An investor has argued that Tesla should remain a public company, predicting in a letter to chief executive Elon Musk and its board of directors that the electric carmaker could be valued between $700 and $4,000 per share in five years.

“Taking Tesla private today at $420 per share would undervalue it greatly, depriving many investors of the opportunity to participate in its success,” Catherine Wood, chief executive and chief investment officer of ARK Invest, a $5.9 billion active ETF manager and Tesla shareholder, wrote in the letter published Wednesday on the company’s website.

ARK’s share price projections assume Tesla shifting from a hardware manufacturer with 19 per cent profit margins to a firm earning most of its profit from mobility-as-a-service, which ARK Invest think could lead to 80 per cent gross margins, Ms Wood wrote in the letter.