During last night’s Tesla (TSLA) earnings call, company founder Elon Musk didn’t hold back.
The eccentric entrepreneur has big goals for his electric car company. In fact, he directly challenged Apple (AAPL), saying that Tesla’s market cap would match that of Apple in 10 years.
That’s an ambitious goal. Just this week shares of the tech giant rose above $122, making the company the first in world history to exceed $700 billion in market capitalization at the close of a trading day.
Musk thinks his company can do the same. Here’s what he said on the earnings call, as quoted by TheStreet.com:
“If you take this year’s revenue, around $6 billion or thereabouts, and if we are able to maintain a 30% growth rate for 10 years, add to your 10% profitability number, and have a 20 P/E, our market cap would basically be the same as Apple’s is today.”
Musk added:
“That’s going to require a bit of — on the order of $700 billion — obviously, getting there will requires some significant CapEx, but I am hopeful that we can do this without any significant dilution to the company, maybe minor dilution but nothing serious.”
Tesla’s market cap currently sits at $26 billion. Apple’s market cap? $733 billion — 28 times larger, to be exact.
Not surprisingly, Musk’s ambitions have lit up social media. Here’s what people are saying about his bold statements.
I can’t decide whether Elon Musk is a genius or delusional http://t.co/w94dUYElXD#Mustreads#tech#news
— Geek Updates & News (@GeekUps) February 12, 2015
Tesla shares are down after reporting earnings, despite Elon Musk’s Apple comparison http://t.co/amfnwzWvMBpic.twitter.com/EbfdIAx2It
— WSJ MoneyBeat (@WSJMoneyBeat) February 12, 2015
https://twitter.com/delangedotcom/status/565899634703622144
Last year, Elon Musk could have compared to Apple market cap, and TV wouldn't mock it. Funny how stock price changes things.
— Mike Valletutti 🎯 (@marketmodel) February 12, 2015
Tesla may have missed sales and profit targets, but that hasn't stopped Elon Musk claiming it'll get as big as Apple http://t.co/NXY8ke0MaG
— Rob Palmer (@RobertLPalmer) February 12, 2015
The most realistic of @elonmusk visions? Hyperloop, death by AI or Tesla market cap reaching Apple levels in 10 yrs http://t.co/huKI84fUK6
— Shawn Langlois (@slangwise) February 12, 2015
At this point, I doubt Apple could build a better car than Tesla. Elon Musk is more Steve Jobs than Tim Cook. Http://t.co/5xAHBEZW1T
— Edmond (@studiomondeo) February 11, 2015
Elon Musk just said that Tesla could grow 10% a year and with a 20 P/E ratio could grow to Apple's $700B size in a decade
— Seth Weintraub (@llsethj) February 12, 2015
https://twitter.com/bngmobileUK/status/565640154917130243
saying $TSLA could be as big as Apple is like saying, in 1995, that Apple could be as big as Microsoft. @elonmusk
— Greg Bates (@GregBatesmaine) February 12, 2015