"I called Tesla a value stock in the middle of 2019. Its market cap was 40 billion," Steve Symington said. "People thought it was a pie-in-the-sky market cap of 500 billion; right now we're at 1.12 trillion."
The usual way to revisit a call that good is to repeat it louder. Symington did the opposite: he downgraded his own language to "buy hold," on the grounds that a trillion-dollar company cannot compound the way a $40 billion one did.
"I got called crazy like seven years ago."
Symington is Managing Director of New Columbia Capital, was a lead adviser at 7investing, and wrote for the Motley Fool, where two colleagues told him on air that calling Tesla a value stock was crazy.
The full episode is covered here so you can skip it. 29 minutes of audio, 13 minutes of reading.
Here are the 10 takeaways that matter.
👤 Guest: Steve Symington, Managing Director of New Columbia Capital and a former Lead Adviser at 7investing, who called Tesla a value stock in 2019 when its market cap was $40 billion
🎙️ Hosts: Simon Erickson, founder of 7investing, and Heather Horton, its Executive Producer
📰 Published: 15 September 2026 on YouTube (7investing) · recorded 14 September 2026
🔴 YouTube | 🟢 Spotify | 🟣 Apple Podcasts | ⏱️ 29 min | ✅ Time saved: 13 min
Key Takeaways
The 2019 value-stock call was made at a $40B market cap against a $500B ceiling nobody believed
"right now we're at 1.12 trillion"
US electric-vehicle sales fell 30% through August and Tesla's fell 17%, which is the whole bull case for now
Symington's frame is a 400-meter race: the runner who decelerates slowest wins
The man who called it a value stock now says only "buy hold"
A trillion-dollar company cannot appreciate at the rate of the early-stage businesses he buys
Erickson's 2024 discounted cash flow put Tesla the car company at $104 a share and Tesla the AI company at $645
On the same assumptions that is $721 today, but Tesla has missed several of them
Optimus is a call option, not a reason to own the stock
Deliveries and cash flow have been flat for about two years
Model S and Model X production has stopped at Fremont, and subsidized Chinese rivals are moving up into Tesla's price points
Musk overpromises and underdelivers on timing, and delivers anyway
A co-host sold her Tesla in 2019 to buy a house and never bought it back
She will not short it either: "I just don't play"
The 2019 bankruptcy scare is the reason Erickson rates Musk as an operator
Asked how he got through it, Musk asked the audience about their pain threshold
7investing's own conviction rating on Tesla is a to-be-continued
1. The 2019 Value-Stock Call
Erickson opened by asking what Symington makes of Tesla as a company now, and Symington went back to the call that started their long argument about it.
The claim was made in a round table naming three value stocks to buy, in the middle of 2019, and two Motley Fool colleagues told him he was crazy. "It was the middle of 2019 by two of our Motley Fool colleagues at the time," he said, naming Jason Hall as one of the two.
The numbers around the call are the point. "I called Tesla a value stock in the middle of 2019. Its market cap was 40 billion," he said, at a time when a $500 billion valuation was treated as fantasy: "People thought it was a pie-in-the-sky market cap of 500 billion; right now we're at 1.12 trillion."
His explanation for why the call worked is that the doubt never stops. "And yeah, people just perpetually think you're crazy for believing in a company like this." The company keeps placing bets that could "multiply their market cap multiple times over", and "people continue to doubt them."
The specific error he says investors make is applying an earnings multiple to it. People look at a stock on over 300 times earnings and stop there. "You can't think of it that way when you're trying to find value stocks anymore, looking at PE ratios, and you have to kind of think outside the box."
He separates the person from the business explicitly — "Maybe separate the politics and the person from the business" — and says the pattern holds either way: "I think it's one of those businesses that I think people perpetually underestimate."
He would not rule out the same thing happening again. He said he would not be surprised if Tesla multiplies its market capitalization several fold from here, on an unknown timeline: "I'd be shocked if its bets didn't continue to pay off."
2. Overpromise, Then Deliver
Erickson asked what was not being appreciated in 2019, given Tesla was hardly a hidden company.
What sounded absurd then has since shipped. Symington's examples were an end-of-summer unveiling of an electric pickup truck — now the Cybertruck — and robotaxi fleets, both of which people thought overly ambitious at the time. "And of course they've done it."
