Cathie Wood's Ark Invest has never sold its Tesla stake even as the stock trails every other Magnificent Seven name in 2026. Ark holds a $1 billion Tesla position and a long-term price target of $4,600 a share, betting almost entirely on Tesla's robotaxi ambitions.
Tesla stock has swung wildly since 2021, surging above $400 in 2025 only to collapse below $250 that same year. Through every drop, Ark Invest has kept its core stake intact, trimming and adding along the way but never exiting.
Why Ark keeps holding
Tesla now trades around $350 a share, giving it a $1.1 trillion market cap, and Tesla remains one of Ark's largest holdings across all its funds. Ark's long-term price target has climbed to $4,600 a share, up from an earlier target of $3,000, and the firm maintains the stock can still deliver 1,000% gains for patient shareholders.
That conviction no longer rests on car sales. Wood's firm now views Tesla as a future robotaxi operator rather than a simple EV maker, pointing to its vertical integration and heavy investment in AI and self-driving technology as advantages over rivals.
According to Wood: "That's how quickly AI is going to cause these things to happen." The robotaxi opportunity alone accounts for 90% of Ark's long-term price prediction for Tesla.
A real cost edge, but a longer runway
Tesla's manufacturing scale gives it a genuine near-term advantage. The company is targeting production costs between $20,000 and $30,000 for its Cybercab. Goldman Sachs, by contrast, estimates rivals face up-front costs between $50,000 and $100,000, a gap that could translate into a $0.05-to-$0.30-per-mile cost edge.
But the timeline keeps stretching. Ark has already pushed out its growth timelines and price targets for Tesla's robotaxi business. A McKinsey & Co. survey of experts had previously projected robotaxis would reach scale by 2029; a recent update pushed that forecast to 2030.
Tesla's robotaxi bet is real, and so is the patience it demands. Ark's conviction hinges on a payoff that keeps arriving a year later than promised.
Sources: Motley Fool (via Yahoo Finance), The Motley Fool
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