Today’s Paper#masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }SpaceX
Investors who bought the automaker’s shares in its initial public offering became rich. As a result, many have a deep faith in Elon Musk, the chief executive of Tesla and SpaceX.
Listen · 7:17 min Share full article50During Tesla’s initial public offering in 2010, Elon Musk, the company’s chief executive, said, “The smartest money in the world is betting on Tesla.”Credit...Brendan McDermid/ReutersBy Jack Ewing
!function(){if(document.body.classList.contains("gps-show")){var e="1"===new URLSearchParams(window.location.search).get("gps_debug")?function(e,t){console.log("[gps]",e,void 0!==t?t:"")}:function(){},t=document.getElementById("gpsModule"),s=document.getElementById("gpsLink");document.body.classList.contains("gps-lang-es")&&t.setAttribute("aria-label","Añade a The New York Times a tus fuentes preferidas en Google.");var n=t.closest('section[data-testid="inline-interactive"]'),c=n&&n.id||"google-preferred-source",r=t.closest('[data-testid="region"]'),i=r?r.id.replace(/^NYT_/,"").replace(/_REGION$/,""):"body";e("analytics init",{moduleContext:c,moduleRegion:i}),s.addEventListener("click",function(t){try{localStorage.setItem("gps_suppress_module","1"),e("click: suppression set")}catch(e){}var n=t.target.textContent.trim(),r={event_data:{pagetype:"article",type:"click"},module:{context:c,name:"google-preferred-source",region:i,element:{name:"google-cta",label:n,url:s.href}}};e("click: sending analytic",r);try{window.UnifiedTracking.sendAnalytic("moduleInteraction",r),e("click: analytic sent")}catch(e){console.error(e,"gps: failed to send click",r)}}),function(){var t=0;try{t=parseInt(localStorage.getItem("gps_module_impressions"),10)||0,e("read impressions",t)}catch(e){}function s(e){try{return JSON.parse(e.response).data.user.userInfo.entitlements||null}catch(e){return null}}function n(s){if(e("subscriber check: entitlements",s),function(e){return!!Array.isArray(e)&&(e.includes("TPR")||e.includes("HD")||e.includes("MTD")||e.includes("MSD")||e.includes("MM"))}(s))if(t>=10)try{localStorage.setItem("gps_suppress_module","1"),e("subscriber check: subscriber at cap — suppression set")}catch(e){}else e("subscriber check: not yet at cap, currently:",t);else e("subscriber check: not a subscriber, no suppression")}var c=window.userXhrObject;if(c){if(4===c.readyState)return e("subscriber check: XHR already complete"),void n(s(c));e("subscriber check: waiting for XHR"),c.addEventListener("load",function(){n(s(c))})}else e("subscriber check: no userXhrObject found")}()}}()Tesla had sold barely 1,000 cars when the company’s chief executive, an up-and-coming entrepreneur named Elon Musk, rang the opening bell at Nasdaq in June 2010.
The initial public offering valued Tesla at $1.7 billion even though the company’s only product was its two-seat Roadster, which had a starting price of $100,000 and took seven hours to charge. Some prominent Wall Street figures were deeply skeptical.
“Tesla is a sell, sell, sell,” Jim Cramer, the CNBC host, told viewers. “You don’t want to own this stock.”
Now he is asking investors to value SpaceX, where he is also chief executive, at $1.77 trillion, or more than a thousand times what Tesla was worth in 2010. The SpaceX listing is expected to raise $75 billion for the company. Tesla’s listing raised $226 million, far less than it had received in federal government loans.
Mr. Musk is much better known than he was in 2010. As the world’s richest person, he has become a lightning rod for anti-billionaire sentiment. He owns the social media site X, which he uses to broadcast right-wing political views.
But the Tesla stock listing and its share price’s stunning rise in recent years helped create an aura of mystique around Mr. Musk. To his many admirers on Wall Street and in Silicon Valley, he is a genius who has made loyal investors insanely wealthy while disrupting the auto industry and spaceflight.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.
