Billionaire investor Ron Baron, a longtime Tesla bull and shareholder, said he believes the electric vehicle company could hit a $5 trillion market capitalization in a decade, and that CEO Elon Musk has an even higher number in mind longer term. “Tesla, I think, is going to be worth $3 [trillion] or $4 trillion — $5 trillion in 10 years, based upon the business plan that I am aware of. Then Elon believes that longer term it’s going to be worth $30 trillion,” Baron said Friday on CNBC’s ” Squawk Box .” At $3.65 trillion, Nvidia had the largest market value in the U.S. as of Thursday’s market close, bigger than Apple and Microsoft , according to FactSet data. Tesla closed Thursday with a market cap of $1.12 trillion. Baron first invested $400 million in Tesla between 2014 and 2016, and said the early bet has made him $6 billion so far as the EV company gained mainstream acceptance. Tesla represents 10% of Baron’s entire portfolio across different funds. TSLA ALL mountain Tesla Tesla is seen as a big beneficiary of promised Trump administration policies as Musk has this year been a prominent backer and donor to the president-elect. Musk recently got assigned a starring role by Trump, leading a so-called Department of Government Efficiency along with Vivek Ramaswamy, former Republican presidential candidate. Shares of Tesla have surged about 25% in November during the postelection rally to return to a $1 trillion market cap. Baron said he will hold on to his Tesla shares for the long run. “No way I’m going to sell shares. If they get too big I will have to trim a little bit, but no, I have no intention” of exiting, he said. The Baron Capital chair has also built his bullish case for Tesla on the prospect for its Optimus humanoid robot now in development. Last month at a “We, Robot” event, Musk said Tesla has made progress on Optimus and that it will eventually cost between $20,000 and $30,000, adding it will “be a teacher, babysit your kids, walk your dog, mow your lawn, get the groceries … Whatever you can think of it will do.” “The idea is that these robots … he thinks it will be his biggest business ever,” Baron said. “He says everyone will have robots.”
