Tesla goes full throttle towards elite American S&P 500 index
Tesla was speeding towards America’s prestigious S&P 500 index ahead of its results last night.
The electric car maker, run by eccentric billionaire Elon Musk, was set to reveal whether it had recorded four consecutive quarters of profit for the first time.
This is a goal the company must achieve to be considered for a place in the elite US index, where Tesla would be among the most valuable companies.
Eccentric: Billionaire Elon Musk with his girlfriend Grimes
Inclusion isn’t automatic – a committee looks at a number of measures before it decides which firms to bring in and which to eject.
Other big names in the S&P include McDonald’s, Amazon, Apple, Coca-Cola and Visa.
Before Tesla unveiled its second-quarter results, which were set to be released after the stock market closed for the day in the US, analysts were divided as to whether it would have managed to stay in the black between April and June.
On average, they expected a loss of £189m, though estimates varied wildly and some said recent car sales weren’t taken into account.
This month Tesla said it delivered more vehicles than expected during the second quarter.
It recently became the world’s most valuable car manufacturer and its shares have surged by 280 per cent this year.
Musk, 49, has poked fun at analysts and investors who have said Tesla is overvalued – many of whom have lost out by short-selling its shares – by releasing a limited edition line of red satin ‘short shorts’. Musk has seen his net worth jump by around £37billion this year to £59billion as Tesla shares rose. On Monday his net worth rose £4billion in a day in a stock market bonanza.
He became a father for the seventh time in May when his girlfriend, the 32-year-old Canadian singer Grimes, gave birth to their first child.
The entrepreneur, whose other major venture is the rocket company Space X, has courted controversy in the past by posting market-moving tweets, which has put him in the firing line of US regulators.