Yesterday, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk dethroned Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon and claimed the title of world’s richest person, all thanks to the unprecedented surge in Tesla’s stock price in a record time.
According to the Bloomberg Billionaire’s Index, currently, Musk’s personal net worth currently stands close to $195 billion.
There is no doubt that the South Africa-born engineer’s wealth is majorly fueled by Tesla’s share price. Last year, the electric vehicle’s share price grew by a whopping 743% on the back on churning out consistent profits, was included in the S&P 500 Index and received equal amounts of enthusiasm from retail investors and the Wall Street alike.
Tesla has now become 6th most valuable publicly traded company, with a market cap higher than Facebook and many other popular companies.
Since its initial public offering in 2010, Tesla’s prices grew more than a mind-numbing 23,900%, including a 5-for-1 stock split last year.
In just one year Tesla price increased by whopping 1000%, from $88 in January 2020 to $816 on January 07, 2021.
The jaw-dropping rise in Tesla stock price has uplifted Elon Musk in list of the world’s top billionaires. Musk passed Bill Gates in the month of November to become the second richest person in the world and, within two short months, he has climbed to the top leapfrogging Jeff Bezos. Now, while we all know Tesla, of which Elon alone owns 20% in stocks, were pivotal to making this happen, let’s try to understand what has exactly been driving the electric vehicle company’s stock value to a new height with each passing week.
Escape From Production Hell, Increase In Sales And Future Predictions
Little over two years ago no one have had a little idea how the table was suppose to turn in favour of Elon Musk.
In 2018, Tesla was swamped with a lot of bad press as the production rate for the company’s first mass-produced and affordable car the Model 3 kept falling behind the ambitious 5000-per week target set by Musk.
The stock price of Tesla was struggling to stay afloat in the market at just $59 apiece. Many experts claimed that Tesla’s struggle will continue for long as all the traditional vehicle manufacturers were employing aggressive marketing strategy to capture EV market.
Initially, it appeared that all critics were so correct about Tesl as stock price of Tesla tumbled down to as low as $42 in April 2019.
In July 2019, after several months of back-breaking and round the clockwork on the Tesla’s factory floors, Musk eventually reached the 5000-unit milestone, proving all the critics wrong. Since then sales skyrocketed for the Model 3 sedan and Model Y SUV.
That event sent many early retail investors into a frenzy who became convinced of Tesla’s further future success, which then made way for an incredible rise of a swarm of retail investors who were more willing to buy into Tesla’s story than many on the Wall Street itself.
The company started winning back the confidence of investors and the market as well. The impact was clearly visible on the Tesla stock price as it started increasing from October 2019 after having a roller coaster ride for two years.
Currently, RBC Capital expects Tesla, by maintaining a 20% market share in the global electric vehicle space, to sell 1.7 million cars in 2025 as additional manufacturing capacity is coming online.
Also going forward, RBC believes that Tesla can use its high stock price in order to fund various acquisition which could either be a traditional automaker for additional manufacturing capacity or simply suppliers or raw materials. Nevertheless, Tesla’s current valuation is just too large to ignore.
All in all, it indicates that Musk’s wealth will continue to grow and surpass his current net worst. Like most other billionaires, Musk saw his overall wealth increase during the pandemic. However, unlike his peer group, in court, Musk claimed that he was cash poor and financially illiquid in 2019.
Elon has previously taken loans against the very stocks that make him so wealthy and then ploughed the same money back into his companies, like when he dumped close to $100 million into The Boring Company in 2018.
Now, to what new heights will Tesla and Musk’s wealth skyrocket in the months to come, is something we all have our eyes glued on. How long Elon will dominate the list of the world’s top billionaires only time will tell, but the Wall Steet is divided about Elon’s long dominance.
We will keep you updated. Until then, stay tuned.
