In an interview with CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Tuesday morning, billionaire investor Ron Baron (Trades, Portfolio), who leads New York-based Baron Capital, said he believes both Tesla Inc. (TSLA, Financial) and SpaceX still have plenty of room to grow.
Shares of Elon Musk’s Palo Alto, California-based electric vehicle company, which reported strong sales in China for the month of May, closed at a record of $949.92 on Monday after opening at $919. Baron said he projects the stock has “10 times more to go” and wants to buy more shares.
Year to date, Tesla’s stock has climbed nearly 125%.
The guru’s investment firm holds more than 1.6 million shares of Tesla as of March 31. Currently the firm’s fourth-largest holding, Baron said the stake has quadrupled in value. He previously said the firm expects to make 20 times its money on the stock.
CNBC reported that Baron Funds also owns 814,595 shares of SpaceX, which it first bought in September of 2017. Baron said he expects the privately held company, which is also run by Musk, to grow by 20 times over the next decade. The manufacturer of rockets and spacecraft successfully launched a pair of NASA astronauts on May 30, which Baron said makes it an “amazing opportunity” for investors.
As for the overall market, the long-term investor said he remains optimistic as it continues to recover from the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic. While Baron said he has “optimistic genes in [his] nature,” the guru pointed out that the market has gone on to new highs after enduring a number of “wars, depressions, recessions” and other crises in the past.
“I think what is next is going to be faster growth in the next period of time than it has been before, and what you would be worried about right now is whether or not we could conceivably tip into something much worse than a recession, a depression,” Baron said. “And how am I assured that’s not going to happen? Well we’ve just been through, 10 years ago, a learning experience and we have learned from that.”
He also revealed the firm has increased its position in several companies so far this year.
“Whenever we have opportunity, we try to take advantage of them,” he said.
According to GuruFocus data, the firm, which manages $32 billion, also has large stakes in CoStar Group Inc. (CSGP, Financial), Idexx Laboratories Inc. (IDXX, Financial), FactSet Research Systems Inc. (FDS, Financial) and Vail Resorts Inc. (MTN, Financial).
Watch the full interview below.
Disclosure: No positions.
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