Cathie Wood Says Elon Musk's Tesla Is Leading an Important Movement

Since its inception, the philosophy behind Cathie Wood's Ark Invest has centered around identifying "disruptive innovation." Ark's research is extensive and its positions often controversial. 

Speaking at Fortune's Most Powerful Women Next Gen session May 17, Wood reaffirmed her bullish position on Tesla  (TSLA) - Get Free Report, saying that the EV-maker is poised to experience "explosive growth" in the coming years.

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Explaining that Tesla brings together three of Wood's five pillars for huge growth -- robotics, artificial intelligence and energy storage -- she said that Tesla is the "biggest AI play out there. Autonomous vehicles are robots, they will be electric and they will be powered by AI. Each one of these is growing exponentially, and then you have them feeding each other. This could be explosive growth."

Wood added that Ark's research has indicated the autonomous taxi business -- which is worth nothing today -- will be worth around $10 trillion by 2030. 

"We’re talking about one of the biggest growth engines in history. And Tesla is in the pull position," she said. "Why? It has more data than all of the other auto companies and tech companies touching transportation combined."

Responding to a question about the danger of over-hyping investment opportunities to her millions of subscribers and followers, Wood noted the difficulties posed by the current macroeconomic environment, but said it all comes down to whether you trust her research. 

"It is a big responsibility and we take it very seriously," she said. "Our research, I feel, is the best in the world. And we want to share it. But, in terms of timing, some of this is a function of macro factors over which we have no control. We have never seen a macro environment like we’ve just gone through."