Goldman Sachs Maintains Neutral Rating on Tesla, Inc. (TSLA), Highlights Long-Term Growth Potential and Challenges in FSD Ramp-Up

We recently compiled a list of the Top 10 AI Stocks Dominating Wall Street. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Tesla, Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) stands against the other AI stocks.

The artificial intelligence community is raving over a new reasoning model that has surprised even Silicon Valley. Developed by Chinese start-up DeepSeek, the r1 claims to match and even exceed OpenAI’s o1 by multiple benchmarks, and that too, at a fraction of the cost. A Chinese hedge-fund manager, Liang Wenfeng, has led the development of r1. Wenfeng has become the leading figure in the country’s AI initiative.

“Deepseek R1 is one of the most amazing and impressive breakthroughs I’ve ever seen”.

-Marc Andreessen, Silicon Valley venture capitalist who has been advising President Trump.

While some specialists are saying that DeepSeek’s technology is a bit behind OpenAI and Google, it is still an achievement considering it has used fewer and less advanced chips. The country has also had to deal with US restrictions along the way, implying how DeepSeek either found a way around the rules or the controls weren’t stringent enough in the first place.

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Also developed by DeepSeek is its AI assistant, an artificial intelligence application that was released on January 10. The AI assistant is powered by the DeepSeek-V3 model and boasts over 600 billion parameters. It is designed to assist users by offering them seamless interactions, answering user questions, and enhancing daily tasks.

In the latest news, Reuters reports how the Chinese startup DeepSeek’s AI Assistant has overtaken rival ChatGPT to become the top-rated free application available on Apple’s App Store in the United States. According to its creators, the AI assistant “tops the leaderboard among open-source models and rivals the most advanced closed-source models globally”.

Both the r1 and AI assistant by DeepSeek are proof that China is getting closer to the US in the race toward supremacy in AI. While several Chinese tech companies have released tech companies over the past, DeepSeek has been particularly praised by the US tech industry for its innovation and achievements.

At the same time, there is skepticism regarding how these cheaper alternatives may question the pricing power of US tech giants and if their spending needs need to be re-evaluated.

“While it remains to be seen if DeepSeek will prove to be a viable, cheaper alternative in the long term, initial worries are centered on whether US tech giants’ pricing power is being threatened and if their massive AI spending needs re-evaluation”.

-Jun Rong Yeap of IG Asia.

For this article, we selected AI stocks by going through news articles, stock analysis, and press releases. These stocks are also popular among hedge funds.

Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter’s strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 275% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 150 percentage points (see more details here).

Is Tesla, Inc. (TSLA) the Best Stock to Buy for High Returns in 2025?

Tesla, Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 99

Tesla, Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) is an automotive and clean energy company that leverages advanced artificial intelligence in its autonomous driving technology and robotics initiatives. On January 27, CNBC reported that Goldman Sachs analyst Mark Delaney has reiterated a Neutral rating on Tesla and a $345.00 price target on the stock. According to the firm, Tesla has long-term potential, but it may be time to wait and see. The company is leading in electric vehicles, with capabilities in AI. However, its Full Self-Driving Technology may take longer to develop than expected.

“We believe Tesla remains well positioned for long-term growth, given its leadership position in EVs; the breadth/depth of its technical capabilities in AI, software, and hardware; and its ability to benefit from a full set of solutions including in charging and storage. However, we see a handful of offsetting factors. These include: 1) We expect the ramp in FSD to take longer than Tesla currently targets; 2) We believe auto fundamentals could remain volatile in the near-term (with lower pricing/incentives a headwind, and we expect delivery volumes to be somewhat lower than Tesla’s outlook for 2025); 3) We see valuation as full.”

Overall TSLA ranks 4th on our list of the top AI stocks that are dominating Wall Street. While we acknowledge the potential of TSLA as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and doing so within a shorter timeframe. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than TSLA but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.

READ NEXT: 20 Best AI Stock To Buy Now and Complete List of All AI Companies Under $2 Billion Market Cap.

Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.