Tesla Set to Shed Junk-Bond Taint as Wall Street Doubts Fade

  • Bump up to investment-grade rank may come sooner than expected
  • ‘An upgrade is likely this year,’ says S&P’s Nishit Madlani

     

Photographer: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg
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Tesla Inc., whose status as a stock-market darling has turned it into the world’s most valuable car company, may soon win over some of Wall Street’s slowest moving skeptics: Bond-rating analysts.

Investors had been expecting Tesla to be upgraded out of junk status as soon as early next year, marking a credit-market milestone for a company that’s risen to dominate the electric-vehicle industry in less than two decades.