In an invitation-only call with institutional clients of Morgan Stanley on Wednesday, research analyst Adam Jonas — a long-time Tesla bull — expressed skepticism about the electric vehicle maker and said not to count on a buyer like Apple to bail the company out.

"Tesla is not really seen as a growth story," Jonas said on the call, which CNBC heard in a recording. Today, "It seems like a distressed credit and restructuring story."

Some details of the call were previously reported by Business Insider.

Jonas spent some time on the call responding to the hope that a big tech company like Apple or Amazon might buy Tesla. In a CNBC interview on Tuesday, analyst Craig Irwin of Roth Capital Partners rekindled the rumor that Apple once made a bid for Tesla.

But Jonas poured cold water on the notion of a big tech acquisition today.

He explained, "For risk mitigation and liability containment, they may not want to expose themselves to the unlimited liability of being involved in owning a business where occasionally a car catches on fire, takes down a building, or accidentally kills a pedestrian or passenger, things that happen. The auto industry has an ugly side to it. The roads are very dangerous. There's a lot of stored energy in a vehicle. And the regulatory environment [around autonomous cars] has not had time to cure yet."

Jonas acknowledged that Apple has interest in transportation (as do Amazon and other big tech firms). But Morgan Stanley's tech researchers, he said, don't expect Apple to have a service or related hardware devoted entirely to transportation until the 2030s.

He added, "Perhaps those big tech firms don't want to expose themselves to that up front. And moreover they realize the autonomous race is more of a marathon where over a 10- or 20-year period you collect real world miles. There may be other ways to do that besides owning a full-stack, awesome, great auto company."