Meta just surged past Tesla in market value for the first time in 16 months
- Meta overtook Tesla in market value for the first time in 16 months on Thursday.
- Mark Zuckerberg's social-media giant is now the seventh-largest company by market capitalization.
Meta Platforms soared past Tesla in market value for the first time in 16 months on Thursday, thanks to the surge in its stock price this year and a sharp drop in Tesla shares on the day.
The social-media giant had a market capitalization of $547 billion at the closing bell, according to Yahoo Finance, which comfortably exceeded the automaker's $517 billion market cap. The last time Meta was worth more than Tesla was December 20, 2021.
Mark Zuckerberg's company — which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp — overtook Tesla after shares in the EV maker plunged nearly 10% on Thursday, owing to investors' concerns that aggressive price cuts are eating away at its profit margins.
Meta has also been one of the US's best-performing public companies this year. Its shares have surged 77%, buoyed by Zuckerberg's promise to make 2023 a "year of efficiency" in part by laying off workers to cut costs.
Tesla's stock has still climbed a robust 32% year-to-date, despite having a portion of of its gains wiped out on Thursday.
Elon Musk's company posted first-quarter earnings that broadly met Wall Street's expectations. However, it disclosed that its net income had plummeted 24% year-on-year, which analysts attributed to its aggressive price cuts.
Meta and Tesla are now respectively the seventh- and eighth-largest companies in the world by market capitalization, per CompaniesMarketCap data.
While Meta is now more valuable than Tesla, Zuckerberg's personal fortune of $78 billion is still less than half of Musk's $164 billion net worth, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. The pair hold similar-sized stakes in their respective companies, but Musk also owns valuable equity in SpaceX, Twitter and his other businesses.