Tesla (TSLA) soars as market sees SpaceX’s success as credibility boost for Elon Musk

Tesla’s stock (TSLA) is soaring today and significantly outpacing the market despite the lack of significant news about the automaker, but some analysts attribute the jump to SpaceX’s successful launch of two astronauts, which they see as a credibility boost for Elon Musk.

On Saturday, SpaceX successfully launched its Dragon spacecraft with NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley on board — becoming the first private company to send humans to the International Space Station.

You can follow our coverage of the mission on our new sister site Space Explored.

The historic moment is a major milestone for Elon Musk’s SpaceX, and while it doesn’t seem to have much to do with the CEO’s other company, Tesla, some are attributing the stock price surge to the achievement.

Tesla’s stock is up more than 6% today:

That’s despite the fact that little news came out about the automaker since the market close last week, despite the accelerated delivery timeline for Model Y.

Some people attribute Tesla’s stock price boost to SpaceX’s successful mission this weekend.

Wedbush analysts Dan Ives wrote in a note to clients today:

While SpaceX and Tesla are separate companies despite some R&D cross pollination in some key areas, from a consumer perspective the Musk DNA remains the linchpin to both of these next generation technology stalwarts and we would characterize the historic success of SpaceX as another major shot in the arm to the Tesla brand.

Adam Joans, analyst at Morgan Stanley, wrote something similar today:

In our opinion, Elon Musk is every bit as identified with the creation and ambition of SpaceX as he is with Tesla. As such, we believe the success of SpaceX in achieving some of the most sophisticated challenges in science has a direct bearing on public, investor and government perception of his ability to lead and execute. So does Elon Musk’s success (or lack thereof) at SpaceX have any bearing on the market’s perception of Tesla? In our opinion, it does. While we cannot ascribe a dollar amount to this factor, the credibility of Musk’s leadership even outside of the automotive business, matters to Tesla.

While Musk’s boosted profile due to SpaceX’s success might have a positive impact on Tesla, the automaker also got some pretty good direct advertising during the launch.

Millions of people watch the live stream of the mission and they saw the astronauts being transported to the launchpad in Tesla Model X vehicles, which are the new official NASA vehicles to transport astronauts.

As we reported last week, Tesla and SpaceX have been ramping up synergy with more purchases between the two companies and even the former sending some workers to the latter.