TMTPOST -- Tesla Inc. shares surge around 6% to $424.77 on Wednesday, refreshing their record set on November 4, 2021. Shares of the U.S. electric vehicle (EV) heavyweight registered gains for sixth straight day, driving the CEO Elon Musk’s personal wealth to more than $400 billion.
Credit：Tesla
Musk become the first billionaire whose net worth topped $400 billion, Bloomberg cited the Bloomberg Billionaires Index ranking the world’s richest people. The milestone mainly results from recent rallies of Tesla stocks. Most of Musk’s fortune is wrapped up in his holdings of Tesla. The entrepreneur owns 411.06 million Tesla shares, as of the latest filings, and about 304 million performance-based options. Tesla stock and options account for about three-quarters of his personal wealth, and he also holds large stakes in SpaceX, social media platform X and AI startup xAI.
As of Wednesday, Tesla shares have soared approximately 69% since Donald Trump won the U.S. presidential election, bringing more than $556 billion to the market capitalization in five weeks. Musk’s total known political spend this year is at over $132 million, Yahoo Finance reported in late October. That’s one of the largest sums dedicated to a political candidate and a party. He also offered to give away $1 million a day to voters in swing states for signing his PAC’s petition backing the Constitution.
Trump’s victory suggests Musk’s big bet began to pay off. Investors speculate that Musk and his companies including Tesla will benefit from Trump’s return to the White House. Roth MKM analyst Craig Irwin, who was bearish on Tesla for a long time, last week commented Tesla stocks are “responding to the Trump bump.”
Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said in a research note last month that a victory for Trump could harm the EV industry as a whole, but boost Tesla shares by $40 to $50. “Tesla has the scale and scope that is unmatched,” said Ives. “This dynamic could give Musk and Tesla a clear competitive advantage in a non-EV subsidy environment, coupled by likely higher China tariffs that would continue to push away cheaper Chinese EV players.”
Besides the positive from Trump’s return to the White House, Wall Street analysts also felt upbeat on Tesla’s development of self-driving tech and deployment of artificial intelligence (A) and robotics.
Bank of America Securities analyst John Murphy felt confident on Tesla’s outlook in 2025 and the longer term following a Gigafactory Austin visit. “The trip gave us increased confidence that TSLA is well-positioned to grow in 2025+ with its core EV business and launch of its robotaxi offering, and longer-term from its investments in Optimus,” Murphy said in a note last week. The analyst noted Tesla is currently using Optimus to sort through its battery cells without any intervention, and has been testing the robotic humanoid’s dexterity via use cases such as catching tennis balls.
Murphy in the note reiterated his Buy rating for Tesla and lifted his price target to $400 to $350, an increase of 14.3%.
Goldman Sachs analyst Mark Delaney raised his price target to $345 from $250, an increase of 38%, while maintaining a Neutral rating. "While we see some fundamental headwinds to the core auto business over the near to medium term and see valuation as full, we also believe the stock could remain at a higher multiple to reflect the long-term opportunity tied to FSD/robotics given broader market interest in potential AI beneficiaries. Tesla's stock is trading at the higher-end of the historical range on NTM non-GAAP EPS," Delaney commented in a note on Wednesday.
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