Tesla stock opened higher on Tuesday, looking set to extend its winning streak to a sixth consecutive session.
The Tesla stock was up more than 2% to trade around $418, building on a five-day run that delivered an 18% return and added roughly $243 billion to the company’s market value, lifting its capitalisation to about $1.3 trillion.
The surge has been fueled in large part by CEO Elon Musk’s purchase of about 2.6 million Tesla shares, valued at nearly $1 billion.
According to regulatory filings, Musk executed the purchases across several separate transactions on Friday.
It marked his first open market buy since February 2020, a move interpreted by investors as a strong vote of confidence in the company’s long-term prospects.
Musk signals renewed focus on Tesla
On Tuesday, Musk posted on X that he is working hard and focusing on all the developments that Tesla is working on.
He said he was “burning the midnight oil” with the Optimus humanoid robot engineering team on Friday, followed by “deep technical reviews” of Tesla’s upcoming AI5 chip over the weekend.
Daddy is very much home. Am burning the midnight oil with Optimus engineering on Friday night, then redeye overnight to Austin arriving 5am, wake up to have lunch with my kids and then spend all Saturday afternoon in deep technical reviews for the Tesla AI5 chip design. Fly
Musk described walking through the company’s Colossus II data center in Memphis on Monday and spending up to 12 hours in back-to-back meetings with a particular focus on artificial intelligence, Autopilot, Optimus production, and vehicle delivery schedules.
William Blair analyst Jed Dorsheimer wrote Monday that Musk’s purchases were helping to push shares higher.
“We see this as a clear signal of confidence from Musk,” Dorsheimer said, while noting that the firm is maintaining a Market Perform rating on Tesla shares.
Regulators launch an investigation into Tesla
The rally comes as Tesla faces heightened regulatory scrutiny.
On Tuesday, the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said it had opened a preliminary evaluation into Model Y vehicles from the 2021 model year after reports of electronic door handles becoming inoperative.
The regulator said the malfunction could trap occupants, as the power-driven handles may fail.
“NHTSA’s investigation is focused on the operability of the electronic door locks from outside of the vehicle, as that circumstance is the only one in which there is no manual way to open the door,” it said.
The probe follows a Bloomberg report detailing incidents where occupants were unable to exit vehicles after crashes.
Last month, NHTSA also raised separate concerns about Tesla’s reporting of crash data, saying the company filed reports months late in some cases.
Tesla attributed the delays to data collection issues, which it said have now been addressed.
The regulator’s Office of Defects Investigation has launched an audit to review the cause of the lapses and assess whether all incidents have been properly reported.
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