On This Day 15 Years Ago, Elon Musk's Tesla Took A Risk On The Public Markets — Now It's Paid Off Nearly 300 Times Over

Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) marks its 15th anniversary of its initial public offering (IPO) with a staggering 300-fold surge in its stock value.

Tesla’s IPO occurred 15 years ago, on June 29 2010, with the company generating around $150 million in revenue, primarily from the Roadster, its two-seat electric sports car. The Model S sedan, targeting the premium vehicle market, was still two years away from launch.

The IPO was a gamble on CEO Elon Musk‘s ability to create a range of mass-market electric vehicles and build an automaker far from the Detroit auto hub, centered instead on Silicon Valley.

An investor who put $10,000 in Tesla’s stock at the IPO and held onto the shares would now have a stake worth nearly $3 million. Tesla is currently the eighth most-valuable publicly traded U.S. company, boasting a market cap of over $1 trillion.

Tesla’s financial success over the past decade has been shaped by the top-selling Model Y SUV and Model 3 sedan, along with sales of environmental regulatory credits.

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Musk, now the world’s richest person, has told investors that the reason to buy and own Tesla stock from here has almost nothing to do with selling cars to consumers.

"If somebody doesn't believe Tesla's going to solve autonomy, I think they should not be an investor in the company," Musk said, and as reported by CNBC, on an earnings call last year.

Instead, he sees the potential in Tesla’s Optimus humanoid robots and the company’s autonomous driving technology.

While Tesla continues to enjoy a loyal fan base and support from a number of bullish analysts, Wall Street remains cautious about Elon Musk's ambitious projections—many viewing them as already priced into the stock.

Tesla’s stock is down about 20% this year, underperforming major U.S. indexes and lagging behind all of its megacap tech peers. Only Apple, with a year-to-date decline of 19.7%, comes close.

Earlier in June, Tesla’s vice president of Optimus robotics, Milan Kovac, announced his departure from the company after a nine-year tenure.

Despite these challenges, Tesla investors have learned that volatility is a big part of the company’s story, with the stock experiencing significant gains or losses on more than 40 occasions in the past 15 years.

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