Investor's Corner
Tesla bull Jim Cramer tells the hard truth about why Wall St is missing the TSLA picture
Tesla’s (NASDAQ:TSLA) third-quarter earnings report proved that Elon Musk’s electric car company has matured into a force of nature that is so resilient, even a literal pandemic couldn’t bring it down. As of Thursday’s close, Tesla stock is up over 400%, a testament to the company’s capability to prove its critics wrong at every turn. Yet even amidst these results, Tesla still has a good number of skeptics on Wall St, many of whom are still unable to wrap their heads around the company and its performance.
For Tesla bear-turned-bull Jim Cramer of CNBC’s Mad Money, the company’s current state is a matter of its products and Elon Musk. During the Q3 earnings call, Cramer noted that Musk was extremely restrained. There was no hyperbole, no eccentricity, no drama — Musk was just a CEO who was reporting on Tesla’s best quarter yet, and he was simply a leader who still believes that the best is yet to come. The Mad Money host further mentioned that Elon Musk almost sounded humble and gracious as he thanked his employees, suppliers, and investors for helping Tesla achieve its remarkable milestones.
With Tesla having a valuation that is far above some of its competitors combined, auto analysts and critics are having a very difficult time justifying the company’s market cap as an automaker today. Cramer argues that critics are missing the big picture, as Tesla has already transcended the auto industry. Just as explained by the company’s bulls, Tesla is more of a tech company now than it is an automaker. And when compared to other companies in the tech sector, Tesla’s $397 billion market cap makes sense. This is especially true considering that Tesla’s products sell themselves, and Elon Musk is a visionary whose brilliance lies in tangible innovation.
“At this point, Tesla has transcended the auto industry. It is a tech company. It’s figured out how to store clean energy and then use it to fuel cars and who knows what else. Most automakers have to spend more money advertising than Tesla spends on building new factories. They blanket the airwaves with ads that no one wants to see, not even the ones voiced by the great John Slattery. Tesla, on the other hand, doesn’t need to advertise.”
“They failed to understand the scale of the opportunity that Tesla held out to individual investors like you, including the younger ones, we call them the Robinhood kind, who’ve taken the market by storm. These analysts did not grasp the younger generation’s more optimistic ethos. To them, Musk is a rebel with a cause — the cause of observable excellence. Not social media mystique or cloud brilliance, but actual metal-bent-around brilliance,” Cramer said.
But even more importantly, the Mad Money host explained that for many retail investors today, Tesla is something far more than a simple venture to put money in. Over the years, and as it battled its way to the top, Tesla and its clean energy vehicles have essentially become symbols of hope and optimism. Tesla is a story of American ingenuity, and as it continues to reach new heights, it is becoming proof that even the everyman investor could make a lot of money if he or she supports a company with a revolutionary product and a CEO who is willing to put it all on the line.
“The analysts couldn’t understand that Tesla’s more than just a vehicle. It’s a vehicle of hope in a miasma of gloom. Musk even made it easier for individual investors to get in by splitting the stock. Now it’s not a cult stock like I once thought. That was wrong. It’s a story of American ingenuity, probably a lot like Henry Ford when he first burst on the scene with his universal car. Except with a much cleaner engine and without Henry Ford’s trademark anti-semitism.
“Here’s the bottom line. When it comes to Tesla, the doubters were wrong and the believers were right. Those believers are not the rich, cautious state preachers of index fund handcuffs. They’re the individual investors who are sick and tired of being told that they’re stupid, too stupid to manage their own money. Turns out they can make a lot of money when you buy stock at a great company with a visionary CEO and a revolutionary product. That shouldn’t take so many people by surprise, and I hope it doesn’t after this shimmering star that is Elon Musk’s Tesla,” Cramer declared.
Watch Jim Cramer’s recent Mad Money segment in the video below.
Investor's Corner
Tesla gets tip of the hat from major Wall Street firm on self-driving prowess
“Tesla is at the forefront of autonomous driving, supported by a camera-only approach that is technically harder but much cheaper than the multi-sensor systems widely used in the industry. This strategy should allow Tesla to scale more profitably compared to Robotaxi competitors, helped by a growing data engine from its existing fleet,” BoA wrote.
Tesla received a tip of the hat from major Wall Street firm Bank of America on Wednesday, as it reinitiated coverage on Tesla shares with a bullish stance that comes with a ‘Buy’ rating and a $460 price target.
In a new note that marks a sharp reversal from its neutral position earlier in 2025, the bank declared Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) technology the “leading consumer autonomy solution.”
Analysts highlighted Tesla’s camera-only architecture, known as Tesla Vision, as a strategic masterstroke. While technically more challenging than the multi-sensor setups favored by rivals, the vision-based approach is dramatically cheaper to produce and maintain.
This cost edge, combined with Tesla’s rapidly expanding real-world data engine, positions the company to scale robotaxis far more profitably than competitors, BofA argues in the new note:
“Tesla is at the forefront of autonomous driving, supported by a camera-only approach that is technically harder but much cheaper than the multi-sensor systems widely used in the industry. This strategy should allow Tesla to scale more profitably compared to Robotaxi competitors, helped by a growing data engine from its existing fleet.”
The bank now attributes roughly 52% of Tesla’s total valuation to its Robotaxi ambitions. It also flagged meaningful upside from the Optimus humanoid robot program and the fast-growing energy storage business, suggesting the auto segment’s recent headwinds, including expired incentives, are being eclipsed by these higher-margin opportunities.
Tesla’s own data underscores exactly why Wall Street is waking up to FSD’s potential. According to Tesla’s official safety reporting page, the FSD Supervised fleet has now surpassed 8.4 billion cumulative miles driven.
