Tesla stocks have been soaring through the charts since it was revealed that the company delivered a record 112,000 vehicles in the last quarter.
Elon Musk just got US$2.1 billion richer this week as Tesla became America’s most valuable car company in history. Tesla closed Monday with a market value of US$81.39 billion, surpassing Ford Motor Co.’s peak of $80.81 billion set in 1999.
Toyota remains the world’s most valuable car company.
Tesla stocks have been soaring through the charts since it was revealed that the company delivered a record 112,000 vehicles in the last quarter, exceeding the expectations of analysts. Its announcement that its first full-scale production plant outside of the US in Shanghai, China, is now delivering vehicles also has something to do with it.
In numbers, shares surged 13% in the week of January 9, 2020, boosting Musk’s net worth by US$2.1 billion to a total of US$28.8 billion. This places Musk, who owns nearly 22% of Tesla’s stocks, as the 34thrichest person in the world. Interestingly, that 22% is only half of his entire fortune – an estimated US$12.5 billion of that comes from his stake in SpaceX, his private aerospace company known for reusable rockets.
Market cap for Tesla hit US$83 billion on Tuesday, making it the most valuable car company in American history, a position previously held by Ford at US$81 billion in 1999. By Friday, Tesla proudly reported a market cap of US$85.8 billion, just shy of the US$87 billion combined market cap of General Motors and Ford.
Tesla stocks has doubled since October, but not without road bumps along the way. In November, Musk’s net worth fell by US$768 million in a single day when the unveiling of the Cybertruck didn’t go as planned and sunk Tesla’s shares by 6%.
Wall Street analysts have always been divided on the company: Out of the 36 analysts tracked by Bloomberg, 15 have issued sell rating, 11 have issued holds and 10 have issued buys.
The most valuable company in the US still is Apple Inc, currently worth US$1.3 trillion. Regardless, Musk’s feat with Tesla is still a mighty impressive one especially considering how he built Tesla from scratch within this century alone, which then went on to be worth more than any of the Detroit-three auto makers of Ford, General Motors and Fiat Chrysler, at any point in history.
In light of the recent COVID-19 global pandemic, the billionaire also recently tweeted that Tesla and SpaceX employees are working on ventilators to help combat the virus.