Tesla’s Road to $9 Trillion? The Predictions vs. The Reality

Tesla has never lacked for believers.

Among its early investors were names like Ron Baron, Baillie Gifford, Tencent, Fidelity, and venture capitalist Steve Jurvetson. These investors made bold bets on Tesla when it was still a cash-burning disruptor trying to produce the Model S and scale the Model 3.

Each of these early investors shared a common belief: that Tesla could become a transformative force in the auto sector, energy, and mobility solutions. But with few exceptions, they’ve been relatively quiet about predicting how valuable Tesla could become—or how soon.

Cathie Wood, however, took a different approach.

While most long-term backers were content to hold, add, or trim their positions quietly, Wood and her firm, ARK Invest, made Tesla’s future valuation the centerpiece of their investing thesis. Public, specific, and time-stamped stock price targets became a calling card.

Since 2018, ARK Invest has issued a series of eye-catching Tesla price targets—each one more aggressive than the last:

This was the moment that put Cathie Wood on the Tesla-predicting map. The call seemed outlandish at the time—nearly a 10x increase—but it turned out to be spot-on, and years ahead of most institutional consensus. When Tesla hit her price, it wasn’t just a win for ARK’s portfolio—it was a defining moment that turned Wood into one of the most visible voices in tech investing.

But the vision ARK is betting on faces a mounting wall of complexity.

Last week, Elon Musk reiterated that Tesla’s autonomous efforts would start contributing “in a material way” to its business by mid-2025. However, Musk has a history of setting ambitious timelines that are not always met. The success of these ventures may depend not only on technological advancements but also on regulatory approvals and public trust.

In a recent earnings call, Musk acknowledged that Tesla’s robotaxis might not operate everywhere, citing a “blizzard in Manhattan” as an example of conditions that could be off-limits. This represents a shift from his earlier vision of an unrestricted, global fleet of autonomous vehicles.

This approach aligns more closely with geofencing—a strategy used by competitors like Waymo, which Musk has previously criticized for relying on localization and additional hardware like lidar. While other operators emphasize sensor redundancy (lidar, radar, ultrasonic), Tesla remains committed to a camera-only system, trusting that its neural network can handle various driving conditions.

That 2018 prediction turned Cathie Wood into Tesla investor royalty—at a time when few were that bold. She saw something others didn’t, and she was proven right.

But since then, her predictions have grown bigger and bolder—while reality has not kept pace.

Each subsequent model has imagined a Tesla that’s not just a dominant carmaker but a near-monopoly on global autonomy and AI mobility. And yet, the company’s actual business remains highly dependent on vehicle sales, increasingly challenged by competition, and struggling to meet the timelines its CEO repeatedly sets.

In my recent LinkedIn post, “When the Mission Loses Its Driver”, I asked what happens when the leader of a mission-driven company seems to lose interest in that mission.

Here, on Substack, the question is more grounded:

When you price in a future that hasn’t arrived—what happens if it never does?

Disclosure: 

I invested in Tesla shares in 2018. Today, I no longer own any Tesla shares after eliminating my position in 2022.

Disclaimer:

TaaSMaster, LLC is not a registered investment advisor or broker/dealer. All investment opinions expressed by TaaSMaster, LLC are from personal research and experience of the owner of the site and are intended as educational material. Although best efforts are made to ensure that all information is accurate and up to date, occasionally unintended errors may occur.