Tesla FSD (Supervised) fleet passes 8.4 billion cumulative miles
That total ballooned from just 6 million miles in 2021 to 80 million in 2022, 670 million in 2023, 2.25 billion in 2024, and a staggering 4.25 billion in 2025 alone. In the first 50 days of 2026, owners added another 1 billion miles — averaging more than 20 million miles per day.
This avalanche of real-world, camera-captured footage, much of it on complex city streets, gives Tesla an unmatched training dataset. Every mile feeds its neural networks, accelerating improvement cycles that lidar-dependent rivals simply cannot match at scale.
Tesla owners themselves will tell you the suite gets better with every release, bringing new features and improvements to its self-driving project.
The $460 target implies roughly 15 percent upside from recent trading levels around $400. While regulatory and safety hurdles remain, BofA’s endorsement signals growing institutional conviction that Tesla’s data advantage is not hype; it’s a tangible moat already delivering billions of miles of proof.
Elon Musk
SpaceX IPO could push Elon Musk’s net worth past $1 trillion: Polymarket
The estimates were shared by the official Polymarket Money account on social media platform X.
Recent projections have outlined how a potential $1.75 trillion SpaceX IPO could generate historic returns for early investors. The projections suggest the offering would not only become the largest IPO in history but could also result in unprecedented windfalls for some of the company’s key investors.
The estimates were shared by the official Polymarket Money account on social media platform X.
As noted in a Polymarket Money analysis, Elon Musk invested $100 million into SpaceX in 2002 and currently owns approximately 42% of the company. At a $1.75 trillion valuation following SpaceX’s potential $1.75 trillion IPO, that stake would be worth roughly $735 billion.
Such a figure would dramatically expand Musk’s net worth. When combined with his holdings in Tesla Inc. and other ventures, a public debut at that level could position him as the world’s first trillionaire, depending on market conditions at the time of listing.
The Bloomberg Billionaires Index currently lists Elon Musk with a net worth of $666 billion, though a notable portion of this is tied to his TSLA stock. Tesla currently holds a market cap of $1.51 trillion, and Elon Musk’s currently holds about 13% to 15% of the company’s outstanding common stock.
Founders Fund, co-founded by Peter Thiel, invested $20 million in SpaceX in 2008. Polymarket Money estimates the firm owns between 1.5% and 3% of the private space company. At a $1.75 trillion valuation, that range would translate to approximately $26.25 billion to $52.5 billion in value.
That return would represent one of the most significant venture capital outcomes in modern Silicon Valley history, with a growth of 131,150% to 262,400%.
Alphabet Inc., Google’s parent company, invested $900 million into SpaceX in 2015 and is estimated to hold between 6% and 7% of the private space firm. At the projected IPO valuation, that stake could be worth between $105 billion and $122.5 billion. That’s a growth of 11,566% to 14,455%.
Other major backers highlighted in the post include Fidelity Investments, Baillie Gifford, Valor Equity Partners, Bank of America, and Andreessen Horowitz, each potentially sitting on multibillion-dollar gains.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk hints Tesla investors will be rewarded heavily
“Hold onto your Tesla stock. It’s going to be worth a lot, I think. That’s my bet,” Musk said.
Elon Musk recently hinted that he believes Tesla investors will be rewarded heavily if they continue to hold onto their shares, and he reiterated that in a new interview that the company released on its social accounts this week.
Musk is one of the most successful CEOs in the modern era and has mammothed competitors on the Forbes Net Worth List over the past year as his holdings in his various companies have continued to swell.
Tesla investors, especially those who have been holding shares for several years, have also felt substantial gains in their portfolios. Over the past five years, the stock is up over 78 percent. Since February 2019, nearly seven years ago to the day, the stock is up over 1,800 percent.
Musk said in the interview:
“Hold onto your Tesla stock. It’s going to be worth a lot, I think. That’s my bet.”
Elon Musk in new interview: “Hold on to your $TSLA stock. It’s going to be worth a lot, I think. That’s my bet.” pic.twitter.com/cucirBuhq0
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) February 26, 2026
It’s no secret Musk has been extremely bullish on his own companies, but Tesla in particular, because it is publicly traded.
However, the company has so many amazing projects that have an opportunity to revolutionize their respective industries. There is certainly a path to major growth on Wall Street for Tesla through its various future projects, including Optimus, Cybercab, Semi, and Unsupervised FSD.
- Optimus (Tesla’s humanoid robot): Musk has discussed its potential for tasks like childcare, walking dogs, or assisting elderly parents, positioning it as a massive long-term driver of company value.
- Cybercab (Tesla’s robotaxi/autonomous ride-hailing vehicle): a fully autonomous vehicle geared specifically for Tesla’s ride-sharing ambitions.
- Semi (Tesla’s electric truck, with mentions of expansion, like in Europe): brings Tesla into the commercial logistics sector.
- Unsupervised FSD (Full Self-Driving software achieving full autonomy without human supervision): turns every Tesla owner’s vehicle into a fully-autonomous vehicle upon release
These projects specifically are some of the highest-growth pillars Tesla has ever attempted to develop, especially in Musk’s eyes, as he has said Optimus will be the best-selling product of all-time.
Many analysts agree, but the bullish ones, like Cathie Wood of ARK Invest, are perhaps the one who believes Tesla has incredible potential on Wall Street, predicting a $2,600 price target for 2030, but this is not even including Optimus.
She told Bloomberg last March that she believes that the project will present a potential additive if Tesla can scale faster than anticipated.
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