Skip to content
Subscriber Only
Business
Pursuits

Musk’s March to $700 Billion Tesla Valuation Gets a Rough Start

An attendee views the Tesla Motors Inc. Model X vehicle with Panasonic Corp. battery during the 2015 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Nevada, on Jan. 6, 2015.

An attendee views the Tesla Motors Inc. Model X vehicle with Panasonic Corp. battery during the 2015 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Nevada, on Jan. 6, 2015.

Photographer: Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg
Dana Hull
Updated on

Elon Musk on Wednesday sketched out an ambitious path for Tesla Motors Inc.’s market valuation to rocket to $700 billion from about $25 billion. Instead, Tesla shares tumbled on Thursday. Not a roaring start.

Tesla fell as much as 9.2 percent after the Palo Alto, California-based automaker reported a fourth-quarter loss of 13 cents a share when analysts had anticipated a profit of 32 cents a share. In addition to the company missing targets on deliveries, revenue and profit, some analysts were taken aback by the $1.5 billion in capital expenditures planned for this year.