Tesla has had a rough start to 2023. Despite selling a record 1.3 million vehicles last year, the company missed CEO Elon Musk's goal of growing sales by 50% every year. The carmaker also also missed Wall Street projections.
As a result, Tesla stock has plummeted, down nearly 70% since the beginning of last year. Musk even set a Guinness World Record for largest loss of a personal fortune in history. According to Forbes and Bloomberg, he has lost $182 billion to $200 billion since November 2021.
But that hasn't stopped the automaker from moving forward and, according to Reuters, the company plans to expand its gigafactory in Austin, Texas, to the tune of some $775.7 million dollars. The expansion will be the most significant since the company last year built a $5.5 billion gigafactory in Germany.
According to government filings, the company wants to build five new facilities in Texas, including a test lab for cells and a "Cathode” unit.
Tesla and Musk haven't commented on the report, not a single tweet yet, but the company does plan to host an investor day on March 1 at its Austin campus during which new details will likely emerge. Tesla still operates a production facility in Fremont, California as well as a gigafactory in Nevada and it's rumored that the carmarker will announce another potentially $1 billion gigafactory in Northern Mexico.
Don’t worry about Musk, he’s still worth more than $140 billion. He broke the record previously set by Japanese tech investor and Softbank founder and CEO Masayoshi Son in 2000 when he lost $58.6 billion in the dot com crash.
