The Guggenheim Solar (NYSE:TAN) has crushed the benchmark averages by a whopping 30% this year. Yet Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) just laid off hundreds of SolarCity employees.
So where’s the disconnect?
SolarCity was founded by Elon Musk’s cousins Lyndon and Peter Rive in 2006. To diversify its own business, Tesla acquired the company roughly a year ago for a reported $2.6 billion.
Since consummating the deal, Tesla has been hard at work, innovating solar roofs — ones that don’t look like solar roofs at all.
Tesla’s “stealth” solar panels are hidden in the roofing tiles, rendering them virtually undetectable.
The market is ripe for such an innovation.
Yet still, the fact that 1,200 SolarCity workers just got unceremoniously canned raises a red flag.
According to one prominent insider, “Tesla will never get to 2019.”
Why would a regarded automotive titan call Tesla “a losing enterprise?”