The timing is the part that is reliably wrong. "I think he has this perpetual habit of sort of overpromising and underdelivering, but he does eventually deliver," Symington said, so "I would take the time frames that they target with a grain of salt."
He treats the impossible targets as the mechanism rather than a flaw. Everyone at Tesla is pushed "almost beyond their limits" to hit goals that look impossible, and even when it takes longer than planned, "they generally do achieve them."
The recruiting consequence is what he calls an unmistakable advantage. "I mean, they kind of have their pick of the litter when it comes to talent."
3. Winning Unsexy Industries
Erickson's framing is that the premium on the stock is the founder. "The Elon effect, I think, is maybe the premium that the stock deserves," he said, because Tesla competes in automotive, battery production and energy production — industries nobody is excited to invest in, and which Musk entered knowing that. "Elon knows that going in. He accomplishes things that others cannot."
Symington's addition is a method, not a personality. "I think what they do is they go and they figure out why those companies failed and they figure out how to fix it, and they have the resources and the scale to fix it in a way that arguably no other company could."
He is not claiming a perfect record. Big companies have failures along the way — "I mean, the Fire Phone popping in my head right now."
The payoff is in the batting average across large markets. "But if they can place enough calculated bets where they can succeed in massive global industries where other businesses fail, then that's where you have sort of this hidden value creation that tends to happen."
4. Two Years in Neutral
Erickson went through Tesla's second-quarter 2026 production, deliveries, storage deployments and supercharger build, and then put the weak parts on the table himself.
Global automotive production has stopped growing. "We are basically at the same point that we were a year ago."
Two model lines have come off the Fremont line. "We just saw that they've stopped producing the Model S and the Model X out of Fremont anymore," with the facilities redirected to other uses.
China is the competitive problem, and it is moving upmarket. "China has got a boatload of competitors that are making lower-priced electric vehicles that are government subsidized but are competing against Tesla," and those rivals are climbing into the price points Tesla's more expensive cars occupy. Inventories there have been an issue.
The growth that is working earns less. "Storage and solar seems to be going very, very well. But again, this is a kind of a lower gross margin industry." It is not producing the same bang for the buck as before.
Deliveries and cash flow both look flat over a two-year window. "We've kind of been stuck in neutral at least for the last call it two years or so," with better and worse quarters inside it.
The question he put to Symington was blunt: "Is Tesla's traditional reason for investing in the company decaying," or is it stalling before it comes back?
5. Falling Slower Than EVs
Symington's first answer is that this is what a cyclical industry at scale looks like. "I think now that we've reached scale — we have to remember that the automotive industry is a very cyclical industry."
His evidence was a set of figures he attributed to the Wall Street Journal, published the previous day. Tesla's market share "has crept back up over 50% again," and on the sales side, "EV sales overall in the United States, I think it was, were down 30% year-over-year through August, I think, and Tesla's sales were only down 17%."
He hedged the attribution as he gave it — "I think it was the Wall Street Journal" — and said the data may have been based on Tesla's own deliveries.
The frame he used for that is a track race. "So, it's one of those things where if you can fail at, or not fail, but decline at a rate that's slower than everybody else, it's kind of like the 100 meter dash, right?" In the 400 in particular, he said — he is a track and field man — the runner who "can sustain their speed and decelerate the slowest" is the one who wins.
The conclusion is about position at the turn, not about the current quarter. "And I think Tesla's tending to do something like that in this case, where if the overall market is falling and they're falling slower than everybody else, then they're just going to come out of it even stronger." So long as the company holds its gross margins and keeps taking share, "I think you're still in good shape with their core business."
Erickson read that back as an infrastructure story and Symington agreed. The fixed costs are enormous — "It's not cheap to build a gigafactory or produce the kind of scale like Tesla's doing in its markets" — and the mature lines now throw off cash the company can deploy elsewhere, at a lower growth rate than before.
6. Cyber Cab Starts Charging
Erickson walked through what the gigafactories are now building alongside cars.
The cyber cab is positioned against a ride-hailing company rather than a carmaker. "A less expensive fully autonomous electric vehicle that is going to look something more like Uber than it did — than it looks like Ford."
It is taking paid rides. "Not fully deployed — it is racking up actual miles that people are paying for in the San Francisco area," and employees around Gigafactory Texas in Austin can ride with a supervising driver in the car.
Erickson's caveat on the schedule is the same one Symington gave. "We can't ever hold Elon to his initial timeline," but the rollout is reaching more metropolitan areas.
