Tesla (TSLA) investors buying near today’s $420 share price are getting a big bonus — the Optimus robot business for free.
At least that’s what Piper Sandler analyst Alexander Potter wrote in the investment bank’s second edition of his “Definitive Guide to Investing in Tesla.” Per Piper’s discounted cash flow (DCF) analysis, Tesla is worth around $400 per share, but Optimus is not part of that analysis.
The updated model breaks Tesla into 17 product lines, ranging from vehicles and energy storage to supercharging, in-house insurance, FSD subscriptions, and the robotaxi business. The sum of those lines using a 20-year DCF analysis suggests Tesla is worth $400 per share — “just shy of TSLA’s current share price.”
“Critically, this analysis excludes Optimus, Tesla’s forthcoming humanoid robot,” Potter wrote. “In other words, at $400/share, we think investors can buy Optimus for ‘free’.”
Potter is not claiming the robot is worthless. Optimus and a separate “inference-as-a-service” business are “thesis-defining products that, arguably, will be worth more than Tesla’s other businesses combined,” he said.
But valuing such a transformational business is difficult, if not impossible. “Where to begin forecasting products with the potential to fundamentally reshape labor markets and alter global GDP? One day, we will try… but for now, the analysis in this report illustrates that there’s no rush.”
Potter reiterated a $500 price target on the stock, unchanged from his previous note. The math is straightforward: $500 PT minus $400 in modeled product-line value leaves $100 per share for Optimus, inference-as-a-service, and anything else not in the 17-line build.
Potter believes that allocation is conservative. “Some would argue that’s far too low (we’re inclined to agree).”
A tricky valuation
If Potter’s $400 base case holds, today’s price is roughly fair value for the parts of Tesla that can be modeled with conventional analysis — and the optionality on humanoid robotics and AI inference is essentially thrown in at no charge.
But there’s a catch. The entire “free Optimus” framing is based on Piper Sandler’s new valuation based on a 233x FY27 earnings multiple, up from 180x, meaning it’s much richer.
Potter argues that most sell-side models give short shrift to Tesla’s less visible revenue streams.
“We think most sell-side modeling efforts ignore the financial impact of in-house insurance, Supercharging, and other outside-the-box revenue streams,” he wrote. He also notes that Piper’s prior model “lacked a serious attempt to reflect the 2025 CEO compensation plan, and it didn’t assign a specific value to the robo-taxi business.”