Shortly after the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) figures appeared to suggest Elon Musk’s ‘Robotaxis’ drove the most recent four months with no ’at-fault’ incidents, Gordon Johnson, a prominent Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) bear, took to X to cast doubt upon the results.
Specifically, the founder and CEO of GLJ Research highlighted that the numbers from the NHTSA are effectively meaningless due to the size of the autonomous fleet – 31, per the analyst – the size of the ‘true unsupervised’ fleet – 14 – and the fact that vehicles are ‘geofenced’ with a human ready to take over remotely.
Johnson also highlighted that, despite the ambitious targets widely discussed earlier in 2026, the number of self-driving Teslas has, in fact, been diminishing from the 140 peak recorded late in 2025 and, thus, emphasized his firm considers the project an essentially ‘stock pump’ scheme.
The Wall Street expert did, however, also reveal he believes that Elon Musk’s company can achieve true self-driving, but questions the timing given that there are multiple competitors that appear to be making significantly better progress.
While Gordon Johnson is often viewed with skepticism by Tesla customers and TSLA stock investors for his perpetually and extremely bearish view of the electric vehicle (EV) giant, he is far from the only one to question the so-called ‘full self-driving’ – or FSD.
What the Tesla autonomous fleet size reveals about FSD safety claims
For example, the far smaller number of crashes Elon Musk’s ‘Robotaxis’ have been in compared to competitors such as Waymo has been presented as a safety achievement, but they are a logical outcome of the substantial difference in the size of the fleet, per a June 16 Electrek report responding to the NHTSA data.
Furthermore, a late May Reuters report not only found that America’s biggest EV maker and largest car company by market capitalization is misrepresenting its own safety reports, but also piqued the interest of the U.S. Senate.
Lastly, the firm also allegedly presented misleading information to European regulators, per a different Reuters report.
Are Tesla stock shareholders losing patience with Musk’s shifting goalposts?
Elsewhere, examining the TSLA stock price, it appears that shareholders might be losing confidence in the company after years of shifting goalposts.
Overall, Tesla shares are 7.63% in the red in 2026 and at $404.66 and have so far failed to sustain the two significant recent short-term rallies – the early April climb in anticipation of the quarterly report, and the post-filing 20% upswing that lasted until May 11.
One of the possible major reasons for the stock market performance could be the weight placed on the full commercial availability of FSD – and the ‘Robotaxi’ service – juxtaposed with the series of sequential postponements, the latest of which moved the launch to the fourth quarter (Q4) 2026 at the earliest.
Tesla stock faces mounting Wall Street skepticism
Meanwhile, Tesla has been facing mounting pressure from Wall Street in recent weeks.
For example, though Gordon Johnson’s GLJ Research estimated on June 12 that the car company’s core business would see improvements in the coming months and show delivery growth, it nonetheless reaffirmed its extremely bearish and long-held $24.86 price target.
Perhaps more notably, top investor and fund manager David Giroux opined in mid-June that Tesla can no longer be considered a ‘Magnificent 7’ company, and explained he replaced it with the rising semiconductor giant Broadcom (NASDAQ: AVGO).
Featured image via Shutterstock