Symington's interest is in the moment the new lines stop costing money and start adding to it. "And as soon as this starts to be accretive to the core business, that's when you have these cash-generating monsters that kind of shock people at how quickly it turns."
He invoked a former employer on the valuation objection. "I think of like our old boss David Gardner — he's almost attracted to businesses that seem perpetually overvalued," because those businesses eventually "grow into their valuation and shock people." His summary of the record: "Tesla is a business that has made a lot of people look very silly over time."
The practical advice he gave is about position sizing, not about the stock. An investor should "dollar cost average your way into positions like this" rather than buy once and wait, because "You know, the other mistake people make is buying it in one place and then being like, okay, it's going to go up from there."
7. A $721 Model That Missed
Erickson's argument is that Tesla's share price moves on narrative — a robotaxi announcement, "Elon shooting ball bearings into the windows," excitement, then a slipped timeline and impatience — so he built the numbers instead, in a model of more than twenty tabs covering automotive, services, energy and storage, leasing, full self-driving software sold by subscription, and the robotaxi network.
The 2024 output, and what it would be today. "And at the time, this is back in 2024, I thought it was worth $650 a share." On the same assumptions, "At today's rate, using those same assumptions as I did then, we would say Tesla would be worth $721 a share. A screaming buy at today's prices."
The model separated three businesses. From the May 2024 discounted cash flow: "I thought Tesla, the car company, was worth $104 a share," and "I thought Tesla, the overall AI company, was worth $645 a share back then, which is now $721 today if you use those same assumptions today."
Tesla has not met those assumptions, and Erickson said so. Model S and Model X sales have stopped — "It's now shifting that production to make the generation 3 Optimus robots" — and "It has also sold fewer cars than we assumed that it was going to sell in the year 2025."
His reading of that is not bearish, because the capacity gets reused. Tesla built the manufacturing infrastructure, got it to scale, and then finds new markets with a bigger opportunity than the one the plant was built for. He counts that as an asset rather than a liability.
Where he now puts the two new bets. The robotaxi network is still a key ingredient of the investment case. Optimus is not: "I'm still a bit unsure about what I think about the Optimus robots. I think it's more of a call option, a hockey stick of potential if you will, than something we should pin our futures on."
The SpaceX connection is about funding, not product. Musk can now direct contracts toward SpaceX, "flush with cash after raising $75 billion" in its IPO earlier this year, and Erickson's description of the skill is capital allocation: "Elon is the master at moving around capital and raising funding at the right time to put money into the businesses to work on the projects that he wants to work on."
Symington agreed without qualification. "That's the thing — love him or hate him, he's really good at what he does," and "I've watched people regret betting against him over and over again."
8. Strong Buy to Buy-Hold
Asked directly where he lands — strong buy, buy and hold, weak hold, or selling — Symington gave the least dramatic answer available.
He would not call it a strong buy. "I mean, I'd say I wouldn't call it necessarily a strong buy."
The reason is the size of the company, not the quality of it. Set against the earlier-stage businesses he usually buys, the rate at which Tesla can now appreciate is much slower than it was "when I was yelling from the rooftops" about it being a value stock seven years ago.
He would still hold it, and would not warn a new buyer off. "But I think it's still a business worth holding on to. And if you don't have a position, I don't think people would regret owning it." Forced to pick a label: "So, I'd say buy hold would be where, if I had to, if I was forced to choose, that'd be where I'd place it."
Erickson's summary of the shift: "So, you're speaking confidently from the second-story balcony rather than screaming from the rooftop about Tesla here today."
The SpaceX-acquires-Tesla rumor was raised and dismissed. There is nothing substantiated behind it, and Musk shrugs when asked. Erickson's answer was that he cannot see what Tesla shareholders get out of it beyond an acquisition pop, which would be strange at this size: "I give a 5% chance of happening personally."
9. Why Heather Stays Out
Erickson brought in Horton, who has covered Tesla alongside them for fifteen years and does not own it.
Her first rule is about the investor, not the company. "I think Tesla is one of those stocks that, one, you have to know yourself as an investor. It's going to have ups and downs, and if you're a panic seller, don't get near it."
