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Tesla Passes Facebook To Become Fifth Most Valuable US Company (cnbc.com) 93

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
Electric vehicle maker Tesla surpassed Facebook by market capitalization after markets opened Friday. From a report: Tesla's stock jumped about 5.5% at 9:03 a.m. ET to give it a market cap of $802.6 billion, while Facebook stock dipped. Facebook now has a market cap of about $755.8 billion. The jump makes Elon Musk's automotive venture the fifth biggest company in the large-cap benchmark when counting the share classes of Alphabet together. It now just trails Apple, Microsoft, Amazon and Alphabet. While the mark is largely symbolic, it signifies Tesla's dramatic rise over just a short period of time. Tesla became the first $100 billion publicly listed U.S. carmaker in January 2019. Just 10 months later, the company surpassed a $500 billion market cap. The stock gained more than 700% in 2020. The company joined the S&P 500 in December, wrapping up a strong year of performances. Led by Musk, Tesla has turned in five consecutive profitable quarters. Tesla delivered 499,550 vehicles in the year, and is currently building new factories in Austin, Texas and Brandenburg, Germany, among other efforts to grow its production and sales volume.
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Tesla Passes Facebook To Become Fifth Most Valuable US Company More

Tesla Passes Facebook To Become Fifth Most Valuable US Company

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  • Welp, time to sell (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Dixie_Flatline ( 5077 ) <vincent@jan@goh.gmail@com> on Friday January 08, 2021 @10:52AM (#60910920) Homepage

    I bought 10 shares a while back, apparently at a price of around $50/share. It's now at $872/share, and I've made 2000% on this investment. This seems...overly exuberant. Like, I believe in Tesla as a company, but this is a bit more than I can fathom being reasonable. Maybe I'll keep one share and hope for stock splits in the future.

    • If you'd just purchased 50 shares @ $50 you'd now be able to sell and purchase a Tesla vehicle.

      Most of the folks shouting "short TSLA" from the rooftops have learned very expensive lessons.

      https://markets.businessinside... [businessinsider.com]

      Best,

      • Re:Welp, time to sell (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Luthair ( 847766 ) on Friday January 08, 2021 @11:11AM (#60910982)
        They learned that Tesla supporters are delusional fanatics? Even if Tesla became the only car manufacturer on the planet in 10-years their valuation is still too high.

        • Re:Welp, time to sell (Score:4, Insightful)

          by cusco ( 717999 ) <brian@bixby.gmail@com> on Friday January 08, 2021 @11:33AM (#60911074)

          It's just the stock price, the value of a stock has had no relation to reality since the run up to the Dot Bomb in the late '90s. Once upon a time one purchased stock with the intent to hold it until at least the time when dividends had paid off the purchase. Now a lot of the stock sold pays no dividends and has no voting rights. It's just a piece of paper (or more often a collection of electrons) that says you gave the company some money under the assumption that someone would later pay you more money for that essentially valueless collection of electrons.

          Reminds me very much of Bitcoin . . .

          • I mean, that piece of paper may not have voting rights, but in the even to liquidation or dividends is worth actual money.

            • Not for liquidation. See GM and how that went - shareholders, and even bondholders, got boned big-time.

              • It depends a lot on the total assets sitting around at liquidation time. FB could liquidate stupidly (give away all non-cash equivalents, turn off the servers, walk away), use the cash to pay off their liabilities, and still be worth $30 billion.

        • They learned that Tesla supporters are delusional fanatics? Even if Tesla became the only car manufacturer on the planet in 10-years their valuation is still too high.

          Completely correct, except for the fact that you cannot identify the correct valuation. Or how to calculate the correct valuation. Or measure how important a deviation from the correct valuation is to the company.

          Price/Earnings ratio is calculated by the price divided by the earnings. P/E = Price divided by Earnings.

          The stock price is proportional to the demand and inversely proportional to the supply, so P = D/S

          Demand is a completely psychological measure: it measures how much people like the product, how

          • The demand for stock overall doesn't even relate to demand for the products companies sell, it's just how much savings people need to squirrel away somewhere.
        • The stock price is based on what people are willing to pay. It may be true that the current Valuation of the company is too high for what they'redoing at the moment, but people seem to think Tesla is going to remain a big player for a long time and are willing to pay a higher price to be part of that. But it's also a general trend, investors are looking for places to Park their money because of worries about recession, so any strong performers with a good chance of at least maintaining price for the next 3-
      • Maybe this is a short squeeze in progress...

      • I "foolishly" sold off a bunch of stock when it was in the $270s and people were already screaming that it was too high. I took some profits and held some just in case. I bought the shares in the first place out of a desire to support Tesla as a company and maybe make a bit of profit at the same time, but I wasn't expecting this valuation for years, if ever.

        • A gain is a gain - if you made a profit and walked away, it's a good day - that's a lot more than the average person buying and selling individual stocks can claim!

