tesla inc shares were climbing thursday as investors applauded an earnings beat and upbeat comments from ceo elon musk with some wall street analysts saying the bears should go away for now shares of tesla tsla jumped around 7 in premarket trading indicating the stock could open around 154 from a close of 144 43 on wednesday the gains boosted rivals such as china’s nio nio  up 5 tesla delivered what it said were record sales and profit for the fourth quarter though those numbers were not completely up to wall street’s expectations adjusted earnings of 119 a share came in better than expected but revenue fell short even as it jumped to 2432 billion from 177 billion a year ago smoother over those “mixed” results were comments from musk about strong january orders and demand outstripping production noted citi analyst itay michaeli who lifted his price target slightly to 146 per share from 137 “given the heightened focus on the implications of recent pricecuts on demand  gross margins management’s commentary will likely be met with some relief as it injects some muchneeded visibility” michaeli told clients but he said questions remain as fourthquarter margins came in softer freecash flow disappointed and strong order trends will need to be sustained opinion elon musk shows in ‘funding secured’ trial that he does not live in the real world “to that the 2023 delivery guide will likely also draw some debate” he said the company guided to 18 million units below the 2 million it’s capable of citing supply chain risks though that could come to be viewed as more positive versus other automakers said michaeli who is keeping a neutral rating on tesla citing “balanced riskreward” wedbush analysts daniel ives and john katsingris lifted their price target to 200 from 175 per share keeping an outperform rating on the stock “in tesla’s super bowl last night musk  co delivered in epic fashion with demand that is currently 2x production coming out of the gates in 2023 and laying out a 18 million delivery bogey for the year which was exactly what the bulls wanted to hear and the bears for now will go back into hibernation mode” they told clients the wedbush analysts said they walked away from the earnings with the sense that tesla was sacrificing margins in the near term for higher volumes “the right strategic poker move to put an iron fence around its customer base and fend off growing ev competition coming from detroit europe and china” over at truist securities a team led by analyst william stein was taking comfort in what they said was a promising future for the company while the 18 million unit delivery figure was a disappointment he said they expect that number to grow to 7 million units by 2030 stein said they expect ai projects fullself driving its supercomputer platform dojo and humanoid robot optimus “to provide significant highmargin growth opportunities” stein said they were looking to tesla’s march 1 investor day to deliver the next possible catalyst for shares the ev maker on wednesday teased a “next generation” vehicle platform saying more details will be revealed at the event also in the pipeline the analyst noted pilot programs of the tesla semi truck with volume production coming in 2024 read tesla says it plans 36 billion expansion of nevada gigafactory