NEW YORK
Electric vehicle maker Tesla has joined the $1 trillion market capitalisation club as the company’s stock surged to a record high of more than $1,000 a share nearly 11 years after the company went public.
So far the other US-based companies with a market cap of more than $1tn are Amazon ($1.7tn), Apple ($2.5tn), Microsoft ($2.3tn) and Alphabet ($1.8tn).
Tesla’s shares soared after the company received its biggest-ever order from the car rental company Hertz. They were also driven by the news of the company’s saloon car Model 3 becoming the first EV to top the monthly sales of new cars in Europe.
The Model 3 has become the first EV to outperform its combustion engine counterparts, such as Renault Clio and Volkswagen Golf in the European market, data compiled by research firm Jato Dynamics show. Florida-based Hertz, which came out of bankruptcy about four months ago, announced plans to buy 100,000 electric rental cars from Tesla by the end of next year.
With a net worth of over $288 billion, Elon Musk’s fortune is now bigger than the market value of US energy major ExxonMobil. According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, the wealth of the world’s richest person, Musk, jumped to $288.6 billion on the news that Tesla has landed its biggest-ever order from rental car chain Hertz.
The automaker’s shares have been rising in recent weeks, even before Hertz’s decision to order 100,000 Tesla vehicles by the end of 2022. The company’s stock price is up by more than 40% this year, almost double the gain of the S&P 500 Index.
Tesla is now the first carmaker to join the elite group of companies with a trillion-dollar market cap that includes Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, and Alphabet.
The $36.2-billion jump in Musk’s personal fortune is the biggest one-day gain in the history of the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. The previous record was held by Chinese tycoon Zhong Shanshan’s $32-billion surge in net worth last year, on the day his bottled water company went public.
