Cathie Wood says Tesla is the ‘biggest AI opportunity in the world’ today
Ark Invest CEO Cathie Wood says she believes that Tesla is the “biggest AI opportunity in the world” today. “So we think it has miles to go, it has just started,” she told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” on Wednesday. She says that Tesla’s autonomous taxi opportunity “is going to be a winner.” “So the first company that gets people from point A to point B the fastest and the safest is probably going to be the biggest winner in the space,” Wood said. “In the United States we believe Tesla’s in the pole position and what’s so interesting about [the] autonomous taxi platform is the margin structure,” she added. She likened the margin structure to that of electric vehicles, with a 20% to 30% gross profit margin range. “Again, this isn’t the biggest AI project in the world right now. And we think it’s incredibly undervalued,” Wood said. Wood gave Tesla a $2,000 price target by 2027 – representing potential upside of a whopping 650% from Tuesday’s close. Elon Musk has spoken of his ambitions to create a fleet of self-driving, electric taxis. Last year, he said that Tesla will make a “dedicated” self-driving taxi that will “look futuristic,” but did not give a timeline, according to Reuters. Tesla is the biggest holding in Wood’s flagship Ark Innovation ETF (ARKK) fund, with a 11.35% weighting . That’s an increase from a 9.4% weighting earlier this year. The investor has been a longtime Tesla bull, betting on the accelerated shift to electric vehicles. Her previous target was $1,500 per share by 2026. Wood previously said she believes the robotaxi opportunity could deliver $8 trillion to $10 trillion in revenue by 2030. “In the autonomous industry, we’re not just talking about EVs here,” she said Wednesday, adding there are robotics technology and AI, among other elements. “That is going to create, we think, explosive opportunities … we see taking a truly disruptive innovation from roughly $15 trillion today in the global marketplace to 200 trillion in the next five to 10 years. AI is the biggest catalyst,” Wood said. — CNBC’s Yun Li contributed to this report.