She sold in 2019 and never went back. "I sold my Tesla stock in 2019, I believe," and later added that the decision was not a thesis: "I will say my selling was not some grand plan or thought process. It was I was buying a house." She bought plenty of other things back afterwards. "And I never rebought. I rebought a lot of things, but this was one I chose not to."
She holds David Gardner's principle and cannot apply it here. "No, I — while I do follow very much David Gardner's like invest in the future you want, and I think that there are aspects of Elon Musk's future that are beautiful, I just can't." Her stated reason: "I'm someone who's very politically motivated in my investing as well."
Her general objection is about key-person risk in the share price. "I am always really wary of CEOs that have too much personality tied into a stock price."
She concedes the case against her position in the same breath. With as much money behind you as Musk has, she said, "you can make wild things happen. And you shouldn't bet against that even if you're not hopping on that wagon."
Staying out is not the same as being short. "But I would never short this stock. I would not bet against it. I just don't play."
10. The Bankruptcy Scare
Erickson closed the argument with what 2019 actually felt like, which is the context the value-stock call was made in.
Serious people thought Tesla might not survive. Accountants and chartered financial analysts were arguing the numbers did not work, that Musk was attempting too much, and a large part of the investing community sold out rather than risk being wiped out.
His answer to how Musk got through it is a line from a conference. Erickson saw Musk speak at South by Southwest two years later and heard him answer the question of how he did it: "How is your pain threshold? Mine is very high."
What he says that shows is an operating trait rather than a personality one. "He can handle these things, and he gets hyper aware of how to run the business when times are the most difficult." Erickson, who runs a company himself, said the hard part of a crisis is that operations and decisions get harder at the same time.
"I don't think we've ever seen another CEO that's as good at that as he is."
His own verdict lands next to Symington's. "You know, this is a company that's on a much stronger financial footing than it was. And I don't think Tesla is at a risk of going bankrupt," with the mature businesses producing cash while the company takes on the robotaxi network and Optimus. "I think that for me it's a hold, maybe a weak buy."
"I don't think I'm screaming or pounding the table about buying the shares, but I wouldn't sell with Tesla still having more potential."
Bonus Insights
Symington's final thought was about Musk's politics, and it was not a defense. He said betting against Musk is "a fool's errand. Lowercase F, right?" — a joke on their shared former employer — and then: "I'm not convinced that he even believes the things he was touting. He just knew it was a power play, and he's smart enough to do that." His summary of Musk as an investor's asset is narrow and specific: "he's very good at allocating capital."
Horton's final position was a conditional one. "I would be, yeah, a really weak buy if like him removed — the problems I have with him removed. I think it'd be a weak buy at this point." And again, on never betting against it: "That's gone so poorly for so many people."
7investing's own rating has not moved. Erickson said the firm reviewed Tesla on its subscriber call the week before and that "Tesla remains a to-be-continued," noting "Tesla is on the scorecard as a previous recommendation before."
The live format is part of the show. Erickson runs it Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings and opens the studio to live questions; none arrived in time to be put to Symington, and the closing question slot went to the panel instead.
The bottom line the three of them arrived at is the same one from three directions: nobody on the show would bet against Tesla, and nobody would pound the table for it — Symington at buy-hold, Erickson at hold or weak buy, and Horton out of the stock on grounds that have nothing to do with the numbers.
Products, Companies & Tools Mentioned
Tesla (The subject throughout: a $40B market cap in 2019, $1.12 trillion now, flat deliveries for two years, and two new bets in the cyber cab and Optimus)
The Cybertruck, the cyber cab and Optimus (The electric pickup that sounded absurd in 2019, the robotaxi now taking paid rides in San Francisco, and the humanoid robot whose generation 3 production is taking over the Model S and Model X lines)
SpaceX (Raised $75 billion in its IPO earlier this year, can now be directed contracts by Musk, and is the subject of an unsubstantiated rumor about acquiring Tesla)
Uber and Ford (Erickson's two reference points for what a cyber cab is: closer to a ride-hailing network than to a carmaker)
The Motley Fool (Where Symington was told on air that calling Tesla a value stock was crazy, and where David Gardner was his boss)
New Columbia Capital (Symington's firm, where he is Managing Director)
Amazon's Fire Phone (Symington's example that even the biggest companies ship failures)
Books & Resources Mentioned
Wall Street Journal data on US electric-vehicle sales (Symington's source, published the day before the show, for Tesla's market share back above 50% and for US EV sales down 30% against Tesla's 17%)
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