Tesla is approaching $ 500 billion in market value. Elon Musk predicted self-driving cars would take him to this level

• Tesla CEO Elon Musk predicted last year that autonomous driving would bring his company’s market capitalization to $ 500 billion.
• The electric vehicle maker’s market capitalization soared to $ 498 billion on Monday, although Tesla is still tweaking its autonomous driving software and has only released a beta version for a limited number of customers.
• Musk made the claim during an investor appeal in May 2019, when Tesla’s market cap was less than $ 45 billion, CNBC reported.
• The Tesla chief predicted in 2015 that his company’s market capitalization could reach $ 700 billion by 2025.
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Elon Musk predicted last year that autonomous Teslas would take the market capitalization of the electric vehicle maker to $ 500 billion. Tesla’s market capitalization soared to $ 498 billion on Monday, although its autonomous vehicles – leaving aside the issue of regulatory approvals or general adoption – are still ongoing.

Musk made the claim during a call with investors in May 2019, CNBC reported. It sounded bold, given that Tesla’s market cap was less than $ 45 billion at the time. However, the automaker’s market cap has skyrocketed more than 11 times since then, a touching distance from Musk’s forecast.

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Tesla’s CEO said in July that he expects the company to achieve “core functionality” for its self-driving cars by the end of the year. Indeed, the automaker began releasing a beta of its autonomous driving software to select customers in October. Musk touted an update to this software containing a series of “fundamental improvements, both significant bugfixes and whole new feature areas” in a tweet earlier this month.

Musk launched an even larger market cap for Tesla in an earnings call in February 2015. He calculated that if his company continued to grow revenue by 50% for 10 years, achieved a 10% profit margin and its profits. shares traded at 20 times earnings, it would be worth around $ 700 billion or “basically the same as Apple’s today.”

Given that Tesla’s market cap is nearly $ 500 billion less than six years later, it easily exceeds Musk’s forecast for 2025.