Musk Thinks Tesla Can Be World’s Most Valuable. Stock Split Is Part of the Plan.

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Tesla
’s
2022 annual shareholder meeting has wrapped up. Investors voted on several issues, including an item that authorizes a higher number of shares outstanding for the company.

That item passed and it paves the way for another stock split, something investors were watching for–bulls especially.

Bulls like stock splits. They believe they are a signal from management that things are going well. That belief doesn’t require a leap of faith in the case of

Tesla

(ticker: TSLA). Just consider CEO Elon Musk’s own words. He said at the meeting on Thursday that

Tesla

could become the worlds most valuable company.

Proposal four in the annual meeting proxy statement was, essentially, the stock split proposal. Shareholders were voting to amend the company’s certificate of incorporation, increasing the number of authorized shares by 4 billion.

Tesla already has a little more than1 billion shares outstanding. The planned stock split is 3:1. When complete the number of shares outstanding will be between 3 billion and 4 billion–hence the number voted on.

The vote tally was only preliminary. Tesla, like most companies, will update the final vote numbers in a press release, probably early next week. After that comes the stock split.

Tesla declared a stock split on Aug. 11, 2020. The split took effect on Friday Aug. 28, about 17 days later. Shares traded at the split-adjusted price on Aug, 31. Tesla stock rose and incredibly increased 81% from Aug. 11 to August 31.

The timing of the first split is a good target for what to expect with the coming split. It should take between two and three weeks. Tesla didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment about timing.

Don’t expect an 81% gain this time, it’s unusual. But if it did, Tesla would be worth roughly $1.7 trillion, or worth more than either

Alphabet

(GOOGL) or

Amazon.com

(AMZN).

Even if that gain doesn’t happen soon, Musk has his eyes on those companies–and their valuations. “Assuming we do all these things…Tesla will probably be the most valuable company in the world,” said Musk at the meeting Thursday.

The “things” include ramping up car production for years to come as well as introducing new products including cars, battery-based energy storage and a labor-saving robot.

Musk has big goals for his company. He also said he wouldn’t be surprised if Tesla sold a cumulative 100 million cars over the coming decade. Tesla has sold about three million vehicles lift to date.

That means over the past decade, Tesla has gone from roughly 300,000 to three million vehicles sold cumulatively, an increase of 10 times. Hitting 100 million is an increase of 33 times.

Tesla stock is down about 1.9% in premarket trading Friday.

S&P 500
and

Dow Jones Industrial Average
futures are up about 0.1% and 0.2%, respectively. The dip cuts into some of Tesla’s recent gains. Shares have added almost 50% since their late May 52-week low. The

Nasdaq Composite
is up about 13% over the same span.

Write to Al Root at [email protected]