- Cathie Wood has long been bullish on Tesla even during the its early days.
- But her aggressive stance does not spillover to other electric vehicle makers such as Lucid and Rivian.
- The Ark Invest founder told CNBC she will buy into the two firms if they produce autonomous vehicles.
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Ark Invest founder Cathie Wood has long been known for being bullish on Tesla even during the electric vehicle maker's early days. But what about Tesla competitors Lucid and Rivian?
Well, not quite.
Wood told CNBC Wednesday during a wide-ranging discussion that she will only buy into the two firms if they produce self-driving cars.
"If we saw Lucid and Rivian getting into the autonomous world, especially Rivian, given its relationship with Amazon, that might be more interesting," she said.
Autonomy, Wood explained, is among the surest ways electric vehicles can be commoditized. For instance, taxi fleets in the future will likely be self-driving, she said.
In fact, her bullishness on Tesla stock is due in part to her expectation that the EV maker eventually will leverage its artificial intelligence technology to develop robotaxis.
"All we need a taxi to do is to get us from point A to point B as quickly and safely as possible," she told CNBC Wednesday. "We don't need finish and design for that."
For now, Wood said she still admires what Lucid and Rivian are doing with their electric vehicles.
Luxury EV maker Lucid went public in July and already has a market cap of $80 billion, though its executives acknowledged in November they still have a ways to go. And Amazon-backed Rivian, which produced its first electric trucks in September, has a market cap of $94 billion after a blockbuster IPO in November.
Wood shot to prominence in 2020 thanks to her blockbuster performance driven by bets into mega-growth stocks like Tesla. Her ETFs last year have delivered eye-popping returns, with her flagship fund up more than 150% in 2020.
She made headlines earlier this year when she predicted that the Tesla's stock will hit $3,000 by 2025 — a price target that requires the shares to rally approximately 300% from its current level. But if they reach that level next year, Wood in September said she would sell her Tesla holdings.
But the star stock-picker has already made it a habit to sell smaller increments of Tesla stock when it has either outperformed for a certain duration or has grown too much to her liking in her portfolio. She has once described this selling as simply "portfolio management."
Tesla stock was flat as of Thursday noon at $1,093.50. Shares have rallied around 50% year-to-date, pushing it to a valuation above $1 trillion.