Tesla hits $1 trillion market cap as stock rises after Trump’s win

Shares of Tesla climbed more than 6% in mid-morning trading Friday, pushing the electric car maker’s market cap past $1 trillion.

The company’s stock has risen about 27% this week after Donald Trump won the US presidential election, and investors have grown optimistic that the former executive’s return to the White House could benefit Tesla. Elon Musk, Tesla’s CEO, has been a key ally of Trump throughout his campaign, pouring at least $130 million into a pro-Trump campaign effort.

Tesla had a market capitalization of $807.1 billion as of Tuesday’s close. Before this week’s rally, the automaker’s shares were up about 1% for the year. Tesla’s stock is now up about 27% year to date.

Tesla once again joins a growing club of tech names now worth more than $1 trillion, including Nvidia, Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon and Meta (although all but Meta are worth more than $2 trillion). Tesla’s market capitalization passed $1 trillion for the first time in October 2021.

Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives has said a potential Trump administration could mean less regulation for Tesla and other companies.

“Tesla has the scale and scope unmatched in the EV industry, and this dynamic could give Musk and Tesla a clear competitive advantage in a non-EV environment, coupled with likely higher Chinese tariffs that will continue to push away cheaper Chinese EV players. (BYD , Nio, etc.) from flooding the US market over the coming years,” Ives wrote in a note to clients this week.

Trump has previously said he may cut the $7,500 federal tax credit for electric vehicles. These credits have helped drive sales of Tesla vehicles historically.

In its latest earnings update, Tesla reported revenue of $25.18 billion and net income of $2.17 billion in the third quarter.

CEO Musk said on the earnings call that his “best guess” was that “vehicle growth” would reach 20% to 30% next year due to “lower cost vehicles” and the “emergence of autonomy.”

Tesla has been promising and developing driverless car technology for more than a decade. Its main US competitor, Alphabet-owned Waymo, has stepped up and already operates commercial robotaxi services in several major cities.

On the third-quarter call, Musk said he would use his influence with a Trump-Vance administration to establish a “federal approval process for autonomous vehicles.” Currently, approvals are happening at the state level, which the CEO sees as a regulatory hurdle Tesla will have to overcome when it finally offers more than partially automated driving systems.

— CNBC’s Lora Kolodny contributed to this report.

Correction: This story has been updated to correct the year Tesla’s market capitalization crossed $1 trillion for the first time. Tesla’s net income was $2.17 billion in the third quarter. An earlier version misstated the figure.