By Christiana Sciaudone
Investing.com -- Elon Musk, the world's newest biggest billionaire, as per Bloomberg, is riding high on bets that his electric vehicles will take over the world. Or, investor FOMO.
Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) rose 6% Friday to -- you guessed it -- a record.
Evercore SI upgraded shares, offering a mea culpa and acknowledging that it had gotten the stock wrong in the past, but now's the time, according to CNBC Pro. Tesla can capitalize on a climate bill, among other things, with President-elect Joe Biden taking office later this month. The firm bumped the stock to inline from underperform.
"Whether we call it valuation confusion or valuation rotation (into full Tech from hybrid growth Auto & Tech), we have been on the considerably wrong side of TSLA for over a year now,” Evercore SI said in a note.
There are warnings, however, of overexcitement. Saxo Bank listed Tesla among its bubble stocks with 206 times 12-month forward earnings, Reuters reported. That compares to Daimler (OTC:DDAIF)'s 10 times forward earnings and Toyota's 16 times.
Analysts are divided over the stock, which has seven buy ratings, 12 holds and six sells, according to data compiled by Investing.com.
Meanwhile, Tesla introduced a cheaper variant of the Model Y, pricing its sports utility vehicle closer to that of its Model 3 sedan and least expensive car, Reuters reported. The new standard range Model Y is priced at $41,990, only $4,000 more than the entry level Model 3, according to the company's website.
On Thursday, Bloomberg reported that founder Musk overtook Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) founder Jeff Bezos on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, a ranking of the world’s 500 wealthiest people, to become the world's richest person. Musk is worth $194.8 billion, or $9.5 billion more than Bezos.