    • Figure out how stocks work, then don't sell but put a stop loss order. Who knows how much it will continue to climb? I won't buy any at these prices, but I said the same last February...
    • Exactly. I can't imagine Tesla ever selling enough cars to justify their current market cap/price. And unless they can really drop their entry price point, they are going to be missing out on a good chunk of the market. The CURRENT price seems to assume that they are going to take ALL of the sales from ALL of the other top automakers. Soon. It just seems so detached from reality.
    • Hi Boy, I feel so boring today If u wanna fuck me tonight just visit my profile! ==>> v.ht/FL6GT

  • Thanks for the reality check (Score:5, Insightful)

    by 140Mandak262Jamuna ( 970587 ) on Friday January 08, 2021 @10:55AM (#60910926) Journal
    Tesla valuation looked like it was insane and totally stupid,

    Now you are telling me Facebook has had a higher valuation than Tesla all the time.

    Tesla valuation looks a lot less insane now, compared to Facebook.

    • If you like that reality check, then how about this one. The growth of BTC and TSLA has been pretty similar over the last 5 year:

      https://www.axios.com/tesla-bi... [axios.com]

      I'll let you decide if that makes BTC more appealing or TSLA less so.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by cusco ( 717999 )

      Still less insane than the value of Bitcoin.

    • Tesla valuation looked like it was insane and totally stupid,

      Now you are telling me Facebook has had a higher valuation than Tesla all the time.

      Tesla valuation looks a lot less insane now, compared to Facebook.

      Facebook's underlying business model isn't that different from Google, it sells ads that reach most people on the planet.

      Tesla is a niche automotive manufacturer.

      I honestly don't understand what's driving the valuation. It has a chance to become one of the big automotive manufacturer's, possibly even the biggest (though I think that's very unlikely), but even if it hit that target I'm not sure it justifies the valuation.

      Question for anyone who knows, what's actually driving this? Are there enough day-trader

      • Since it got on the S&P, I assume it has some institutional investors onboard. I don't get it either. I've read that since there are a lot of fanatic investors and Musk, the actual percentage being traded is far less than normal. This is leading to some feedback loop? I wish I understood Tesla or bitcoin.

    • Tesla valuation looks a lot less insane now, compared to Facebook.

      Facebook sold $80 billion of advertising at an 80% margin (servers are cheap) a year, for approximately $64 billion in gross profit. Tesla sells $28 billion in cars at 21% for a $6 billion gross profit.

      There are even bigger multipliers when you get to net profits, because Tesla has lots of non-marginal costs. And I'd think FB, with it's higher barrier to entry than Tesla, should be trading at a higher multiple. But even at the same multipl

      • Comparing the barriers to entry for Facebook vs. Tesla is a really interesting question with no obvious answer.

        No new American car company has got as far as Telsa in something like 100 years. (If we open it globally and admit Hyundai that shrinks to a mere half century).

        Facebook seems incredibly secure because of the network effect, yet incredibly vulnerable since it's 'just a website.'

        • I mean, Tesla grew a lot because they had strong EV first-mover advantage. But the EV Hummer sold out as well. And when the EV BWM comes with a tax credit but the Tesla Model S doesn't, are people really going to prefer a Tesla? I don't see Tesla's moat. People say the supercharger network, but ultimately most in city charging is done at apartments or malls - even big cities average one supercharger per million people. Now, at least where I am, those charging stations say "Tesla's only", but I think tha

  • 2 days ago: Tesla stock is going up
    Yesterday: Musk is richest man
    Today: Tesla is fifth most valuable company

  • Tulips (Score:3)

    by heson ( 915298 ) on Friday January 08, 2021 @11:08AM (#60910968) Journal
    Tulips, get your tulips now. Get some Bitcoin too.

    • Re:Tulips (Score:4, Insightful)

      by spazmonkey ( 920425 ) on Friday January 08, 2021 @11:22AM (#60911024)
      Tesla's valuation far exceeds that of every other vehicle manufacturer on the planet COMBINED. The value would be excessive even were Tesla to be the planets only vehicle manufacturer. Humanities entire vehicle market isn't big enough to sustain that valuation.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by DavenH ( 1065780 )
        True if all else were equal, but what if Tesla's margins can be significantly higher than all the other manufacturers? Such is the case if they are able to mobilize their robotaxi fleet, make significant recurring revenue from software (ASD), and their focus of process (churning out gigafactories) seems as though their margins just from vehicle sales can be materially better.

        • True if all else were equal, but what if Tesla's margins can be significantly higher than all the other manufacturers?

          They're higher now because they're a luxury brand. That doesn't scale, and if they can build for cheaper competitors will learn to adapt.

          Such is the case if they are able to mobilize their robotaxi fleet, make significant recurring revenue from software (ASD)

          That's a possibility, and I can see it goosing the price a bit. But Musk has been promising full self driving within a year since 2016 and it's still not here.

