Investor Ron Baron remains highly bullish on Tesla and CEO Elon Musk, waving off the recent stock drop and doubling down on his prediction that the electric vehicle maker could be worth $5 trillion in revenue by 2030.
In an interview this week, Baron said he is sticking with Tesla for the long haul and dismissed concerns about Musk being distracted by his acquisition of Twitter. “He’s the lowest cost provider of everything and he’s going to bring that to Twitter too,” Baron said.
Baron’s asset management firm Baron Capital has a major stake in Tesla. He predicts Tesla’s stock price, which closed at $209 on Friday, could reach $1,500 in five years.
“I think Tesla’s employees are the highest paid workers in the world because they own stock. The stock went down yesterday because of Biden. He’s not able to accomplish anything so the people said ‘Oh my God’ and they sold the stock,” Baron said.
He believes Tesla will continue to disrupt the auto industry with game-changing innovations like its 4680 battery cell. Baron predicts that in the next 1-2 years Tesla will release a $25,000 car, allowing it to sell 20 million vehicles annually by 2030.
“Wait until you see what’s going to happen when they start selling cars for $25k, which is going to happen in 1-1.5 years, new model they think is going to do 5 million cars per year,” Baron said.
Beyond autos, Baron is also bullish on SpaceX and its satellite internet venture Starlink. He thinks Starlink could be worth $250-$300 billion when it goes public in around 3 years, and up to $500 billion by 2030.
For now, Baron is urging investors to stay patient and keep the faith in Tesla’s capabilities. He believes the pieces are in place for massive growth as Tesla expands production and delivers breakthrough innovations.
“I’m sticking with him,” Baron said about Musk. He remains confident Tesla will hit his lofty $5 trillion revenue target this decade.
Baron pointed towards Tesla’s software, autonomy, and energy storage divisions as major opportunities beyond just electric vehicles. He specifically highlighted the future robotaxi network that Tesla plans to deploy using its Full Self-Driving capabilities.