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Tesla (TSLA-1.75%) stock continued its post-election rally Monday, with shares rising more than 7%. Investors are betting that CEO Elon Musk will be able to secure favorable treatment from a second Donald Trump administration.
The stock is up more than 38% over the last five days, trading at almost $342 per share Monday afternoon.
Wedbush Securities managing director and senior equity research analyst Dan Ives said Monday that he was raising his price target for the stock to $400 per share from $300 per share, citing Trump’s election win as a “game changer” for the company’s autonomous vehicle plans. Musk’s alliance with Trump — which saw him campaign on Trump’s behalf in a key swing state and promote Trump’s candidacy across social media for months — has won him a sizable amount of influence.
“In essence, Musk made a strategic and big bet on a Trump White House win that will be known as a ‘bet for the ages’ for TSLA bulls as now Tesla and Musk are set to reap the benefits from a new friendlier regulatory era in the Beltway ahead,” Ives wrote in a research note.
In addition to the sudden boost in enthusiasm for the company, short sellers betting against it have lost more than $5 billion since its recent surge began.
Although many auto manufacturers are bracing for a sharp pullback in the amount of federal support for electric vehicles that they might expect from a Trump White House, Musk’s all-in Trump boosterism might yield a different result for him. That expectation is part of why Tesla is now a $1 trillion company.
Short-sellers are feeling the pain of Tesla’s post-election stock surge. Hedge funds betting against Tesla, also known as shorting, lost at least $5.2 billion, Bloomberg calculated using data compiled by S3 Partners. That comes as the electric vehicle maker sees a renewed surge that helped its market capitalization once again pass $1 trillion last week.
— William Gavin and Rocio Fabbro contributed to this article.