Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) has an extremely high valuation. However, some investors who are not recognizing the company’s value are making one fatal mistake. Luckily, Jim Cramer is here to help, and he is advising investors to look at it as a technology firm, and not exclusively as an automaker.
“Only limited people really regard this $373 billion enterprise as a car company,” Cramer said. “It’s a tech company.”
Many investors, retail and professional alike, look at the Elon Musk-headed company as a car manufacturer. While that is true, Tesla’s mission goes far past, making sustainable, high-performance cars. The company has an entire energy division that creates clean energy alternatives. However, Tesla’s real meat lies within its technology developments that come from its battery tech and software.
People who have Tesla as a car company simply have it all wrong, according to Cramer. Correctly categorizing a stock contributes to its valuation as a company, and thinking a company is one thing when it’s really another can cost an investor their hard-earned money if they’ve put it in the market.
Cramer used Apple as an example.
“Let’s say Apple were to be taken out of the tech cohort and put into the consumer product category. You would suddenly have a different view of the company. It’s one of the cheapest on its growth rate with a superior dividend and fantastic balance sheet — what you look for from a blue chip,” he wrote in an article for Real Money. “Now, not for a moment, do I want to slight Apple as a non-tech stock. Far from it. Apple offers the best technology we need with the best customer service and 99% customer loyalty.”
Tesla’s situation is similar to Apple, and Cramer recognizes that many of the high-end analysts and investors who have low price targets and are shorting the stock are not correctly categorizing TSLA. It is not a car company. It is a tech company.
“Should a car company really be worth almost $400 billion,” Cramer asks.
“Of course not. But only limited people really regard this $373 billion enterprise as a car company. It’s a tech company, just as the $313 billion Nvidia, or the $770 billion Facebook. The car is one manifestation of it. The truck will be another. The solar company a third and finally, the battery company a fourth.”
Tesla’s valuation is $373.20 billion, and it is more valuable than Toyota, Volkswagen combined.
Cramer is a TSLA believer and supporter, but he wasn’t always that way. He has admitted that his wife and daughter both changed his mind about the company in 2019. Now, he’s one of the company’s biggest supporters.
Disclosure: I have no ownership in shares of TSLA and have no plans to initiate any positions within 72 hours.
