What is Tesla stock, and what does Tesla do?
Tesla stock is a share in Tesla, Inc., the US company that makes electric cars, battery storage and solar products, and it trades on Nasdaq under the ticker TSLA. Tesla also works on driver-assistance and self-driving software, which shapes a lot of what investors expect from it. Below: where the company came from, what its share price is sensitive to and why it moves so much.
What is Tesla?
Tesla is an American car and energy company founded in 2003 in California and now headquartered in Austin, Texas. Elon Musk was one of its early investors and later became its CEO.
Tesla listed on Nasdaq in 2010. Its stated mission has always been to speed up the world's move to sustainable energy, which is why its business goes beyond cars.
What Tesla sells
Tesla's business has several parts that feed into each other:
- Electric cars: the Model S, Model 3, Model X and Model Y, plus the Cybertruck pickup.
- Energy storage: Powerwall home batteries and large Megapack batteries for power grids and industry.
- Solar: solar panels and solar roofs.
- Software: driver assistance and the self-driving project, a big part of what the market expects from Tesla.
- Charging: a network of fast chargers for electric vehicles.
Why Tesla stock gets so much attention
Tesla took the electric car from a niche product to a mass-market one, and that made it one of the most valuable carmakers in the world. Much of the value in its share price rests on future plans, such as robotaxis, humanoid robots and a growing energy business.
When a stock is priced more on tomorrow than on today's sales, any news that makes that future look closer or further away moves the price sharply.
What moves the Tesla share price
- Vehicle delivery numbers, published every quarter.
- Profit margins and price cuts on its cars.
- Competition from other electric carmakers, including Chinese manufacturers.
- Progress or delays in self-driving and new projects.
- News and decisions from Elon Musk, which draw heavy media attention to the stock.
- Interest rates, because many people finance a car with a loan.
Risks and volatility
TSLA is one of the most volatile large stocks in the US market, and big moves over a few days are not unusual. If high expectations for self-driving or new products slip, the price can fall quickly.
This article is not investment advice and makes no price predictions. Only put into stocks money you could partly lose without it upending your life.
Tokenized Tesla stock in Waletifi
Waletifi will soon open its Stocks section country by country. There you buy tokenized Tesla stock with USDT: an Ethereum token that tracks TSLA and stays in your own wallet.
The token is not the Tesla share, has no voting rights, and the issuer can pause transfers or block an address. The issuer's terms exclude some countries, including Iran and Afghanistan, and it may restrict addresses it links to them; weigh this like the other risks before buying. Liquidity for the token is limited, and when the US market is closed its price can gap at the next open.
