Tesla IPO Raises $226 Million US

You didn’t need to be a stock analyst or financial wiz-kid to get excited for Tesla’s initial public offering. One of the most talked-about automotive badges in the world today, Elon Musk’s electric car company has been fighting critics since day one, and if the results of their IPO are any indication, it would appear that Musk & Co. are winning the battle.

Raising $226 million in a single day, Tesla sold 13.3 million shares at $17 dollars per share. With early reports setting the stock at $15 or possibly $16 dollars per share before the IPO, the result is surprising to say the least. What’s more surprising still was the 40% increase in share price since the stocks were first released.

The first American automaker IPO since Ford went public in 1956, Tesla’s stock success bears a striking resemblance to that of numerous Silicon Valley released prior to the dot com bubble’s burst. Selling just 1,000 of their exorbitantly priced and controversially successful Roadsters, the brand’s sales have stagnated with the only salvation a long ways off in the form of the Tesla Model S sedan set to be released in 2012. Vastly outstripping Tesla’s own net tangible assets, critics place the IPO value at just over 5.5 times that of Tesla’s own worth, with current share prices going even further down the proverbial rabbit hole. Having yet to turn a profit, the IPO nearly made up for the $230.5 million US that the brand has lost since its 2003 debut, but its future success is far from certain.