tesla ceo elon musk is taking boyish delight that he is richer than amazon executive chairman jeff bezos reports the wall street journal does that mean you should buy tesla and sell amazon a look at the stock charts of both companies suggests that amazon is stuck while tesla stock has been accelerating since hitting a low for the year in may i can’t predict the future but it looks like tesla has upward momentum and amazon needs a powerful catalyst to make it an attractive investment in the battle between ceos musk has a clear lead over recently appointed bezos successor andy jassy until amazon reports surprisingly fast revenue growth jassy may be mired in operational challenges that could keep the stock in limbo i have no financial interest in the securities mentioned in this post on october 11 musk boasted that he was the world’s richest person and that day sent a tweet to bezos “with an emoji showing a silver medal with the number 2 on it” a reference to musk’s boast that he leads the race for the world’s richest person with bezos as number 2 noted the journal musk was responding to a tweet from bezos which referenced a 1999 barron’s cover story that doubted whether amazon would survive thanks to its business model which it dubbed “a middleman” bezos’s october 10 tweet added “listen and be open but don’t let anybody tell you who you aretoday amazon is one of the world’s most successful companies and has revolutionized two entirely different industries” forbes says that musk is worth 2035 billion as of october 12 74 more than bezos’ 1895 billion these net worth estimates include their stakes in privately held companies such as spacex musk and blue origin and the washington post bezos for those of us who lack the magic ingredients to occupy the top spot on the list of the world’s wealthiest people we may be able to enhance our net worth by buying shares in their public companies sadly both stocks badly lag the sp 500 for the year which has risen about 179 a look at the 2021 performance of their shares tells two different stories tesla up 85 on the year is on a roll after a nasty plunge while amazon appears to be dead money having risen a mere 17 this year tesla peaked in january at 900 and fell 37 to 563 by may the shares have since risen 41 to end monday at 792 amazon which started the year at 3187 peaked for the year at about 3731 as bezos was moving out and jassy moving in since then the stock is down 13 to about 3240 tesla has the edge in revenue growth for the june 2021ending quarter its revenues grew about 98 to nearly 12 billion while net income soared 998 to 11 billion its forecast for total 2021 deliveries which will be affected by supply constraints is to grow more than 50 over 2020 this implies at least 364000 deliveries in the second half and an estimated 30 increase to over 182000 deliveries in the third quarter amazon’s final quarter with bezos as ceo was less impressive as i wrote in july amazon’s revenue grew 27 to 113 billion while jassy forecast 13 revenue growth in the third quarter a major slowdown to be sure amazon reported 48 net income growth to about 78 billion in the second quarter while amazon expects to report 13 growth in the third quarter analysts are looking for 161 growth for the third quarter and are looking for even slower growth 137 in the final quarter of 2021 while amazon started the holiday shopping season early is planning to hire 450000 employees and is expanding its footprint the company will enjoy a record holiday season sadly unless amazon reports growth that exceeds wall street’s estimates it will fall way short of the 27 annual rate of growth it enjoyed in the last decade and its stock will lack a catalyst tesla stock has further to rise a bullish seekingalpha report suggests it will reach 2500 by 2030 who knows whether that will happen in the meantime seekingalpha argues that the evs are taking share from the traditional vehicle market and tesla enjoys many competitive advantages —such as its “approach to marketing sales software development battery production supercharging design development and production” that give it the global ev market lead with about 146 share tesla just announced a 73 surge in third quarter deliveries t0 241300 vehicles and another record deliveries quarter of 241300 vehicles for the third quarter revenues are expected to rise 54 to 1349 billion according to the consensus however seekingalpha expects tesla to report 1474 billion in revenue 9 more than the consensus and 68 above the 877 billion in revenue it generated in the third quarter while musk is a more entertaining leader than jassy neither tesla nor amazon are coming anywhere near close to beating the sp 500 tesla is growing much faster and has a better chance of exceeding expectations than does amazon if jassy has another new business for amazon along the lines of aws which he is credited with helping create it could be years before it shows up in restoring amazon’s 27 top line revenue growth rate