Tesla tops GM’s market value, investors see Musk as future

Tesla tops GM’s market value as investors see Musk as future Elon Musk’s Tesla Inc. surpassed General Motors to become America’s most valuable automaker, eclipsing a company whose well-being was once viewed as interdependent with the nation’s.
  
A week after topping Ford Motor Co., Tesla climbed 3.3 percent Monday, lifting its market capitalisation to $50.9 billion. The electric-car maker ended the day valued at about $64 million more than GM. Musk’s company is now within $1 billion of Honda Motor Co. and cracking the top-five automakers worldwide.
  
The turnabout shows the extent to which investors have bought into Musk’s vision that electric vehicles will eventually rule the road. While GM has beat Tesla to market with a plug-in Chevrolet Bolt with a price and range similar to what Musk has promised for his Model 3 sedan coming later this year, the more than century-old company has failed to match the enthusiasm drummed up by its much smaller and rarely profitable U.S. peer.

“The market cares more about the potential new market value of the other businesses Tesla is in than about real profits and cash flow. Right now there is nothing to slow Tesla’s momentum. They could pass Honda, too,” an analyst at Morningstar Inc David Whiston, said.
   
Tesla has long been treated like a technology stock with investors betting on its ability to dominate a market for electric cars and energy storage. To those same investors, GM and Ford are headed for a slowdown in car sales that will erode profits.