An investor who bet on Elon Musk’s portfolio of companies two months ago would be sitting on solid gains today, as both Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) and SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX) stocks have recorded notable upside in recent weeks.
In this case, a $1,000 investment split equally between Tesla and SpaceX would now be worth about $1,268, representing a return of roughly 26.8%.
Tesla shares climbed from $322 to about $370 during the period, a gain of nearly 15% that increased the initial $500 investment to about $575.
Meanwhile, SpaceX stock surged from $114 to around $158, advancing about 39% and turning the other $500 allocation into roughly $693.
Combined, the portfolio grew from $1,000 to approximately $1,268 by press time.
The case for Tesla stock
Notably, Tesla’s momentum accelerated after its October 2 third-quarter delivery report beat Wall Street expectations. The company delivered 486,532 vehicles in the July-September period, exceeding the consensus estimate of 461,974 and analyst forecasts of 456,000 to 463,000 units.
While deliveries were 2% below the year-ago record of 497,099, they rose 1.3% from the second-quarter total of 480,126. Production totaled 464,391 vehicles, with deliveries exceeding output by more than 22,000 units as Tesla reduced inventory.
Energy storage deployments hit 13.7 gigawatt-hours, Tesla’s second-best quarter on record, though below the 15.9 gigawatt-hour consensus estimate.
Beyond deliveries, Tesla continued advancing several growth initiatives. Volume production of the Tesla Semi began with annual capacity targeted at 50,000 units, while the steering wheel-free Cybercab launched rides in Austin.
Tesla’s robotaxi service has also logged hundreds of thousands of unsupervised miles across Texas and Florida, and Nevada approved the company to operate up to 5,000 autonomous vehicles in Clark County during its first year.
Full Self-Driving subscriptions reached 1.48 million at the end of the second quarter, up 56% year-over-year, while approvals for the technology continued expanding across Europe.
The case for SpaceX stock
On the other hand, SpaceX has also posted strong gains since its June initial public offering (IPO). After falling to a 52-week low near $105, the stock recovered to trade between $145 and $160, valuing the company at roughly $1.9 trillion to $2.2 trillion.
A major catalyst came on September 28 when Starship completed Flight 14, achieving its first successful orbital insertion and deploying 26 operational Starlink V3 satellites.
Each V3 satellite is designed to deliver about one terabit per second of downlink capacity, roughly ten times that of the previous generation.
Although the mission was shortened by an engine issue, it successfully demonstrated orbital operations and satellite deployment.
Starship’s larger payload capacity could eventually support deployments of up to 60 V3 satellites per launch, accelerating Starlink’s expansion.
Meanwhile, SpaceX reported second-quarter revenue of $7.8 billion, up 92% year-over-year. Its Starlink-led Connectivity segment generated about $4.3 billion and remained the main profit driver, while AI and cloud-computing operations expanded through agreements with customers including Anthropic and Google.
Starlink’s subscriber base also doubled to approximately 12 million users.
Featured image via Shutterstock
