In this article, we discuss 5 biggest investments in the Elon Musk portfolio. If you want to read about some investments in the Musk portfolio, go directly to Elon Musk’s Portfolio: 10 Biggest Investments.
5. Neuralink
Neuralink is a neurotechnology company founded by Elon Musk in 2016. The firm aims to develop implantable brain–machine interfaces. In July 2019, a profile of the firm was published in The New York Times which claimed that Musk had invested nearly $100 million into the firm. In July 2021, the company announced that it had raised over $200 million at a Series C funding round that valued the company at close to $1 billion. Alphabet, the parent company of Google, also participated in the funding round.
Musk has claimed that the devices developed by Neuralink will one day not only help wirelessly transmit brain signals, but also be helpful in fighting neurological conditions like Alzheimer’s, dementia and spinal cord injuries. In April, as Neuralink released a video showing a monkey playing a computer game using a Neuralink device, Musk tweeted that the first product launched by the firm would help paralyzed people play with their smartphones faster than people using thumbs to operate them.
4. SpaceX
SpaceX was founded by Elon Musk in 2002 with a mission to revolutionize space technology and take humankind to Mars. The company has achieved a slew of milestones in this regard already. In 2006, the company was awarded the first NASA contract. In 2008, it launched the Falcon-I, the first liquid-propellant rocket made by a private firm to reach orbit. In 2010, the Dragon spacecraft of the company touched down on the International Space Station. The firm was last year awarded a $3 billion NASA contract.
As the reusable rockets developed by SpaceX become more popular, investors have started to pay serious attention to the company. In October of 2021, the firm announced that it had agreed to sell $755 million in stock from insiders at $560 a share, valuing SpaceX at more than $100 billion. Merely a few months prior, in February 2021, the company had fetched a $74 billion valuation at a $419 per share price. It has raised over $1.2 billion at a funding round then. Musk has so far not revealed when he plans to make the firm public.
3. Twitter, Inc. (NYSE:TWTR)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 83
Latest securities filings reveal that Elon Musk has spent more than $2.6 billion on Twitter, Inc. (NYSE:TWTR) since the end of January, building up a stake in the firm that represents over 9% of the firm. A few days after this filing, Musk offered to buy Twitter for $54.20 per share, valuing the firm at close to $43 billion. In a letter sent to Twitter Chairman Bret Taylor, and also part of the filing, Musk said that “free speech is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy” and Twitter had the potential to be the “the platform for free speech around the globe”.
Musk’s offer represents a 54% premium on the share price of Twitter, Inc. (NYSE:TWTR) a day before Musk began investing in the company. Musk owns around 73,115,038 Twitter shares that are valued at more than $3.7 billion.
At the end of the fourth quarter of 2021, 83 hedge funds in the database of Insider Monkey held stakes worth $3.1 billion in Twitter, Inc. (NYSE:TWTR), compared to 94 in the preceding quarter worth $6.3 billion.
ClearBridge Investments, in its Q4 2021 investor letter, mentioned Twitter, Inc. (NYSE:TWTR). Here is what the fund has to say in its letter:
“Weakness among our holdings in the communication services sector was the other detractor to performance. Twitter, Inc. (NYSE:TWTR) shares sold off following weaker than expected third-quarter results, but under new leadership, we see the potential for improved execution and performance as live events and entertainment return to pre-pandemic levels.”
2. Tesla, Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 90
Tesla, Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) is one of the fastest growing companies in the world. Musk was not a founding member of the firm but one of the earliest financiers who invested in it as early as 2004. Musk went from being a board member of the company to the CEO in 2008. Tesla went public two years later at an initial price of $17 per share. As of April 24, the shares have climbed over $1,000. Apart from making and selling electric cars, the company has also revealed plans to produce electric trucks.
Musk is the largest Tesla, Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) shareholder. This is the primary source of the Musk fortune, who is the richest man in the world. At the end of 2021, Musk owned 177 million shares of Tesla worth almost $142 billion.
At the end of the fourth quarter of 2021, 91 hedge funds in the database of Insider Monkey held stakes worth $12.9 billion in Tesla, Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA), compared to 60 in the previous quarter worth $10.6 billion.
Here is what ClearBridge Investments had to say about Tesla, Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) in its Q4 2021 investor letter:
“Within the growth universe we target, emerging growth stocks – the category with the highest revenue growth rates – significantly underperformed the overall growth categories in 2021 after leading performance in 2020. The pull-through effect on digitization, online access across industries, and spending to modernize outdated corporate infrastructures accelerated trends in a highly compressed time frame. Much of that trend slackened in 2021 and shares of these companies, while showing good top-line growth, saw slowing appreciation from the blistering pace in the prior year. With that moderating growth, multiples decelerated from 2020 highs. Bucking the headwinds among our emerging growth names was Tesla, Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) which saw continued sales momentum from their leadership positions in the key growth areas of electric vehicles.”
1. PayPal Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:PYPL)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 110
PayPal Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:PYPL) is a digital payments firm. Musk was one of the co-founding members of the firm. In 1999, Musk co-founded X.com that later merged with Confinity and was renamed PayPal in 2001. In 2002, ecommerce firm eBay purchased PayPal for $1.5 billion. The company now has a market capitalization of around $100 billion. At the time of the deal, Musk was the largest shareholder with ownership of 7,109,989 shares, worth more than 11% of the firm.
Musk is no longer associated with PayPal Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:PYPL). He used the proceeds from the PayPal buyout to fund ventures in Tesla, SpaceX, and SolarCity.
At the end of the fourth quarter of 2021, 110 hedge funds in the database of Insider Monkey held stakes worth $9.9 billion in PayPal Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:PYPL), compared to 123 in the preceding quarter worth $12.8 billion.
In its Q4 2021 investor letter, Polen Capital Management, an asset management firm, highlighted a few stocks and PayPal Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:PYPL) was one of them. Here is what the fund said:
“For the full year 2020, one of the top performers was PayPal Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:PYPL), which we purchased in 2019, the company continues to take market share in digital payments and has seen an acceleration in user adoption and engagement, especially within their “silver tech” or older user demographic. We expect many more years of ongoing double-digit growth from their various business segments and new initiatives.”
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