Investor optimism following Donald Trump re-election win pushes Nvidia to record high, adds 30 percent to Tesla stock price

Nvidia became the first-ever listed company to surpass a $3.6 billion (£2.8bn) market valuation, as its shares and those of electric carmaker Tesla benefited from a stock market rally following Donald Trump’s successful re-election bid.

The AI chipmaker’s shares rose more than 7 percent during the week, ending Thursday at a record high of $3.65tn before declining slightly on Friday.

Investors shrugged off concerns that Trump might impose tariffs on Taiwanese contract chipmaker TSMC, which manufactures chips for Nvidia, Apple and others, and bet that the AI chipmaker would benefit from tax cuts and decreased regulation.

Earlier last week Nvidia surpassed Apple as the world’s most valuable listed company.

AI surge

Apple’s shares rose more than 2 percent during the week and it ended with a market capitalisation of about $3.4tn, followed by Microsoft with $3.14tn.

The market capitalisations of Nvidia, Apple and Microsoft have been neck-and-neck this year as all three companies are seen as strongly poised to reap gains from demand for generative artificial intelligence (AI) services.

Tesla’s shares rose more than 30 percent during the week as the company rejoined the select club of companies worth more than $1tn.

The stock is up about 29 percent so far this year after the rally.

Nvidia, Apple, Microsoft, Google parent Alphabet, Amazon and Facebook owner Meta Platforms are also worth more than $1tn, with all of those except Meta worth more than $2tn.

Trillion-dollar club

Tesla first crossed the $1tn mark in October 2021 amidst a pandemic-era rally across the tech sector.

The EV company is seen as benefiting from diminished regulations, analysts say.

“Tesla has the scale and scope that is unmatched in the EV industry and this dynamic could give Musk and Tesla a clear competitive advantage in a non-EV subsidy environment,” wrote Wedbush analyst Dan Ives in a research note, referring Trump comments that he may cut the US federal $7,500 EV tax credit.