Ron Baron, the 83-year-old billionaire behind Baron Capital, went on CNBC’s Squawk Box and said something that made every Tesla bear in America wince: “The time to buy the stock is now.” He wasn’t hedging. He wasn’t being diplomatic. He dropped roughly $160,000 to $170,000 on a limited-edition Model S — one of only 250 ever made — and declared it the best car he’s ever owned. Coming from a man with $1.5 billion of his own money sitting in Tesla shares, that’s not a casual opinion. That’s a thesis.
The facts:
- Ron Baron holds approximately $1.5 billion of his personal wealth in Tesla stock, with Baron Capital managing roughly $5 billion in Tesla positions total.
- Tesla delivered more than 486,532 vehicles in Q3 2026, beating Wall Street consensus estimates and topping even the most bullish analyst projections, according to TechCrunch.
- Tesla’s Q3 2026 deliveries represent an increase of roughly 6,000 vehicles over Q2, though figures remain below the same period from the prior year.
- Baron paid between $160,000 and $170,000 for a special-edition Model S, roughly double the price of the original model.
- Tesla’s Full Self-Driving subscription currently costs $100 per month for buyers who want the feature.
The FSD Pitch That $1.5 Billion Buys You
Baron’s love for Tesla’s Full Self-Driving tech isn’t new, but the way he’s talking about it in 2026 is different. He described his East Hampton Model S with the kind of warmth most people reserve for a childhood memory, not a subscription-based driver assistance system. “This car is unbelievable,” he told Becky Quick on air. He’s not selling it. Ever. That’s the quote.
FSD at $100 a month is a real product with a real price tag now — no longer just a vaporware promise burned onto a spec sheet. That changes the conversation. Tesla’s Full Self-Driving technology is generating recurring subscription revenue, not just one-time hardware margin. Baron clearly believes the market hasn’t fully priced that in yet.
Meanwhile, the underlying business numbers are actually holding up. Tesla built 464,391 vehicles in Q3 2026 and delivered 486,532 — a beat on virtually every metric Wall Street threw at it. The company also hit a milestone earlier in the year: its 10 millionth vehicle produced. That’s not a company in crisis. That’s a company that figured out how to keep moving units even as its U.S. political baggage got heavier and Elon Musk’s public persona grew more polarizing by the week.
Hyundai Is Coming, and Tesla Keeps Delaying the Roadster
Here’s where the story gets complicated. The same week Baron was raving on CNBC, Tesla’s long-promised Roadster — the last human-driven car the company reportedly plans to build — was delayed again. Bad weather in Texas. A car first shown nearly a decade ago still can’t make its debut. At some point, the delays stop being a quirk and start being a pattern.
And Hyundai is not waiting around to see how that plays out. CEO José Muñoz is running a full press campaign to position Hyundai — and its affiliate Kia — as the serious alternative to Tesla in the all-EV space. The South Korean automaker plans to have capacity to build 30,000 robots annually by 2028, betting on robotics as the next front alongside EVs. That’s the same strategic territory Musk is staking out with Tesla’s Optimus robot program. Two companies, two approaches: Musk burning every bridge to the internal combustion era, Muñoz building a slower bridge while keeping the legacy business alive. It’s a genuine strategic difference, and as autonomy spreads across blue-collar industries, the companies that actually deploy working robots at scale will win — not the ones that announce them best.
The honest contrarian read here? Baron might be right about the technology and still wrong about the timing. Tesla’s Q3 numbers beat estimates, yes — but they were still down year-over-year. The brand has real damage in the U.S. market that quarterly delivery beats can’t paper over indefinitely. Betting $1.5 billion of your personal wealth on Elon Musk to stay focused enough, long enough, to cash that thesis out is a very specific kind of faith. Some investors have it. A lot of regular people buying Tesla stock on the back of a CNBC hype segment do not have the runway Baron does if the thesis takes five more years to play out.
That calculus matters in a media moment where billionaire endorsements spread faster than earnings reports — the same dynamic shaping how creators and media companies are learning to weaponize credibility at scale. Watch whether Tesla’s FSD subscriber numbers get disclosed in the next earnings call — that single data point will tell you more about the stock’s real ceiling than anything Ron Baron says on television.
Watch the Breakdown
Sources
- Billionaire Investor Ron Baron Raves About Elon Musk’s Tesla Technology: ‘The Time to Buy the Stock Is Now’ — finance.yahoo.com
- Tesla sustains its EV sales momentum despite US troubles — techcrunch.com
- The carmaker vying with Tesla to conquer the robot future | Technology News
(HT Tech) — www.hindustantimes.com
