At the close of the stock market yesterday, Ford was worth more than GM for the first time in five years, an accomplishment that I’m sure got Ford CEO Jim Farley some pats on the back, even if both Ford and GM’s valuations pale in comparison to Tesla.
GM pulled back ahead this morning, if only slightly, with both valued at around $82 billion (whereas Tesla is valued at just over $1 trillion). Wall Street analysts will tell you that these numbers, specifically, don’t mean much, given that, for the holidays, liquidity is down — meaning that the people who buy and sell stocks aren’t doing much of that right now, because they are probably, like the rest of us, fucking off to eat and drink too much until January.
Wall Street analysts would also say that, even apart from the holidays, Ford and GM or Tesla’s valuations don’t mean much to anyone who isn’t invested in Ford, GM, or Tesla, and they would be right. Executives like Farley might concede the point and counter with, “But it’s how we keep score,” and they would be right, too, because CEOs live and die depending on how their company’s stock is doing, and Elon Musk is currently the richest man in the world based on the performance of Tesla’s.
Anyway, Bloomberg says this is the first time since 2016 that Ford has bested GM:
The last time Ford was valued at more than its Detroit-based rival was Sept. 14, 2016, when Ford closed the day with a market cap of $48.2 billion.
Ford shares have more than doubled this year and have been trading around a 20-year-high. They’ve been on a tear since Jim Farley became chief executive officer 14 months ago and accelerated Ford’s push into electric vehicles. The automaker has sold out the first year of its electric F-150 pickup, debuting this spring, and plans to produce 600,000 EVs annually by 2024.
GM has a goal to go all-electric by the middle of the next decade, but surprised Wall Street with the abrupt departure of the head of its self-driving unit Cruise just ahead of expected approval for the launch of a robotaxi service in San Francisco.
Bloomberg also notes that Rivian is worth slightly more than both Ford and GM, too, currently around $88 billion. One of the most interesting things to me right now is what kind of person a Rivian person will be, since every automaker has its partisans, and many of those are of a type. Maybe a Rivian person will be sort of a Midwest Tesla person? Having trouble placing it.
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