Tesla Motors Inc CEO Elon Musk Scares Off Investors

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Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO Elon Musk has said again that his company’s stock is starting to get “kind of high.” You may remember he made similar remarks in November, saying that Tesla stock was higher than the company really deserved at that time.

Investors are “carried away” with Tesla

The CEO said on Thursday that it’s common for investors to “get carried away” with Tesla’s share price. According to CNBC, Musk made the comments during a press conference in Carson City, Nev. after revealing that they had selected a site in Nevada as the location for Tesla’s gigafactory.

“I think our stock price is kind of high right now,” Musk said. “If you care about the long term Tesla, I think the stock is a good price. If you look at the short term, it is less clear.”

Tesla’s share price has climbed by 90% so far this year. The automaker’s initial public offering price in 2010 was at $17 per share, meaning shares have skyrocketed by approximately 1,400% as they approached $300 a share.

Why Tesla selected Nevada

The company already started construction on the gigafactory site, which is located outside of Reno. Approximately half of the 6,500 promised jobs will be created immediately, and Nevada expects to see $100 billion worth of economic benefits from the facility. The state handed Tesla Motors about $1.25 billion in tax incentives in exchange.

Management said that wasn’t the highest offer they received from the five states that were vying for the gigafactory. However, they added that Nevada offered them the best chance at getting the facility up and running as quickly as possible. Musk said time to completion was the biggest factor in their determination of which state to build in.

He said they must have the gigafactory up and running in time to produce battery cells for the Model 3 mass market electric car. Tesla expects to have the factory open by 2017 or possibly even late 2016.

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