Nvidia and Tesla: Billionaire Ken Griffin Bets Big on Two ‘Mag 7’ Stocks

The key to successful investing is finding an effective strategy – and one of the best is peeking into the recent choices from the Street’s legendary investors. These investing titans have built their reputations and fortunes on their own success in the market, and knowing what stocks they’re looking to buy gives the retail investor a chance to follow the lead of a master.

Ken Griffin, the founder and CEO of Citadel, is one of Wall Street’s most successful hedge fund managers, with a 30-plus year history of success in a cutthroat field. Griffin founded Citadel in 1990; in the years since the firm has built itself into the most profitable hedge manager in the field. The company has $65 billion in investment capital as of November 1 this year, and Griffin’s leadership of the firm has allowed him to build up his own net worth to more than $46 billion.

So, following Griffin’s stock picks is definitely a viable strategy – and recent public filings show that he’s been betting big on two ‘Magnificent 7’ stocks, Nvidia (NASDSAQ:NVDA) and Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA).

A look behind the scenes at both stocks, and at the analyst comments, may shed some light on just why Griffin is buying into these two giants.

Nvidia

The first stock we’ll look at is Nvidia, a name that has been making big headlines in recent years. The company is the leader in AI-capable semiconductor chips, having invented the GPU processors that helped make the AI boom – and other high-performance computing applications – possible in the first place. Nvidia now holds the largest market share in this valuable sector, and the company has been reaping the rewards, in both profits and stock value, for several years.

In the last 24 months, Nvidia’s stock has gained over 800%; its share price gains for this year-to-date come to 182%. These strong gains have come as the company has cemented its lead as the primary supplier to the data center business, and begun to emphasize AI accelerator products. As of July 28 this year, the end of Nvidia’s fiscal 2Q25, the company brought in $26.3 billion in revenue from its data center segment, a figure that made up almost 88% of the total quarterly top line.

While Nvidia’s dominance of the AI-chip supply chain is a clear positive, the company did hit a speed bump recently. After announcing the introduction of its new Blackwell accelerator architecture this past March, Nvidia also had to announce delivery delays. While production of the new chips has begun, deliveries are now expected this coming January. The delays were a setback for Nvidia, but were partly mitigated by the company’s scale, and by its receipt of orders from big-name customers Microsoft and Meta. We should note that Nvidia continues to see success with its Hopper product lines.

We’ll see Nvidia’s fiscal Q3 earnings this Wednesday, and the Street is anticipating a top line of about $33 billion. Achieving this will translate to an 82% year-over-year gain. In the second quarter, the revenue total was up 122% year-over-year. Quarterly earnings in fiscal Q2, at 68 cents per share, were up 4 cents per share compared to the estimates.

For billionaire Ken Griffin, Nvidia is clearly the chip stock of choice. In the last quarter, 3Q24, Griffin purchased over 4.7 million shares of the stock and now holds 7,122,535 shares of Nvidia. At current prices, this holding is worth approximately $994 million.

Nvidia has also caught the attention of many of the Street’s best analysts, including Harsh Kumar from Piper Sandler. This 5-star analyst, rated #17 overall by TipRanks, points out that Nvidia’s main advantages – its scale, and its head start in the AI field – give it a solid foundation for the near term.

“We are making NVDA our top large-cap pick given the company’s dominant positioning in AI accelerators and the upcoming launch of the Blackwell architecture. Our viewpoint is rooted in the belief that the overall TAM for AI accelerators will continue to rise in 2025 by ~$70 billion, and we see NVDA well positioned to capture most of the incremental TAM increase while ceding only a small bit to its merchant chip competitors,” Kumar wrote.

Kumar goes on to give NVDA shares an Overweight (i.e. Buy) rating, with a price target of $175 suggesting an upside potential of more than 23% on the one-year horizon. (To view Kumar’s track record, click here)

Unsurprisingly, Nvidia has picked up plenty of Wall Street attention – and has 42 recent analyst reviews on record, including 39 Buys and 3 Holds, for a Strong Buy consensus rating. (See NVDA stock forecast)

Tesla

The second Griffin pick we’ll look at, Tesla, may seem counterintuitive at first. Tesla is primarily an electric vehicle (EV) company – and with the Republican ascendant in Washington for the next few years, the common wisdom is expecting Federal policy and subsidy support for electric vehicles to wane, and with it the near-term prospects for the EV industry.

But that common wisdom may not hold for Tesla, for several reasons. First, Tesla is by far the largest EV company, and not just in the US market but in the world. Also, it is the only US electric car company to consistently turn a profit.

Another reason why Tesla is likely to continue thriving, even in the absence of supportive governmental policy, is its strength in innovation. Yes, Tesla’s main reliance for sales and profits is on EVs, but the company is also making strides in applied AI and automation technology, including in robotics, with the goal of developing fully autonomous vehicles.

The result of the recent presidential election is the wildcard here. President Trump is likely to pursue deregulation as part of his overarching economic policy, and he has already tapped Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk to lead the charge in cutting government waste and inefficiencies; both of these factors are highly likely to offset the removal or reduction of governmental support for EV production. At the same time, it’s also likely that the Trump administration will encourage R&D efforts in AI and other autonomous technology applications, which would be supportive of Tesla’s own development programs.

Those are the most recent developments. Prior to the election, on October 23, Tesla released its quarterly results for 3Q24. In that quarter, the company reported total revenues of $25.18 billion, for a 7.8% increase year-over-year but missing the forecast by $490 million. The company’s bottom line, the non-GAAP EPS of 72 cents, was 12 cents per share better than had been expected.

And now that we have the background, we can look at Griffin’s recent purchases of TSLA stock. In the third quarter of this year, Griffin bought big here, adding 1,169,699 shares of the EV giant to his existing holding. The billionaire now owns 1,465,406 shares of Tesla, a stake that’s valued at just over $508 million.

Daniel Ives, tech expert from Wedbush, covers Tesla’s stock, and he’s impressed by both the company’s history of success and its high likelihood of leveraging the upcoming change in Washington for further success. He says of the company, “We believe the Trump White House win will be a gamechanger for the autonomous and AI story for Tesla and Musk over the coming years. We estimate the AI and autonomous opportunity is worth $1 trillion alone for Tesla and we fully expect under a Trump White House these key initiatives will now get fast tracked as the federal regulatory spiderweb that Musk & Co. have encountered over the past few years around FSD/autonomous clears significantly under a new Trump era… We believe the march to a $1.5 trillion and $2 trillion valuation for TSLA over the next 12 to 18 months has now begun…”

To this end, Ives put an Outperform (i.e. Buy) rating on TSLA shares, along with a $400 price target that points toward a ~25% upside for the year ahead. (To watch Ives’ track record, click here)

All in all, there are 35 recent analyst reviews on record for Tesla, and they show a breakdown of 11 to Buy, 16 to Hold, and 8 to Sell for a Hold (i.e. Neutral) consensus rating. TSLA shares have surged in recent weeks, and the average price target, at $207.83 has yet to catch up with the current share price of $347.1. This leaves the stock with a downside of 40% for the coming year. (See TSLA stock forecast)

To find good ideas for stocks trading at attractive valuations, visit TipRanks’ Best Stocks to Buy, a tool that unites all of TipRanks’ equity insights.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the featured analysts. The content is intended to be used for informational purposes only. It is very important to do your own analysis before making any investment.