Tesla shares accelerated some 5.6 percent, pushing its market capitalization over $800 billion for the first time, Reuters reported on Friday (Jan. 8).
The rally pushed Tesla CEO Elon Musk to new status as the world’s richest man. Tesla’s Musk has now moved ahead of Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos and Facebook’s head Mark Zukerberg. In a previous rally, Tesla soared beyond some $774 billion, making it Wall Street’s fifth most valuable firm.
By way of comparison, Bitcoin soared 380 percent in the past year, while Tesla has soared 750 percent, Forbes reported.
Musk’s 21 percent stake in Tesla adds more than $170 billion to his net worth, now more than the combined market capitalization of General Motors, Ford Motor and Fiat Chrysler.
Overall, the 17-year-old electric automaker’s production is a small percentage of that of its bigger competitors, such as Toyota, Volkswagen and General Motors.
Musk, who holds a 20 percent stake in Tesla, is also the CEO of SpaceX. He has added almost $150 billion to his net worth since March of 2020.
Tesla, which closed with a market value of $773.5 at the end of Thursday (Jan. 7), rose 4.5 percent in Friday’s trading to reach $856.42, its third consecutive all-time high.
In late December, Musk tweeted about the future, pondering the notion of in-car gaming for autonomous cars, and received over 6,000 responses. “Entertainment will be critical when cars drive themselves,” Musk said.
“Is he getting ahead of himself? Yes, I think he is,” Fred Lambert, editor-in-chief at Elektrek wrote in response to Musk’s latest public commentary.
“This feels like a distraction from the fact that Tesla is missing another important FSD timeline put forward by Elon,” Lambert added in reference to Musk’s previous prediction to have a million robotaxis on the road by the end of 2020. “Right now, the focus should really be on solving autonomous driving and not finding what to do when they achieve that.”
The company is also said to be adding to its music services beyond Spotify.
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