Shortly before Oracle founder and billionaire Larry Ellison joined the board of Tesla in December 2018, he bought three million shares of Tesla for about $1 billion. That stake is now worth more than $1.6 billion thanks to Tesla's rebound that has sent shares soaring as much as 25% higher in 2020 alone. That's a far cry from what Ellison's investment looked like for most of 2019 when Tesla lost around 46% in value from the beginning of the year to its low point of $178 per share in June.
Then, in October Tesla made serious gains, allowing the company to report a return to profitability in its third-quarter earnings, much to the surprise and delight of investors. That sent shares soaring another 17% in after-hours trading. Since October, Tesla's share price has doubled, thanks to good vehicle delivery numbers for 2019 and the company's new Gigafactory in Shanghai. This month, Tesla became the highest-valued U.S. automaker in history. Not long after it hit that benchmark, the company's market cap exceeded that of Ford and GM combined.
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Tesla's rally wasn't done yet, most recently it broke the $500 per share threshold. As of this writing, Tesla's stock is still trading over $500, at $513.49, just off from Tuesday, January 14th's high of $543.76.
All of this means that Ellison's $1 billion bet on Elon Musk's electric car company is now worth roughly $1.6 billion.
Year-to-date Tesla's stock is up about 25%. Larry Ellison has a net worth of $70 billion.
