Jim Chanos just trashed Tesla
Kynikos Associates founder and famed short seller Jim Chanos has been bearish on Elon Musk's various business ventures for a while.
This morning, the famed investor went on Bloomberg TV and described Tesla Motors' stock as "overpriced."
But Chanos didn't say explicitly whether or not he planned to short Tesla.
"So what Tesla had is innovation and a head start in this market that other companies are now catching up to," Chanos told Bloomberg TV.
"And becoming a car manufacturer is a lot more difficult than becoming a high-tech darling."
He did admit that Tesla's product offerings are great.
Tesla's certainly richly priced. The company is unprofitable, but including debt it is valued at 114 times expected earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization. Fiat Chrysler fetches 2.6 times Ebitda, and BMW is closer to 7.4 times Ebitda.
Chanos is hitting on a theme raised by a number of Tesla-watchers lately. As Business Insider's Matthew DeBord wrote recently, the company's biggest challenge is not finding people to buy its cars. Rather, the company struggles to build and deliver cars to its customers to meet expectations.
For what it's worth, even Musk himself has said in the past that Tesla's stock is overvalued.
Tesla stock is down slightly in trading Monday.
We reached out to Tesla for comment. We'll update if we hear more.
See the full Tesla interview here: