Ark’s Cathie Wood predicts Tesla stock will hit $2,600 by 2030

Cathie Wood said on Tuesday in Hong Kong that she expects Tesla shares to reach $2,600 by 2030, according to an interview she gave Bloomberg TV on Monday night.

She made the projection during an interview and repeated it later at the HSBC Global Investment Summit, claiming the growth will come almost entirely from robo taxis, which she believes will drive 90% of Tesla’s future value.

Cathie told Bloomberg that her firm, Ark Investment Management, hasn’t even added Tesla’s humanoid robot initiatives into the forecast yet. “We haven’t included that in the valuation,” she said, referring to the company’s work on robotics. She also said Tesla still performs better than China’s BYD in power and range per dollar, even though BYD topped $100 billion in revenue and overtook Tesla in sales.

Cathie says robo taxis will drive Tesla’s future value

Cathie said her $2,600 forecast was built around the idea that Tesla would dominate the autonomous ride-hailing market, with self-driving taxis making up the bulk of its valuation by the end of the decade. She didn’t name exact rollout dates but said the autonomous taxi platform is still the core trigger for the stock’s future climb.

The forecast comes even as Tesla’s actual performance in 2025 tells a different story. The stock dropped sharply this year. Even though it rebounded in the last four trading days to around $278, that’s still far below her expectations.

Sales and deliveries have fallen in Europe and China, with no signs of improvement. Meanwhile, political pressure has grown around Tesla CEO Elon Musk, especially after his Department of Government Efficiency cut thousands of jobs across federal and state agencies.

Cathie defended her position despite the slump, saying Tesla remains Ark’s largest holding in its flagship ARK Innovation ETF, which held 10% of its $5.8 billion in assets in Tesla as of March 24. That’s lower than the 16% allocation at the end of 2024, but still a big chunk. This shift was documented in Ark’s fund disclosures and confirmed on their website.

Back in 2023, Cathie and her analysts predicted Tesla shares would rise to $2,000 by 2027, fueled by market share gains from legacy automakers.

Then in July, she said the launch of an autonomous taxi network would push the price closer to $2,600, about ten times where the stock trades now. Her prediction hasn’t changed, even as the company faces slower growth and regulatory battles in multiple countries.

Cathie confirms Tesla and Bitcoin are still Ark’s top buys

When Bloomberg asked Cathie if she still believed Bitcoin would reach $1.5 million by 2030, she said yes. “It is our view,” Cathie said in a March 18 interview, confirming the estimate is still the same. She said the crypto market is going through a “risk-off” phase right now but added that Bitcoin has been leading risk sentiment for months.

Cathie used on-chain analytics to support her view, saying Bitcoin is now halfway through a typical four-year cycle and still moving inside a bull market. She said U.S. deregulation around crypto is key, and that institutions are watching.

“They have to have a point of view on this new asset class,” she said. “And by putting it in portfolios, risk-adjusted returns for the whole portfolio go up.”

When asked to choose between Tesla, Bitcoin, and Nvidia for buying the dip, Cathie didn’t hesitate. “We’ve been buying Tesla and names that mimic Bitcoin,” she said. She added that Ark has also been adding positions in Coinbase and Robinhood, using what she called a “risk-off grid” strategy to scoop up what she thinks are underpriced bets in the crypto and tech sectors.

She said Ark publishes its trades every day and anyone can track where they’re putting money. Right now, that’s going into Tesla, Bitcoin-exposed stocks, and a few select innovation plays.

Cathie expects negative quarters and multiple rate cuts

Cathie also talked about the macroeconomic picture, saying she believes the U.S. has already entered what she called a rolling recession, even though Treasury Secretary Bessant said earlier this month that the economy isn’t headed for one. “We think we’re already in it,” she said.

Cathie explained that the velocity of money is collapsing because people are scared. She pointed to public workers in education and healthcare who are now worried about job security. “The labor force is nervous,” she said, and that fear is causing savings rates to climb and spending to drop. That’s dragging the economy down further.

She said this slow-motion decline could open the door for President Trump’s administration and the Federal Reserve to step in with tax cuts and rate cuts. “We think this gives the Fed more degrees of freedom,” she told Bloomberg. She expects quantitative tightening to end, or at least slow down, by the second half of the year.

When asked how many rate cuts she sees coming in 2025, Cathie said, “We wouldn’t be surprised to see two or three.” But she added that it could go even further if inflation drops more than expected. She brought up the trueflation index, which she said shows inflation at just 1.65%, way below the CPI’s 2.8%.

She listed off key signals: food prices are falling, egg prices are crashing, gas is cheaper, and rents are starting to dip. She said all of this means the Fed might have more flexibility than the market expects. “We could see more than the number I just suggested: two to three,” she said.

Cathie also blamed this drop in inflation on deflation coming from innovation, especially from Ark’s five innovation sectors. She called it “good deflation” and said it’s driving down prices while keeping growth alive. She didn’t break down all five areas, but her firm has long invested in AI, robotics, blockchain, DNA tech, and energy storage.

Cathie’s rise to fame started during Covid, when she made huge calls on stocks like Tesla, Zoom, and Roku, which exploded during lockdowns. At one point in early 2021, her funds hit $60 billion in assets, driven by retail investors who tracked her every move. That number has shrunk since then, but her bold forecasts certainly have not.

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