Kevin O’Leary sure likes to speak his mind, and when it comes to Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) he’s been all over the map. The Shark Tank investor has told the story multiple times—if Elon Musk had walked into Shark Tank before launching Tesla and pitched the idea of an electric car company, O’Leary would have shut it down immediately. “I would say, ‘You’re crazy,'” he told CNBC in 2020, emphasizing that he typically only backs profitable businesses with a clear path to making money.
But despite his initial skepticism, O’Leary did end up investing in Tesla. He credits that decision to his son, Trevor, who interned at the company and saw its potential long before O’Leary did. In a 2022 YouTube clip, O’Leary recalled his reaction when he first considered the stock: “I want to short that stock, it’s such a joke. It’s a car company that’s trading at a ridiculous price.”
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Trevor didn’t hold back. “No, you’re a joke,” he told his father. “You don’t understand what Tesla is doing. I work there.” He explained that Tesla wasn’t just making cars—it was a data company. “Every mile a Tesla drives goes into a mapping database for autonomous cars,” he said.
That was all O’Leary needed to hear. “I didn’t know that,” he admitted. Without hesitation, he bought Tesla stock, then put it on the back burner. Months later, he checked his portfolio and was shocked—his Tesla investment had jumped 1,000%.
Since then, O’Leary has become one of Tesla’s biggest supporters. In December, he praised Musk’s approach on social media, writing, “Elon Musk built Tesla into the most successful EV company by taking big risks and creating his own infrastructure. The others are losing money and failing to scale. Maybe they shouldn’t survive.”
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Six months ago, he took his praise even further, calling Musk “a modern-day Bruce Wayne—no BS, completely transparent, and knows how to get things done.” O’Leary even suggested that if more leaders operated like Musk, “this country would be in a much better place.”
