(Reuters) – Tesla’s market value breached the $1 trillion-mark in a sharp rally on Friday, on growing bets of a favorable treatment for CEO Elon Musk’s companies in return for his support for President-elect Donald Trump in his poll campaign.
The electric automaker’s shares rose more than 6% to a more than two-year high of $315.56, after having gained 19.3% up to Thursday’s close. The company crossed the $1 trillion valuation for the first time in more than two years.
The billionaire could push for favorable regulation of autonomous vehicles that Tesla plans and also get the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to hold off on potential enforcement actions involving the safety of Tesla’s current driver-assistance systems, a source had told Reuters.
Musk has focused on self-driving vehicle technology, ditching plans to build an economy car priced at under $30,000. However, development and regulatory hurdles have delayed the commercialization of such technologies.
“Tesla and CEO Elon Musk are perhaps the biggest winners from the election result, and we believe Trump’s victory will help expedite regulatory approval of the company’s autonomous driving technology,” said Garrett Nelson, senior equity analyst at CFRA Research.
Tesla shares jumped in late October after the company reported a rise in quarterly profit margin, buoyed by sales of the highly profitable Full Self Driving driver assistance software.
It has been the world’s most valuable automaker for years, with Japan’s Toyota Motor, China BYD and others trailing by several hundred billion dollars.
Tesla shares trade 93.47 times its 12-month forward earnings estimates, compared with 38.57 for AI chip giant Nvidia, Microsoft’s 30.77 and Ford’s 6.29.
(Reporting by Akash Sriram in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur)
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