Tesla’s market value breaches $1 TRILLION for first time, after rental car giant Hertz orders 100,000 EVs

Tesla CEO Elon Musk just got considerably richer, as the world’s wealthiest man saw the value of his flagship company reach an all-time high at $1 trillion, after the electric-vehicle (EV) maker landed a record order from Hertz.

The shares rose by as much as 15%, changing hands at $1,045 in Nasdaq trading on Monday. The latest surge came on the first day of regular trading after Tesla’s stock closed above $900 for just the second time. With about 1.083 billion shares outstanding, the company’s market cap was $1.13 trillion at Monday afternoon’s intraday high.

As the owner of 22.4% of Tesla’s shares, Musk saw the value of his stake climb as high as $253.5 billion. The South Africa-born entrepreneur surpassed Amazon’s Jeff Bezos as the world’s richest person in September, when the estimated value of his holdings reached $200 billion.

Even before Monday’s gains, his lead over Bezos had grown to $55 billion, according to Forbes. Musk tacked on nearly $33 billion more at Tesla’s intraday peak – all in a day’s work.

Investors had already been piling into Tesla shares over the past two weeks, and the rally gained more momentum with the news of Hertz’s order. The rental-car chain said on Monday that it would build North America’s largest EV rental fleet, starting with an initial order for 100,000 Tesla Model 3 units.

Deliveries of the new Teslas will start in early November and continue through 2022, Hertz said. “Electric vehicles are now mainstream, and we’ve only just begun to see rising global demand and interest,” Hertz interim CEO Mark Fields said.

Reportedly valued at $4.2 billion, the Hertz deal marks Tesla’s biggest order ever. It also reflects a breakthrough in making the company a mass-market player in the rental-car segment.

Tesla’s market value has more than doubled in the past year and, even before Monday’s gains, the stock had jumped 16% in the past two weeks. The company last week announced record revenue and earnings, exceeding analyst estimates. Third-quarter revenue climbed 57% from a year earlier to $13.8 billion as the company delivered more than 241,000 new EVs.

The EV maker joined a select club with its march to $1 trillion, following Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and Alphabet as the only US companies to reach a 13-figure market cap. Saudi Arabian oil giant Saudi Aramco is valued at around $2 trillion, while Apple ranks as the world’s most valuable publicly traded company at nearly $2.5 trillion.

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