So, you have a large amount of cash and you don’t know what to do with it? Maybe you have a friend who just hit it big by making some well-timed or lucky investments, maybe you’re sick of sitting on the sidelines and want to try your hand on the stock market. Among the most popular investment options, you will find Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) and Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), but which should you pick?

We have covered the investment opportunities presented by both companies in extensive detail in the past, along with their company histories and other relevant details, but we rarely pitch companies against each other and pick a winner. We recommend you read our previous articles about either company, along with our investment advice, to make sure you make the right decision regarding your financial future.

Please remember that there is always risk in investing, and returns are never guaranteed. There is no such thing as a completely safe investment, and you should always invest only what you can afford to lose. You should consult with a financial expert or advisor before making any significant financial decision.

Why invest in Tesla or Amazon?

Amazon and Tesla are among the most influential and powerful companies in America, and unless something dramatic happens to the economic model in this country, they will only continue to consolidate power and capital until the entire system collapses.

Until that point, of course, any investment into either company is sure to generate impressive returns over the next few years. Given the quick and violent shift toward isolationism and nationalism in the United States, along with President Trump’s ongoing trade war, domestic companies will become increasingly more valuable and powerful, gobbling up larger swaths of their respective markets as foreign competitors are squeezed out of the market.

Both companies are also relatively stable, and reasonable market analysts don’t expect that they will be going anywhere anytime soon. Their level of infrastructure and investments is unprecedented in human history, so your money is more likely to retain its value if invested with either company.

The Case for Amazon

• Price: $228
• Current rating: Strong buy

Amazon passed Walmart in 2021 as the world’s largest store outside of China. It is the second-largest employer in the United States and the second-biggest company in the world in terms of revenue. With the 12th most visited site in the world, around 84% of its online traffic is from the United States.

Amazon has seen a meteoric rise in value since 2015. Over the last five years, its stock price has increased by 114%, over the last year it rose by 35%, and since the beginning of 2025, it has increased by around 5%.

The general consensus among financial analysts and market experts is that Amazon is a “strong buy” for investors. No serious analysts recommend holding or selling this stock.

In the fourth quarter of 2024, Amazon beat all but the most ambitious revenue estimates, achieving 10% growth year over year. It also had a 61% growth in operating income over 2023, exceeding most expectations. The AWS division accounts for around half of the total operating income, and the company is continuing its heavy investment in the department along with its AI programs and research.

Other areas of investment are also beginning to show returns. The development of its regional distribution infrastructure and operations has made delivery much cheaper overall and the widespread integration of robotics into every step of the delivery process has reduced costs significantly. It has also been featured among the top stock picks for high-profile market analysts for several months in a row, and the trend shows no sign of slowing down.

Another factor to consider is the recent attack against consumer protections and labor laws by Elon Musk and Donald Trump. In his attempt to fight and destroy the departments that are hindering his own business growth, Elon Musk might actually clear the way for Amazon to take advantage of weakened consumer and labor protections. While this might be a nightmare for everyone in the future, it could be great news for anyone who owns Amazon stock.

Recent 2025 announcements made by Amazon include a new expanded partnership to increase the digital transformation of federal agencies, a new collaboration with Honda on its new software-heavy vehicles, new AWS infrastructure in Mexico and Thailand, an expanded partnership with Intuit, and more.

The Case Against Amazon

Infinite growth in a closed system is impossible; sooner or later the party is going to end, and when it does, it is unlikely it will do so quietly.

As one of the most aggressive anti-union, anti-labor, companies that is objectively pretty nonchalant about the way it rips off its customers and destroys local companies, there will be no small celebration when the house of cards comes tumbling down, and the cracks are already beginning to show.

There are two primary reasons why some people recommend against investing in Amazon: moral objections to its operations and pessimism about the possibility of continuous growth.

Moral concerns about Amazon that might prevent you (and others) from investing in the mega-company include (but are not limited to): destroying the environment, abusing employees, and even letting some die in its warehouses due to lack of care or appropriate consideration, deleting content from customers’ devices, taking massive government subsidies for its businesses, giving law enforcement facial recognition and surveillance tools, accessing and using customers’ Ring doorbells and footage, its partnership with the CIA, engaging in price discrimination and monopolistic behavior, classifying LGBT books as “adult” content, the abuse of its massive control over the internet as a whole, undermining and destroying small businesses, forcing its workers and drivers to work in unsafe and dangerous conditions, providing air conditioning for its robots but not for its employees, stealing and pirating authors’ books and selling them under different names, and much, much more.

Doubt about Amazon’s future financial success mainly points to a handful of things. First, Amazon has dominated the domestic market so completely that it has no choice but to expand into only a couple of areas: parts of the world already dominated by Chinese competition, and creating entirely new areas like drone delivery, space, and artificial intelligence.

Recent cultural exchange between China and the United States has shown American citizens that China isn’t the backward country they were told it was. By almost every metric, people in China live a higher quality of life than Americans, and the idea that Americans lead the world in prosperity has been revealed to be deep propaganda. China is zooming past other countries in economic development and wealth creation, and it is unlikely that Amazon and other Western companies haven’t noticed. Amazon, like other American companies, relies heavily on government protection and weak labor laws to operate. In the event it tries to compete directly with the larger Chinese companies, it doesn’t look like Amazon will come out on top.

