Elon Musk, the world’s wealthiest person, increased his worth by $26 billion on Thursday as Tesla’s stock surged to its highest level since 2013.
Forbes estimates Musk’s net worth at $269 billion, surpassing Larry Ellison, the biggest shareholder in Oracle and a former Tesla board member, by over $50 billion.
Musk owns over 13% of Tesla’s outstanding shares, which accounts for the majority of his net worth, but he also owns a significant portion of SpaceX, which is valued in the private markets at more than $200 billion. He is also the majority owner of X, previously Twitter, and xAI, an artificial intelligence business.
Musk’s fortune might rise even more depending on the result of a shareholder lawsuit against his 2018 pay package, which is now being litigated.
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The increase on Thursday came after Tesla’s better-than-expected earnings report late Wednesday and Musk’s remarks on the call, which suggested that “vehicle growth” would be 20% to 30% next year. Tesla shares rose 22% after the closing, marking the company’s second-largest rise since its IPO in 2010.
Prior to the results report, Tesla shares had fallen and were on track for their worst month since January. However, the company recovered its losses for the year and is presently up 5% in 2024, compared to the Nasdaq’s 23% rise.
Tesla announced profits per share of 72 cents, which above the average analyst forecast of 58 cents. Profit was increased by $739 million in income from environmental regulatory credits and $326 million from FSD, the company’s Full Self-Driving Supervised system.
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Musk spent most of the earnings call extolling Tesla’s self-driving future, including a ride-hailing service that he claims would be available to the public as early as next year in Texas and California. Two weeks before, Tesla staged its long-awaited robotaxi presentation, presenting the idea of its Cybercab.
While Alphabet’s Waymo has been providing commercial driverless services to the public since June, Tesla has frequently failed to meet its own product launch timeline. The corporation still does not manufacture or sell vehicles that are safe to drive without a person at the wheel, ready to steer or stop at any moment.
While Musk introduced a heavy-duty Semi truck and a Roadster revamp in 2017, the Roadster design has yet to be finalized, and the business is just in “pilot production” of the Semi.
Musk did not discuss his campaigning and large-scale expenditures in favor of Donald Trump on Wednesday’s call.
Since officially embracing Trump immediately after the first assassination attempt on the former president in July, Musk has increased his rhetoric, particularly on X, and donated tens of millions of dollars to a political action organization supporting the Republican contender.
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Musk has been campaigning in Pennsylvania, a vital swing state that he refers to as the “linchpin” of the election. Over the weekend, he announced that he will randomly pay $1 million every day to registered voters who sign a petition for his pro-Trump PAC in an attempt to motivate his supporters in battleground areas to vote.
The US Department of Justice has informed Musk’s PAC that his voter sweepstakes may violate federal election law, according to a person familiar with the situation.
Many investors questioned Musk’s political activity before to the results conference.
“Elon Musk has the right to express his political views, but his public activism appears to conflict with his responsibility as CEO to protect shareholder value,” an anonymous retail investor commented on a site where Tesla solicits investor inquiries. “How does Tesla address this, and can it confirm Musk’s actions are not harming sales or growth?”
Prior to the call, the remark had been upvoted 168 times. Another question, with 527 votes, questioned whether Tesla’s board is doing anything to guarantee Musk’s “political engagement doesn’t detract from Tesla’s core mission and protects shareholder value and brand integrity.”
Musk tweeted on X earlier this week, “I think this election is existential to the United States.”
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