Tesla's Unrecognized Potential: Why It Deserves a Spot Among the Best AI Stocks to Own

The Hidden AI Opportunity Most Investors Miss

Wall Street has long fixated on Nvidia and Palantir Technologies as the quintessential artificial intelligence stocks. Nvidia supplies the GPUs powering generative AI, while Palantir provides enterprise-grade data analytics. Yet a critical blind spot persists: Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA), trading at a forward P/E ratio near 256 and valued at approximately $1.4 trillion, remains fundamentally misunderstood by the market.

According to veteran analyst Dan Ives of Wedbush Securities, Tesla represents one of the most compelling yet undervalued AI transformation stories in the market. While most investors view it purely as an electric vehicle manufacturer, Tesla is actively repositioning itself as an AI infrastructure and automation powerhouse—a shift that could redefine multiple trillion-dollar industries.

The Ambitious Robotics Vision: Optimus as the Cornerstone

Tesla’s most audacious AI initiative is Optimus, its humanoid robot platform. Though early-stage, Optimus has already demonstrated critical capabilities: coordinated motion, precision object manipulation, and execution of repetitive tasks with consistency.

What distinguishes Optimus from competing robotics efforts is Tesla’s unmatched vertical integration. The company applies the same vision-based neural networks that power its autonomous vehicles to enable robots to perceive, navigate, and interact with physical environments. This technological synergy creates an unprecedented advantage that competitors like Boston Dynamics and Figure AI have yet to replicate at scale.

Elon Musk has publicly suggested Optimus could eventually represent 80% of Tesla’s long-term valuation, potentially surpassing both automotive and energy businesses combined. If humanoid robots achieve mainstream adoption, they could fundamentally reshape the global labor economy, automating physical tasks at a scale comparable to AI’s disruption of digital work.

However, the path remains fraught with challenges. Manufacturing machines that are simultaneously capable and affordable presents an extraordinary engineering hurdle. Competitors continue advancing their designs, yet profitability at scale remains unproven across the robotics industry.

Robotaxi: The Next Revenue Frontier

The second pillar of Tesla’s growth trajectory is its robotaxi network—a blueprint for deploying a global autonomous vehicle fleet offering on-demand mobility services. Imagine an Uber-like platform powered entirely by self-driving vehicles, generating recurring, high-margin software revenue rather than depending on individual vehicle sales.

Tesla’s existing manufacturing infrastructure positions it to activate millions of autonomy-equipped vehicles almost instantaneously. While Alphabet’s Waymo moved earlier in autonomous transportation, Tesla possesses one critical advantage: the world’s largest real-world driving dataset, accumulated across billions of miles. This data moat could prove decisive in advancing safety and performance.

Obstacles are substantial—regulatory approvals, safety validation, and consumer acceptance remain uncertain. Yet if Tesla executes successfully, the robotaxi revolution could represent a defining transformation point for both the company and AI-enabled mobility.

The Silicon Strategy: Building Custom AI Hardware

Underlying these ambitious ventures is Tesla’s strategic pivot toward chip sovereignty. The company currently utilizes Nvidia processors but is simultaneously developing proprietary silicon—the AI5 and AI6 architectures—engineered specifically for its autonomous ecosystem.

This vertical integration mirrors Apple’s approach: controlling both hardware and software. By manufacturing custom silicon, Tesla can optimize performance for its specific workloads, reduce dependency costs, and achieve greater scalability as computational demands expand. This represents a fundamental competitive moat unavailable to most automotive manufacturers.

Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) software runs on advanced neural networks trained across billions of real-world driving miles—a competitive advantage few rivals can replicate. Custom silicon amplifies this advantage exponentially.

Valuation Reality: Optimism Embedded, Execution Paramount

Today’s valuation reflects substantial market optimism around Tesla’s AI roadmap. The $1.4 trillion market capitalization already prices in considerable upside from robotaxi and Optimus initiatives, which currently generate minimal revenue and remain under active development.

This dynamic creates a paradox: Tesla possesses unmatched strategic optionality and transformative potential, yet faces significant execution risk. Success could unlock two entirely new markets—autonomous mobility and industrial robotics—fundamentally reshaping the company’s long-term trajectory and positioning it among the best AI stocks to own for visionary investors.

Delays, regulatory setbacks, or intensified competitive pressures could constrain near-term performance. For investors with conviction in Tesla’s technological vision, however, the stock represents a concentrated bet on AI convergence, automation, and mobility—a company poised not merely to participate in the next industrial revolution but to lead its construction.

The real question isn’t whether Tesla can dominate these emerging markets, but whether management can navigate the execution path successfully. For best AI stocks to own consideration, Tesla demands serious evaluation from anyone seeking exposure to transformative automation trends.