Meta and Tesla Are Suddenly Worth the Same $1.48 Trillion. Which Stock Wins from Here?

Two companies that agree on almost nothing closed Thursday agreeing on exactly one thing: what they're worth. Meta Platforms (NASDAQ: META) and Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) each ended the week at a market value of about $1.48 trillion.

Meta got there by falling. Its shares sit about 27% below their 52-week high, including a 4.9% slide on Thursday alone, as investors fret over its swelling spending plans and what artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots and agents could mean for its advertising machine. Tesla got there by falling, too -- about 21% below its high -- but on the same day it reported second-quarter deliveries up about 25% year over year.

Same price tag, very different businesses. Which one wins from here?

Image source: Getty Images.

Meta: the case at $1.48 trillion

Meta's first quarter made the bear case harder to hold. Revenue rose 33% year over year to $56.31 billion, and the growth came from both levers of the social media giant's ad business: impressions climbed 19% while the average price per ad rose 12%. About 3.56 billion people used its apps daily in March, up 4% from a year earlier -- a figure that dipped slightly from the prior quarter on internet disruptions in Iran and a WhatsApp restriction in Russia, offering a reminder of how much of the planet this network already covers.

Meta's profits remain impressive, too. The social network's operating income rose 30% to $22.9 billion, holding the company's operating margin at a staggering 41%. Reported earnings per share of $10.44 were aided by an $8.03 billion one-time income tax benefit, but even stripping that out, earnings per share grew by double digits.

Meanwhile, the bear case for the stock is about the bill. Meta raised its 2026 capital expenditure outlook to $125 billion to $145 billion, citing pricier components and additional data center costs. Total costs already grew 35% last quarter, faster than revenue -- an early hint of that spending reaching the income statement.

But at about 19 times forward earnings, much of that worry appears to be priced in already.

Tesla: the case at $1.48 trillion

Tesla's recent news flow looks better than its stock. The company delivered 480,126 vehicles in the second quarter, its strongest second-quarter volume in years -- and the market sold the report anyway, sending the shares down 7.5% in a day.

The reason for this disconnect probably lies in the income statement. In the first quarter, Tesla's revenue grew 16% year over year while it posted a 4.2% operating margin, and the company has earned just $1.10 per share over the past 12 months. And even on analysts' consensus forecast for earnings per share over the next 12 months, the stock trades above 200 times -- about 10 times Meta's forward multiple.

What that price buys is the future: an autonomy business that took a visible step on Friday, when Tesla's robotaxi service began carrying riders in Miami, its first market outside Texas and California. The expansion cadence is encouraging. But the revenue from it, for now, is not disclosed and almost certainly small.

Which one wins from here?

Given Tesla's low earnings today, its stock is clearly priced almost entirely on future expectations, while Meta's is based on the strong profits it's already producing.

Meta produced $22.9 billion of operating income in a single quarter. And Meta's 33% revenue growth rate is double what Tesla's revenue managed in its most recent reported quarter.

For the same $1.48 trillion, one stock offers 33% revenue growth at about 19 times forward earnings. The other offers 16% growth at more than 200 times, plus a claim on robotaxis and humanoid robots whose economics one can only speculate about.

So, which stock do I think will outperform from here?

Meta.

Sure, we can't completely rule out the possibility that Tesla ends up winning over the long haul. If its Robotaxi business morphs into a high-margin operation and it scales humanoid robots profitably, profits could soar, and the stock could benefit. But the value proposition for Meta stock simply asks investors to believe a business already growing 33% keeps executing.

When two businesses are priced the same, I'd rather own the one whose results, not ambitions, carry the price -- especially when the underlying earnings are this far apart. With that said, I'd revisit that view if Tesla starts publishing robotaxi economics that support the excitement -- or if Meta's spending stops showing up as growth.

Daniel Sparks has clients with positions in Tesla. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Meta Platforms and Tesla. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.