Tesla stock keeps going up having surged from as low as $230 a month ago to over $350.
The cars are everywhere. Three years post-Covid, Tesla went from a niche to mainstream, defying the media’s predictions of it either running out of money or being a fad. What makes this more impressive is that the vast majority of Tesla cars on the road are on average only a few years old, compared to other brands, which have many older/used cars on the road. So controlling for car age, Tesla’s growth is even more remarkable. The 15x stock price appreciation from 2020-2021 was in hindsight totally rational.
It’s not your imagination that there are a lot of Teslas. In California, for 2024, Tesla is the second most popular brand by registration, only behind Toyota.
But Tesla has higher profit margins, as Tesla cars are more expensive and no advertising, whereas Toyota advertises constantly.
Tesla was not a bubble as many wrongly predicted. Others predicted a falling out between Musk and Trump. Also wrong. Trump and Musk are really close. As someone who observed the dynamics between past advisors during Trump’s first term, there was no friction here. Trump and Musk really see eye to eye, even literally being of similar height. No baggage, defection, or betrayal like with Bannon and many others. Trump also heeded Musk’s opposition to tariffs, defying Navarro and cutting back and delaying the tariffs.