After receiving its largest order ever from Hertz rental car company, Tesla's market value exceeded one trillion dollars on Monday. This deal bolsters the ambitions of the electric vehicle pioneer to become the top seller in the entire automotive industry over the next ten years. Hertz's decision to purchase 100,000 Tesla vehicles by the end of 2022 demonstrates that electric cars are no longer a unique product and will dominate the overall car market in the near future.
Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, has set an annual sales growth target of 50 percent on average, ultimately aiming to reach 20 million vehicles per year. This would be more than double the current sales volume of both Volkswagen and Toyota Motor. Tesla's shares rose 12.7 percent to $1,025.10 per share in late trading on Wall Street, bringing the company's market capitalization to over one trillion dollars, according to Reuters calculations.
With this market value, Tesla joined a select group of companies after its stock price more than doubled last year due to rising car sales and increasing profits, as reported by The Wall Street Journal. Other U.S. companies valued over one trillion dollars include Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, and Alphabet (the parent company of Google). Facebook was also part of the group, although its stock price has declined since then. Now, Tesla's market value exceeds that of the largest nine automakers combined.
The Wall Street Journal notes that Tesla's value has grown at an extraordinary pace. It took less than two years for the company's market capitalization to grow from $100 billion to $1 trillion, according to Dow Jones calculations. In contrast, it took Amazon more than eight years to reach that value. Musk, the world's richest person, has benefited from the rise in Tesla's stock prices, with his net worth estimated at around $297 billion as of Monday.
