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Washington- Tesla, the manufacturer of luxury electric vehicles, became a company in 2020 that caused doubts on Wall Street analysts and aspires to be acquired by Apple to become a monster valued at almost 660,000 million dollars, after earned $ 550 billion in the last 12 months.
In 11 months of 2020, Tesla’s market capitalization has increased fivefold, despite the crisis caused by the pandemic for much of the year and that the electric vehicle manufacturer remains a marginal company in the sector in terms of volume. production and sales.
The company, based in the Californian city of Fremont, where its only assembly plant in the United States is located, expects to have delivered approximately 500,000 vehicles by the end of 2020. Although the figure is the highest in the company’s history, it is only a fraction of what the main producers in the sector produce.
Last year, the German group Volkswagen produced about 10.8 million vehicles, while the Japanese group Toyota sold 10.7 million units.
The most valuable manufacturer
But despite the differences between the two world car giants and Tesla, the market capitalization of controversial company Elon Musk today stands at $ 659.4 billion, while VW is $ 233.3 billion and Toyota is of $ 352.6 billion. .
Thus, at 660 billion dollars, Tesla is currently the most valuable car manufacturer in the world, a long way from its main competitors in the industry.
To put this figure in perspective, Apple, the second most valuable company in the world, behind only Saudi Aramco, is valued at $ 2.17 trillion, while Microsoft and Amazon are tied at 1.6 trillions of dollars.
Tesla’s growth this year has been meteoric. On January 22, 2020, the valuation of shares of Tesla, a company founded in 2003 by Musk along with four other entrepreneurs, exceeded $ 100 billion for the first time when its share price was $ 592.96.
Meteor show
By then, in just under 10 years, Tesla’s stock had multiplied by almost 35 (it started its stock market in July 2010 at $ 17 a share), despite the fact that the car company has so far failed to do so. to generate profits in a sustainable way.
In other words, it took Tesla almost 10 years to go from $ 1.7 billion in market capitalization to $ 100 billion, but only 11 months to grow from $ 100 billion to $ 660 billion. .
Although many analysts remain puzzled by Tesla’s meteoric rise in 2020, when you study the list of the most valuable companies in the world, you can understand one of the main reasons why the electric vehicle manufacturer is there and why it is. distance from your competitors.
Apart from Saudi Aramco, Apple, Microsoft and Amazon are both technology companies. And Musk doesn’t sell cars with Tesla, he “sells technology,” as CNBC television personality and financial analyst Jim Cramer noted.
A technology company
What the market has understood is that Tesla’s power is not electric vehicle technology, but vehicle technology.
“That is why this young generation is willing to give you money. They say, “It’s Steve Jobs (the founder of Apple). Who knows who will be the next to serve. I want some of it. “Cramer added.
And what Musk has shown to his fans in recent years is not only that he has the visionary ability of geniuses like Jobs, but that he is willing to do everything, or almost everything, to carry out his plans.
Two years ago, when production deficiencies for the Model 3, Tesla’s “mass” vehicle, virtually eliminated the car company, Musk decided to sleep at the Fremont factory in order to solve the problems that arose.
This year, when the California government decided to limit the state to combat the spread COVID-19The closure of the Fremont plant prompted Musk’s political and medical authorities to continue production of Model 3.
Musk not only kept the assembly plant open, but called the closure order “fascist” and “forced incarceration” and downplayed the importance of the coronavirus, saying it was no worse than the flu.
All this, although very controversial, allowed 2020 to be the best year in Tesla’s history. In the first three quarters of the year, the company accumulated net profits of $ 435 million.
After years of hardship, Musk is so confident in the future of his company that this month he even allowed himself to admit that, in the past, even he thought Tesla would not survive.
“In the darkest days of the Model 3 show, we contacted Tim Cook (Apple’s CEO) to discuss the possibility of Apple buying Tesla (for a tenth of our current value). He refused to accept a meeting, “Musk said on Twitter.