Chamath Palihapitiya on why stocks are headed higher, misunderstood Tesla, bitcoin and space mining

Published Tue, Oct 6 20209:15 AM EDTUpdated Tue, Oct 6 20209:16 AM EDT

(This story is for CNBC Pro subscribers only.) Outspoken technology investor Chamath Palihapitiya addressed a slew of hot topics on Tuesday with CNBC's Squawk Box . Most notably, the early Facebook executive said the stock market will continue to go higher regardless of who is in the White House following the election. "For the next four or five years the most dominant factor I see is the combination of Treasury and the Federal Reserve and the reality is they have printed so much money that the likelihood is that we are going to continue to see asset price inflation independent of who is in the White House," Social Capital Founder and Chief Executive Officer Chamath Palihapitiya said on Tuesday. While many investors are focusing on the outcome of the 2020 election between incumbent Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden, Palihapitiya said either candidate will have a strong stock market. With the Federal Reserve lending at historic levels and the Treasury department spending to help with Covid-19 recovery, the billionaire believes there is no alternative but for stocks to go higher given the unprecedented support. "Going into the debates the markets roughly were going up, the debate didn't go necessarily well for the president, the market went up. Then, he got Covid, the market went up, then he went home and the market went up," Palihapitiya said. Palihapitiya — a long-time Tesla investor — also said the electric carmaker is a misunderstood company, with billions in additional market cap potential in the next two to three years. "People continue to misunderstand and underestimate this business," he said. "I think it is generally mis-valued and I think the people that are trying to compete with them are not the people that they are competing with. They've sort of moved on." "Tesla is no longer about the car business," Palihapitiya said. "The value of this business is about deregulating energy. That's about batteries and battery storage and its about disrupting utilities. It is about the combination of hardware and software that will give all of us individuals the ability to be energy independent." Palihapitiya said Tesla is going to be one of the most valuable companies in the world. CNBC's Andrew Ross Sorkin also asked Palihapitiya about Bitcoin, which Social Capital uses at a 1% hedge in its portfolio. "This is an instrument we use as a hedge," Palihapitiya said. "I don't think this is something that you trade and the more people obsess and focus, in my opinion at least, on what the price action is, the more that it will confound you, the more it will frustrate you." "You buy it, you hold it, you put it away and you hope that you never need it," he added. Sorkin also asked Palihapitiya about Elon Musk's space mining operation, which the Winklevoss twins have said would eventually increase the supply of gold and devalue it, as opposed to bitcoin. "I have no idea what you're talking about," Palihapitiya said. "I hope it happens."