People who paid $50K to reserve a Roadster would have made bank investing that in Tesla stock instead

Tesla CEO Elon Musk is concerning to drag the wraps off the second-generation Roadster — again.

It's been nine years since Elon Musk stated it would revive the Roadster. Would-be buyers chomped at the bit to catch the two-door, 600-mile-range, high-powered electric car way rear in November 2017. They paid either $50,000 to reserve a place in the car's queue or $250,000 to buy a Founders Series upfront.

Roughly nine years later, the car motionless hasn't entered production. That could alter soon, as Tesla is concerning to unveil the car — now apparently alongside cold-gas thrusters that might authorize it to temporarily hover — on Thursday night.

That raised an costly question: What if first Roadster buyers had put that prosperity into Tesla inventory instead?

So we did several back-of-the-napkin math to fig it out.

Tesla shares closed at concerning $21 on November 17, 2017, the archetypal selling day following Musk unveiled the car. At approximately $360 in mid-October 2026, a $50,000 funding made in 2017 would now be value between $850,000 and $900,000. That's a acquire of additional than $800,000, before taxes and selling fees.

A buyer who put downward the complete $250,000 for a constricted Founders Series Roadster would be sitting on approximately $4.3 myriad in Tesla inventory today, a acquire of concerning $4 million.

The lengthy delay for the Roadster's deliveries has not gone unnoticed by Musk.

During an October 2025 earnings call, he thanked the vehicle's "long-suffering" deposit holders, during saying the car business had focused heavily on its autonomy and robotics ambitions.

The delay has been too much for several big-name shoppers. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman (who has a famously fraught association alongside Musk) publically canceled his booking in 2025. YouTuber Marques Brownlee, known as MKBHD, canceled one of his two reservations following 8 years, saying that Tesla "has been sitting alongside my 50 expansive for eight years and hasn't done item alongside it."

Per Musk's X thread, the delay power be value it. Ahead of the Thursday event, Tesla's CEO wrote that the reveal volition be "a applicant for top merchandise demo of all time."