AP Photo/Jae C. Hong
Tesla CEO Elon Musk.
- In August 2018, Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted that he had secured funding to take Tesla private, at $420 per share - a goofy reference to pot-smoking culture.
- The tweet prompted an SEC investigation and an eventual $40 million settlement by Tesla and Musk.
- Tesla didn't go private at $420. But after the stock cratered in 2019, it staged an epic year-end rally that put $420 in the past, obliterated short sellers, and gave bulls $500 per share to salivate over.
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I've been covering Tesla since 2007, and it's hard to believe that it was just a year ago that CEO Elon Musk dispatched his now-infamous $420 and "funding secured" tweet - and push to take the company private.
That decision wound up costing Tesla and Musk $40 million in an SEC settlement, plus Musk's chairmanship of the company.
But Tesla actually had bigger problems to deal with. Both 2018 and 2019 were tough, as the company struggled through production of the Model 3 sedan and worked feverishly to get a new factory up and running in China.
Somehow, it all came together in late 2019, just as Tesla revealed an absolutely bonkers vehicle, the long-awaited Cybertruck pickup.
Tesla's stock rallied and rallied and then some. By the end of the year, $420 was in the rearview mirror; by January 2020, a $500 share price was in sight.
Here's how it all happened:
