In 2018, He Was Sleeping On The Factory Floor As His Company Kept Missing Production Targets. Less Than 3 Years Later, Tesla Shareholders Had Made Over 13 Times Their Money, And Elon Musk Was The Richest Man In The World.
Elon Musk was sleeping on a factory floor, missing production targets, and calling the year the most painful of his career. What happened next inside that plant set off one of the most striking runs in stock market history.
This post may contain links from our sponsors and affiliates, and Flywheel Publishing may receive compensation for actions taken through them.
In April 2018, Elon Musk publicly confirmed he was sleeping on the floor of Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA | TSLA Price Prediction)’s Fremont factory. On April 3, he posted “Car biz is hell.” Asked on April 11 why he was sleeping there, he said, “Because I don’t have time to go home and shower.”
Less than three years later, he was the richest person in the world, and Tesla shareholders who held through that stretch had grew their money many times over. The distance between those two points is why this period still matters to anyone studying the stock today.
Model 3 Production Hell at Its Worst
Those weeks marked the peak of what became known as Model 3 production hell. A production target is the weekly output a manufacturer plans to delivering, and Wall Street tracks it closely as a signal of whether revenue forecasts are realistic. Tesla was badly missing its target of 2,500 cars a week, hitting 2,020 that week.
In August 2018, Musk told the New York Times the year had been “the most difficult and painful year of my career,” and called it excruciating.
24/7 Wall St. covered the period as it happened, publishing Elon Musk’s Hellish Months in June 2018, in the middle of the stretch described here.
What Tesla Shares Cost During the Factory-Floor Weeks
On a split-adjusted basis, accounting for Tesla’s 5-for-1 split in 2020 and 3-for-1 split in 2022, the stock traded between roughly $17.84 and $20.38 that week, averaging out about $19.57. Pull the April 2018 quote from a raw source. You will see a much higher number, because that is what the ticker displayed before the two splits divided each share into more pieces.
Tesla confirmed the dates of those splits, effective August 31, 2020 and August 25, 2022, and its shareholder materials are archived on the Tesla investor relations site.
From Sleeping at the Plant to World’s Richest in Under Three Years
On January 7, 2021, Musk passed Jeff Bezos to become the world’s richest person, confirmed by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index and Forbes. That came two years and nine months after the factory-floor period, which is the basis for the less-than-three-years framing.
Split-adjusted Tesla traded around $264.51 in January 2021. Our editor figures that as roughly 13.5 times the April 2018 average, or a gain of about 1,251%. We did not independently verify that math. The pattern behind that kind of run, and what the earliest signals looked like, is the whole subject of our free Next Nvidia playbook.
During the trading week that contained the milestone, adjusted shares moved from $243.26 to $293.34, a rise of 20.59%.
Where Tesla Stock Stands Today
Tesla traded at $373.03 as of 1:44 PM Eastern on September 25, 2026, down 1.30% on the day. That quote is delayed by roughly fifteen minutes. The company’s market capitalization stands at $1,473,299,517,410.
The recent record is mixed. Shares are down 17.05% year to date from $449.72, and down 15.75% over the past year. Over ten years, the stock is up 2,577.38% from $13.93. Tesla sits far above where it traded during the factory-floor weeks, and it has also lost ground over the past twelve months. Both facts belong in any fair reading of the chart.
Investors who want the latest primary-source detail can review Tesla’s most recent quarterly results, filed with the SEC on July 22, 2026, in the company’s 8-K filing on sec.gov. Those filings, rather than headlines, are where the company’s own numbers live, and they are the place to keep an eye on as the next quarterly report approaches.
Two Scenes Eight Years Apart
Tesla’s chief executive slept at the plant. In April 2018, he had no time to go home and shower, while the company produced 2,020 cars in a week against a target of 2,500. Today, that company’s market value is measured in trillions.
Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.
AJ spent 10 years writing about financial markets at The Motley Fool. His coverage centers on technology stocks and the broader macroeconomic trends, from interest rates to geopolitics, that shape where markets are headed next. AJ is drawn to the stories where big-picture economics and individual companies collide.
