29 June 2010: Tesla goes public at $17
Tesla began trading on Nasdaq on June 29, 2010, priced at $17 a share, and jumped about 41% on its first day. It was the first US carmaker to go public since Ford in 1956. Tesla had sold only a few thousand Roadsters and was losing money. Many short sellers bet against it for years. After several splits, early holders saw extraordinary gains.
The lesson: Betting against a determined founder with access to capital can be very expensive.
What it meant for investors
$1,000 in Tesla at the start of 2012 → $184,211 today, vs $5,312 in the S&P 500.
We start the clock at the start of 2012, the first year in our price data after the event. That is 184.2 times the money, and $178,898 more than a plain index fund made over the same years.
What Tesla teaches: The biggest winners often look absurdly overvalued at every stage; holding them requires tolerating repeated drawdowns that would shake out most investors.
| Bought in | Price then | Worth today | S&P 500 would be |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | $1.90 | $184,211 | $5,312 |
| 2015 | $14.00 | $25,000 | $3,301 |
| 2018 | $21.00 | $16,667 | $2,519 |
green = beat the S&P 500 · red = lost money
What if you bought Tesla? Every starting year and the full story →
More Tesla history
- 7 January 2021: Elon Musk becomes the world's richest person
- 7 August 2018: Musk tweets 'funding secured' at $420
Could you have called it at the time? The wheel picks the year, you pick the position, ten seconds a pick.
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