Tesla will rocket as high as $3,000 in 5 years, billionaire investor Ron Baron says
- The billionaire investor Ron Baron said in an interview with CNBC on Tuesday that he thinks Tesla shares could hit $3,000 in five years.
- "Tesla, that's going to be $2,000 or $3,000 in five years and a multiple of that over the next five years," Baron said.
- Baron said he ultimately thinks Tesla could rise as high as 10 times current levels, and he's not looking to sell his stake anytime soon — rather, he wants to buy more.
- "I would like to be able to get more money to buy more Tesla, actually," Baron said.
- Baron also gave advice to new investors and revealed the biggest investment mistake he'd ever made.
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Tesla's meteoric rise will continue for years to come, according to Ron Baron.
In an interview with CNBC on Tuesday morning, the billionaire investor said Tesla could soar as much as 215% from current levels over the next five years.
"Tesla, that's going to be $2,000 or $3,000 in five years and a multiple of that over the next five years," Baron told CNBC's Becky Quick.
Baron is the chairman and founder of Baron Funds, which offers and manages several growth-tilted mutual funds for investors. As of April 30, multiple funds managed by Baron Funds owned Tesla, including the Baron Partners Fund, which had 25.5% of its $2.2 billion in assets invested in Tesla, and the Baron Focused Growth Fund, which had 26.1% of its assets invested in Tesla. Baron is also an investor in Musk's privately held SpaceX.
Baron said he still thinks Tesla is a good buy. When asked whether he'd consider selling his shares of Tesla over $900, Baron replied, "I would like to be able to get more money to buy more Tesla, actually."
Baron said it made sense to short Tesla over the past decade when the company was struggling to scale up its manufacturing capabilities and had to raise a lot of capital to essentially build an electric-car company from the ground up.
But now, after scaling production and delivering hundreds of thousands of cars annually, Tesla is in fact a viable car company, he said.
Baron pointed to the company's strong brand recognition with $0 in advertising and its technology advancement — specifically in battery efficiency — as reasons to be long the company.
The billionaire provided a progress report on where he ultimately sees Tesla going.
"I told you a long time ago that I thought that we'd make 20 times our money in Tesla. So far we've made four times," he said. "I now think we're going to make double or triple again for the next five years, and double or triple again over the next five years. I think there's 10 times more to go in Tesla before I have to even think about this if we're right."
Shares of Tesla closed at an all-time high of $949.92 on Monday and traded flat on Tuesday afternoon.
In his CNBC interview, Baron shared some advice for new investors. "The only way you can possibly believe and possibly come up with a good opinion is to go do the research yourself," he said. "You can't rely on other people telling you what to buy or what to sell."
He also revealed the biggest investment mistake he'd made in his career.
"The biggest mistake I ever made was seeing Jeff Bezos for a year up close and personal and not investing in" Amazon, Baron said. "How could I miss that?"