Investors are betting Musk and Tesla will make a fortune under Trump even as threats mount
For Elon Musk fans, it’s the half-trillion dollar bet
NEW YORK — For Elon Musk fans, it’s the half a trillion-dollar bet.
That is how much the stock market value of Tesla has rocketed since the presidential election, a vertiginous climb uninterrupted in recent days despite a disappointing financial report that would have sunk the stock of nearly any other company.
Investors are wagering that President Donald Trump will help Musk’s company more than hurt it with his plans to take an axe to reams of Washington regulations and wield tariffs to get his way with key trading partners.
Less regulation? Fantastic. Trade war? No biggie.
“It’s going to be a golden age for Tesla and Musk,” said Wedbush Securities financial analyst Dan Ives, adding after an investor conference call Wednesday, “This is the bullish I’ve ever heard Musk.”
Investing in Tesla has long been a gamble. Odds were against Musk creating a successful electric car company, never mind growing it to become the world’s most valuable automaker – and in the process making himself the world’s richest man. But this latest bet seems particularly risky.
Musk says the true value of company lays in a future of Tesla robots, thousands of them possibly by the end of the year, and in unsupervised, driverless vehicles. He promised in Tesla's investor conference call to start offering such robotaxis in June in Austin, Texas, and across the country by the end of next year.
Speeding all that along will be Trump, or so the story goes, who has given Musk an office in the White House and made him the head of the new Department of Government Efficiency tasked with shrinking the size of the government.
Trump’s new transportation secretary, who can have a big impact on Tesla, is
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