Elon Musk says Tesla can surpass the combined value of Apple and Saudi Aramco, the world's 2 most valuable companies

• The CEO of Tesla said the EV maker's market cap could be more than Apple and Saudi Aramco combined.
• Apple and Aramco are the world's top two companies by market capitalization.

Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and the world's richest man, said on Wednesday his electric vehicle company could become more valuable than the world's two largest companies — Apple and Saudi Aramco.

The combined market capitalization of tech giant Apple and Saudi Arabian state energy giant Aramco is around $4.4 billion today. In comparison, Tesla's market cap is about $700 billion. This means Tesla would have to grow roughly six times it's current size to catch up.

"I see a potential path for Tesla to be worth more than Apple and Saudi Aramco combined," said Musk, according to a transcript of Tesla's earnings call on October 19. He acknowledged it'll be tough, but it can be achieved with "a lot of work, some very creative new products, manage expansion and always the luck."

Musk made the ambitious statement on Wednesday after Tesla reported record revenues of $21.45 billion in the third quarter of 2022 — although it fell short of the $21.96 billion analysts were estimating, per IBES data from Refinitiv. The company also posted a profit of $3.29 billion in the quarter running from July to September — just under a record profit of $3.3 billion reported in the first quarter of this year.

Investors have zoomed in on Tesla's share prices in recent years, after they skyrocketed by 740% in 2020 alone, thanks to production growth and a lot of investor interest in EVs. It made Musk the world's richest person in early 2021. The share prices rose another 50% in 2021, but are down about 45% in 2022 so far, amid a broad-based selloff, as the Federal Reserve has been hiking interest rates aggressively.

It isn't the first time Musk said Tesla could surpass Apple in market value. He said the same thing at an earnings call in 2017 — but, that was when Apple was worth about $772 billion, while Tesla's market cap was just about $51 billion.

"Well, now I may want to preface this by of course I could be completely delusional, but I think I see a clear path to that outcome," according to a transcript of the 2017 call. Tesla's market cap crossed $1 trillion in October 2021.

Tesla shares are down 6.3% in after-hours trade.