EV Company VinFast $190 Billion Market Cap Screams SPAC Silliness

The electric-vehicle company’s $190 billion market capitalization is asinine and meaningless.

Silly.

When Vietnamese electric-vehicle maker VinFast Auto Ltd. announced plans to go public in the US in May, I said the richly valued deal marked the return of SPAC silliness and the stock would likely be volatile due to the low number of shares available for trading.

In hindsight, these were massive understatements. After completing a blank-check merger earlier this month, VinFast’s market capitalization had soared to $190 billion by Monday’s close — making it the third most valuable automaker in the world, behind Tesla Inc. and Toyota Motor Corp. By the same token, entrepreneur Pham Nhat Vuong is now one of the world’s richest people, because entities he controls own almost all of VinFast’s shares.