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Few companies have created such strong and divergent opinions across Wall Street as Tesla.

To the company’s biggest boosters, Tesla’s chief executive, Elon Musk, is a new Steve Jobs — out to revolutionize transportation and the way we consume energy, just as the Apple founder changed the computer and telecommunication industries.

[Elon Musk announced Tesla would build a factory in Germany.]

Investors willing to back Mr. Musk’s vision have bought up the electric carmaker’s shares and debt, and helped make Tesla — which sold about 250,000 cars last year — a bigger company by market value than General Motors and Ford for much of the past two years. G.M. sold about eight million cars in 2018, and Ford sold about six million.