          Assuming self-driving is possible within 10 years (not a given) while Telsa is the most aggressive in PR and deployment it's not clear that they're in the lead for tech [wikipedia.org]. I'm not sure I see the argument for them domin

          • Yeah, and I doubt that robitaxis will be a high-margin business if they do become a reality. If anything, I think the expansion of transportation options will reduce the typical consumer cost, and profit will be offset by significant maintenance costs. Nor will it magically increase the volume of transportation sales; it will just compete with other forms of transportation. It's not the same as a high-volume mass transit option like a new high speed rail or the fabled Hyperloop; it wouldn't decrease travel

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by vix86 ( 592763 )

        Good thing they don't just build vehicles then. They also build:
        * Batteries
        * Electric motors
        * Car Driving AI
        * EV charging infrastructure, which is global
        * Solar panels
        * Home battery storage
        * Grid battery storage
        * Energy trading and tracking software (for their grid batteries)
        * Potentially energy as well (they got a license for it in the UK)

      • And that is given paltry volumes. Volkswagen and Toyota each sell in a pay period (about 2 weeks) what Tesla did ALL YEAR. Yet somehow Tesla is worth more than the two combined.
    • OMG, are you saying Teslas have viruses too?!!?
  • Well that's cool I guess, bitcoin after all is modeled after the stock exchanges. They were the originals to generate money from thin air.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by cusco ( 717999 )

      Actually I think fractional reserve banking was invented before the stock market.

  • Tesla is 10 years ahead of Slashdots

  • One of these companies makes very popular, high-priced, cutting edge cars, is pushing the other companies in the field to innovate, and is growing out their manufacturing capabilities in leaps and bounds.

    The other company under discussion here serves as an online platform harvesting use data, selling ads, and inciting violent mobs to attack congress.

    Tesla should have 10 times the valuation of Facebook. Not that Tesla should be worth any more than it already is. If people valued companies rationall

    • Facebook made $64 billion (gross) and $26 billion (net) last year and is sitting on $55 billion in cash with $28 billion in liabilities. Tesla made $23 billion (gross) and $0.5 billion (net) last year and is sitting on only $14 billion in cash with the same $28 billion in liabilities.

      Why wouldn't FB be worth far more?

      • Facebook depends on "network effects". That's fancy-talk for "the herd is currently stampeding in our direction". Except a stampeding herd can change direction surprisingly quickly. It's happened before, and it'll happen again. Facebook wasn't the first dominant social networking site, and it won't be the last. When it does, there's a high chance it will happen surprisingly quickly.

        On the other hand, the factories and manufacturing infrastructure that Tesla is building will run for decades.

        The c

  • The new acronym is less cool but more delicious.

  • Facebook? Valuable?

    Sorry, but your "most valuable" is clearly horribly wrong, and your mindset is the cause of half the world's evil.

    • I mean, if they gave away all their non-cash equivalent assets, turned off their servers, used their cash to pay off all their liabilities, they would still be worth $30 billion. If they did things like sell their SF real estate and server farms and whatnot it could be worth as much as $175 billion. And they netted $64 billion in profit last year.

      They aren't a good company, but they sure as shit are valuable.

  • Proves one thing: the scum always rises to the top of the barrel. Elon Musk: outed as scum for forcing his slaves back to work, damn the virus. Flipped the bit on Elon Musk. There will never, ever be a Tesla in my garage, not if it was the best car in the world, which it is not. More like proprietary remote kill switch exploding junk.

  • They went to space. Yay. There's no money in that this decade. Their cards have a defect rate of about 250% last I heard (250 problems per 100 cars) and they're horribly overpriced and anti-consumer. Everything else Elon promised is debunked by engineers and finance people like his ridiculous brain link nonsense and tunnels that cost $5 a mile or whatever fantasy numbers he keeps spouting out. Their entire company is propped up by image, designed exclusively to fool investors into buying their stock and loo

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by psergiu ( 67614 )

      I feel bad for the other 99 Tesla owners - guess i was lucky and mine didn't had any problems.

  • Biden is committed to jacking up the capital gains tax. Don't think they will implement that until next year so a lot of people will look to cash out at the lower rate to save with the lower rate. The stock could rise again after this correction so a good buying opportunity may be coming up.

  • Thatâ(TM)s a lot of money for a house of cards.

  • I'll be honest and say I was a holder of TSLA in 2013. I owned 125 shares. I actually got off the ride at $630 and I've been sort of kicking myself cause the price went up another 20% already but at the same time I'm feeling like this bubble is gonna burst soon and it will stabilize somewhere in the middle. Or maybe it won't?

    Seems like all these Covid checks the feds are sending out are just going right into securities and the stock market causing mild inflation in certain parts of the economy (housing

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