Could Tesla be the next Ford?
A while back, I compared the entrepreneurial cool factors of Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg. Maybe I should have compared Musk with one of the greatest upstarts in American history, Henry Ford.
That's what Taylor Anderson, writing for Seeking Alpha, did after Musk's electric auto startup, Tesla, reported another losing quarter Wednesday. In his look at Tesla (Nasdaq: TSLA) versus Ford (NYSE: F), Anderson argues that Musk's California electric car company is taking a path to reinventing the auto industry similar to Ford's invention of the industry.
Anderson wrote: "More than ten years since inception and two years since going public, TSLA is finally on the cusp of profitability. F reached profitability a little bit sooner than it looks like TSLA will, but as mentioned before, F had the luxury of creating the market, and they didn't have to beat over 100 years of product development. Moreover, F did not give the public the opportunity to become investors until the Model T was long since out of production. Initial shareholders of TSLA that have weathered the volatility and the roughly 50 percent short interest have returned about 40% on their investment, and may be set for more."
All that's not to say Musk's electric dream isn't a risky one. The hard numbers Tesla reported to Wall Street Wednesday are evidence of that.
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