New markets like drone delivery, space exploration, and artificial intelligence also have their own significant drawbacks and risks. Drone delivery faces the problem of effective and affordable scalability and implementation. After years of testing and development, experts remain skeptical that drone delivery will ever become a realistic option for most customers.

Artificial intelligence, on the other hand, is an industry built entirely on speculation and the hopes and dreams of the wealthy. Technology companies like AWS have convinced millions of people to use their AI prototypes as free beta testers all while they steal content from artists, writers, and other creatives online. Any AI-focused legislation will diminish the value of the investment, and the growing cultural pushback against AI in every single product is growing. Without a real use for these AI products, it seems like it could turn out like the NFT craze.

In the end, Amazon, like other empires before it, has built its success on the cult of personality surrounding Bezos, and it rises and falls along with his whims. Continued success in the post-Bezos era is not guaranteed.

The Case for Tesla

• Price: $354
• Current rating: Hold

What better case could there be for Tesla other than its CEO has successfully bought himself a seat in the Oval Office?

Despite what his fans believe, Elon Musk did not found Tesla, but he did sit at the helm as it became one of the most successful companies in history. It has become the world’s most powerful car maker and is the seventh American company to reach a trillion-dollar valuation. It controls around 20% of the battery-powered electric vehicle market.

Over the last five years, Tesla’s stock price has seen about a 5% price increase, with about the same growth over the last year. With periods of extreme growth and sudden drops, the steady growth over the last few years has made modest returns on investments.

Tesla showed a 3% earnings-per-share growth in the fourth quarter of 2024 over 2023, and total revenue grew by 2%.

Recent news and announcements for Tesla include a possible deal with the Trump presidency to supply it with armored Tesla vehicles worth $400 million, positive meetings and relations with India’s president Modi, an announcement from the U.S. State Department to buy Tesla’s Cybertrucks, and more.

Musk also announced that full self-driving features will finally be released in Texas this summer and also said that the Tesla robotaxi will be launched in 2026.

Yet, probably the most important factor is the position of power Musk has seized for himself in the Trump administration. Just as Trump used his power to enrich himself during his first term, Musk has wasted no time in attacking and weakening the government agencies that are investigating or suing his companies and is already hard at work making deals to make money using his new power.

The Case Against Tesla

While most companies ride the wave of the popularity of their CEO, Tesla, and its sister companies find themselves regularly having to fight against the impact of Elon’s eccentric and unpredictable behavior. Experts agree that Tesla’s stock price would probably be much higher if the foreign oligarch wasn’t at the helm.

This is why the majority of financial experts and market analysts label Tesla a “hold” stock. There is a near-even split between buy and sell recommendations, with very few giving it a “strong buy”. Some of the largest and most reliable stock analyst firms say that Tesla stock is currently overpriced.

On top of this, there is a mountain of issues and moral concerns when it comes to investing in Tesla. There have been numerous and widespread reports of sexual harassment in Tesla, with a culture of rampant sexual abuse, and most of the lawsuits related to these instances specify that the abuse is directly connected to the behavior of Elon.

Tesla’s anti-union efforts are well-known, and it has been hard at work to defeat unionization efforts in America and Europe. Currently, the workers at the Swedish locations have been on strike since 2023, making it the longest Swedish strike since 1938.

Tesla forces its employees, customers, and third parties to sign NDAs when dealing with an accident to prevent people from speaking about the event and creating negative news coverage about the company.

Why is Elon determined to destroy the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)? Probably because Tesla’s factory in Fremont has three times as many OSHA violations as the ten biggest auto factories in the U.S. combined. It refused to report serious injuries that it is required to by law, and often downplayed incidents.

Tesla also hacked its employees’ phones regularly spied on them and habitually retaliated against any whistleblower employees.

The California Civil Rights Department also said that Tesla shows a “pattern of racial harassment and bias”, and it regularly obstructed any investigation at its facilities.

In 2013, Tesla violated numerous GAAP reporting standards. In 2016, it manipulated its financial statements to show better performance than it actually had. In 2012, Tesla took more than $295 million from the government in Zero Emission Vehicle credits which it never developed. Elon and Tesla have been accused of “significant fraud” on more than one occasion.  

Tesla has been under investigation by the SEC, EPA, and the FBI for a number of reasons, including misleading investors, securities fraud, and lying to the public. Much of the value generated for Tesla in its early years was based on Elon’s promise of “full self-driving” capabilities and autopilot, which ended up being revealed as lies.

In 2019, it was revealed that Tesla had violated 19 different environmental regulations, including dumping hazardous waste.

Tesla is only one of two companies to fail the Mozilla Foundation’s privacy concern checklist in every category. Tesla employees regularly share videos and images of customers in their vehicles.

We will not go into all the numerous issues with the vehicles themselves, which include widespread recalls, vehicle fires, autopilot crashes, software vulnerability and hacking weakness, phantom braking, charging throttling, driving range performance, and generally sub-par workmanship and build quality. Don’t get us started on the clown car known as the Cybertruck.

The future of Tesla is unpredictable, at best. And as people begin to realize the truth about Elon, his fanbase is slowly disappearing as he grasps desperately at power. When a company is essentially a prisoner that rises and falls at every whim of its unpredictable and unstable CEO, one cannot, in good conscience, recommend anyone buy its stock.

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