Tesla – the car company brought to fruition by South African entrepreneur Elon Musk – now has a total market cap exceeding bitcoin, the world’s number one cryptocurrency by market cap.
Elon Musk Sees His Company Grow to New Heights
The news broke on July 2 when Tesla shares soared following a report that the company had sold more than 90,000 individual vehicles during the second quarter of 2020, well beyond any analyst’s expectations. The car company is now slated to move up into “Amazon territory” as one of the largest ventures throughout the globe.
What’s even more interesting is that so many cars have been sold despite the present market conditions. The economy has been shuttered and hunkering down for the last four months following the introduction of the coronavirus outside Asia. Countries such as the United States, France and the United Kingdom have all seen a heavy surge in cases, and as a result, regulators and government leaders have enforced stay-at-home orders.
These orders have ultimately led to the closing of many businesses and many furloughed workers who are now collecting unemployment. While stimulus checks of roughly $1,200 were sent out to most Americans that made less than $75,000 per year, this was a one-time deal that probably only set people straight for about 30 days.
Interestingly, it was Elon Musk who showed heavy resistance towards the stimulus checks, claiming that one cannot simply print money out of thin air and that doing so presented a pathway towards inflation and other economic uncertainty. Apparently, many agreed with Musk, as several stimulus checks were allegedly spent on bitcoin and other forms of crypto, according to digital currency exchanges like Coinbase.
Executives reported seeing roughly $1,200 payments being administered through the platform by many who sought to increase their wealth and diversify their portfolios with cryptocurrencies like bitcoin. In this way, it can be argued that the stimulus payments worked in spades, as it guaranteed the initial growth of bitcoin and its altcoin counterparts.
Expansion Throughout the Crisis
As we all remember, the world’s leading digital asset sunk into the high $3,000 range for a brief period, though as people began to respect bitcoin more and purchase digital currency throughout the COVID crisis, it didn’t take long for the asset to suddenly shoot back up into the $9,000 range, even striking $10,000 here and there to reclaim all it had lost since February of this year.
With all this hoopla and more, it’s surprising that Elon Musk’s company has managed to remain on such a straight and narrow line, but Tesla’s power certainly exceeds what many of us believed was possible. At the time of writing, Tesla shares exceed $1,200 each and boast a total market cap of approximately $224 billion. Bitcoin, by contrast, has seen its market cap fall to roughly $168 billion.