- Tesla stock fell roughly 6% on Friday after the Cybercab launch event in Austin disappointed investors expecting a wider rollout
- Elon Musk responded on X, saying Tesla’s IPO value was “a thousandth of its current value”
- NHTSA opened a review into whether Tesla properly certified the Cybercab, which lacks conventional driver controls
- Tesla remains valued at approximately $1.11 trillion despite the selloff
Tesla CEO Elon Musk took to X on Friday to counter market pessimism after the electric-vehicle maker’s stock tumbled 6% following its Cybercab robotaxi event in Austin. “We’ve come a long way. Tesla IPO value was a thousandth of its current value!” Musk wrote, replying to a post arguing Tesla was worth more than other publicly traded automakers combined.
Tesla priced its initial public offering on June 28, 2010, at $17 a share, valuing the company at roughly $1.5 billion. Its market valuation has since multiplied by about 800-900 times to reach approximately $1.5 trillion before Friday’s selloff, leaving the company worth about $1.11 trillion, with shares trading near $354, down from Thursday’s close of $376.37.
The stock had jumped more than 5% on Thursday ahead of the Cybercab’s launch. However, the two-seat robotaxi, which has no steering wheel or pedals, was rolled out only in limited areas of Austin, with Tesla registering around 45 vehicles with the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles, disappointing investors who expected a broader deployment.
The event was closed to the public, and Tesla did not livestream it, with Musk notably absent from the presentation. Consequently, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened a review on Friday to determine whether Tesla properly certified a vehicle lacking conventional driver controls, raising fresh questions about the service’s expansion timeline.
“Among other things, NHTSA will consider the extent to which Tesla’s certification depended on determinations that certain Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) are inapplicable to the Cybercab,” the regulator said.
Even after Friday’s decline, Tesla‘s valuation remains in a different category from the rest of the auto industry. Ford was valued at about $58 billion, General Motors at roughly $77 billion, Stellantis at about $14 billion, and BYD at approximately $110 billion at the time of writing, while Toyota Motor had a market valuation of about $284 billion.
Meanwhile, retail sentiment on Stocktwits remained bullish over the past 24 hours, with message volume described as “high.” TSLA stock has fallen 21% year-to-date.
✅ Follow BITNEWSBOT on Telegram, Facebook, LinkedIn, X.com, and Google News for instant updates.
