingdom’s ability to balance both heritage sites with real estate is one of its strengths.
He said: “Actually the real estate market supports the whole infrastructure … the whole ecosystem goes back together in the foundation of the real estate; if we have the right infrastructure we can leverage more on tourism plus we can leverage more on the quality of life … we’re looking at 2030, this is the vision … to have the right infrastructure the time for more investors to come in real estate, entertainment, plus tourism and culture.”
