Former Tesla director: Elon Musk is stretched thin, but EV maker still has good prospects
Michael Gonzalez

Former Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) board member Steven Westly raised concerns about Elon Musk's ability to remain focused on his electric vehicle maker, with his recent Twitter buy adding yet another company for the billionaire to manage.
However, the founder and managing partner of The Westly Group told CNBC that TSLA is still "doing pretty darn well" and has "a lot of runway" headed into next year.
"They are going to be looking at a good 2023," he said.
In making his argument, Westly cited forecasts that would see TSLA expand its revenue in 2022 by 55%, with vehicles numbers growing by 45%. This growth in fundamentals will come despite the fact that the stock has shed more than 50% of its value so far this year. 
Westly added that Tesla is posting 16% in net margins whereas its peers General Motors (GM) and Ford (F) are posting about 5% and 6%, respectively.
Giving some specifics for his prediction of a "good" 2023, the former TSLA board member cited the cyber truck launch next year, which is coming to market with a 1.2M unit backlog.
Still, while Westly praised Musk for created powerful brands and challenging legacy automakers like Ford (F), General Motors (GM) and Toyota (TM), he worried that a move into politics through acquisition of Twitter (TWTR) is shifting his focus and hurting the brand in large.
"Elon has a permanent place in history for revolutionizing the global auto industry. he has almost single-handedly moved the world in new electric vehicles good for the planet and the share price, but managing five companies at once is tough," 
"Something's got to give but the short answer is Elon is stretched," he added. "He's managing five companies. Who wouldn't be a little overstretched?"
Asked about megacap companies like Apple (AAPL) trying to diversify their supply chain away from China, a key country in TSLA's operations, Westly said the deterioration of U.S./China relations will take a toll on Tesla as 40% of vehicles are coming from Shanghai. The giant EV maker is looking to break ground in Canada, South Korea and Indonesia to avoid such hiccups.
Looking at the stock price, Tesla shed 6% on Monday and about 58% this year. Shares were trading at about $168 in Monday's late-day action, hovering near its 52-week low of $166.18.
Shares have been under pressure most recently on news that it will suspend Model Y assembly at the Shanghai Gigafactory for the last week in December. Meanwhile, there have been reports that Muskâs bankers are weighing new margin loans backed by Tesla stock to replace some of the high-interest debt he took on in a $44B acquisition of Twitter (TWTR).
A quick look at the stock performance in comparison to the broader market index and its peers:

For more on growth concerns and production cut, see why Seeking Alpha contributor Macrotips Trading says, "More worrisome for Tesla bulls are Elon Musk's outside business activities that are casting the Tesla brand in a bad light."