I Suppose This Is What’s Gone On Behind The Scenes At Tesla In Previous 12 months

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A few of this text is stuff that’s been extensively mentioned for months, however I believe it goes a bit of deeper into how I believe we acquired right here. Perhaps I’m improper, however after masking Tesla and Elon Musk very intently for 12 years and having my assumptions and evaluation affirmed by Musk numerous occasions, I do suppose I could possibly be proper with this. Additionally, frankly, it’s not rocket science.

Okay, I’ll return a bit of additional than the previous yr. Clearly, Musk labored his butt off for a number of years and went by means of a ton of stress to assist Tesla attain mass manufacturing of the Mannequin 3 and thus profitability. When Tesla grew to become worthwhile, brief sellers acquired fried, and Musk was not below the strain of Wall Road, the press, or his personal concern of failure any longer, he let unfastened. He removed Tesla’s PR staff earlier than lengthy. He stopped worrying as a lot about what he mentioned and tweeted (not that he was ever 100% restrained on that). And he determined to go gung-ho right into a enjoyable new mannequin, quite than focus every single day on extra “boring” fashions (the Mannequin Y, Semi, and a lower-cost automotive). After all, everyone knows what mannequin I’m referring to — the Cybertruck.

With regard to the extremely common and unmatched Tesla Mannequin 3 after which Tesla Mannequin Y, I believe the belief was that client demand would simply continue to grow and rising. Why would anybody purchase the rest? (I do know that argument properly, as a result of I made it a number of occasions, and Musk agreed with it.) Naturally, he knew they’d have some restrict, ultimately, however I believe he assumed robotaxi functionality can be prepared by that point and that might simply juice gross sales that rather more — to twenty million autos a yr by 2030 even.

The 50% progress fee Musk repeated for years had been actuality, and he simply saved that projection rising, seemingly with out giving an excessive amount of consideration to the chance that it could be lowered and progress would taper off. Or possibly it was actually simply all about overconfidence in FSD (Full Self Driving) growth. In any case, we haven’t been seeing 50% annual progress, and Musk ultimately stopped speaking about this, and wouldn’t even give a gross sales forecast for 2024.

Similtaneously all of this has been taking place, he’s gotten an increasing number of distracted by different issues. He’s acquired 12 youngsters now (I believe), and assuming he spends even a bit of time with all of them, that’s one large distraction. One among his youngsters is trans and disowned him, altering her identify on the age of 18. It looks like this, in addition to an atypical relationship with Grimes that concerned all types of discussions (from trans matters to communism to squeezing the working class as a billionaire CEO), acquired Musk rather more targeted on social and cultural points than he’d ever be earlier than, and ultimately political issues. (Notably, proper after a breakup, Grimes was courting a well-known trans girl.) Musk acquired an increasing number of pulled into identification politics, after which purchased Twitter. He principally acquired baited into shopping for the social media website after which spent months attempting to get out of it in court docket, however he misplaced the court docket battle and had to purchase the location (which, by the way, concerned promoting a lot of Tesla inventory).

As Musk acquired an increasing number of concerned in 1) working Twitter (now X), 2) having his consideration sucked into Twitter echo chambers and conspiracy theories (like far too many an individual earlier than and after him), and three) attempting to make Twitter worthwhile (however truly driving down its income massively), it’s been arduous to think about that he’s been very targeted on Tesla automobile and software program growth. It’s additionally arduous to consider he’s been paying lots of consideration to completely different gross sales traits and competitors in key markets — China, Europe, and even the US. He has mentioned he’s working full time at Tesla, however that appears unlikely if not inconceivable. Some latest analyses have proven him tweeting all all through the day. He has performed lengthy interviews with presidential candidates Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis, amongst others, and one would suppose he did some stage of prep earlier than these (although, given how they turned out and Musk’s propensity for doing issues on the fly, that won’t have been the case). I additionally observed Musk attended the World Cup remaining in Qatar, the latest US Open males’s remaining in NYC, and quite a few different movie star occasions world wide. Once more, additionally, he has 12 youngsters (a minimum of).

By the best way, relating to all of his tweeting, the Wall Road Journal not too long ago analyzed it and decided: “Each the AI and key phrase analyses revealed the identical sample: Musk’s feed has basically shifted from enterprise towards politics and social points.” Whereas he used to tweet principally about Tesla and SpaceX, he’s rather more targeted now on different issues. I believe that’s a transparent signal his consideration is generally elsewhere. One other evaluation discovered that he spends virtually 3 hours a day on X (as a consumer, not even counting no matter he’s doing within the background to attempt to run the location). Some days he may spend 5 hours on there. I think about that some days are utterly consumed by X.

In brief, I don’t suppose Musk is working full time at Tesla. He may even be quiet quitting.

And let’s additionally recall Musk’s function at SpaceX, Neuralink, The Boring Firm, and another ventures, organizations, and foundations.

Tying issues collectively, with much less and fewer curiosity in engaged on “boring” Tesla autos, in all probability little curiosity in listening to concerning the competitors and client demand challenges Tesla is dealing with in numerous markets, a robust aversion to preventing the pressures of Wall Road and the press once more, and an infinite circus of distractions, I believe Tesla growth is being massively uncared for.

However he can’t say he’s taken a improper course, can’t say he’s too distracted, and might’t say he’s failed in his duties at Tesla. And that is the place a Hail Mary savior is available in.

He can’t fail. Tesla can’t fail. And he’s been speaking about and dealing on this rattling robotaxi factor for greater than a decade. Sure, it’s years not on time, but it surely’s set to work. He simply has to. It can revive client demand progress in Tesla autos. It can ship the inventory to Mars once more. It can show Elon was proper all alongside. And, importantly, it would enable him to remain targeted on the extra fascinating issues that seize his consideration on X on a regular basis. Additionally, it would enable him to maintain ignoring the requests for a extra inexpensive Tesla automobile and extra variations of the Mannequin 3 and Mannequin Y so as to “develop up” and stimulate client demand in the best way different automakers do. Additionally, with the snap of a finger, Tesla can beat all these pesky Chinese language rivals which are beginning to outcompete Tesla in addition to Google-originated Waymo, a decade-long competitor to Musk’s robotaxi imaginative and prescient.

Is that this robotaxi savior going to actually arrive? Will it resolve all of Musk’s Tesla issues? Will all the things be effective with the TSLA world once more? Will Elon Musk turn into the world’s richest man once more? Will robotaxis financially gasoline a long-held need to go to Mars?

I’ll go away the long run to reply all of these questions.

Nevertheless, I’ll shut with a section of a latest article and ebook about Musk’s Twitter takeover. As everyone knows, many Twitter staff weren’t pleased with the place Musk was taking the corporate. The just-released ebook is Character Restrict: How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter, by New York Instances reporters Kate Conger and Ryan Mac. Rolling Stone highlighted this story from the ebook in an article about “11 WTF Moments,” summarizing it in their very own phrases apart from the quotes:

“Musk isn’t too forgiving of staff who criticize him — or give him solutions he doesn’t like — as many episodes within the ebook illustrate. In a single case, he was enraged a couple of decline in engagement on his tweets, and abruptly fired an engineer who urged that the general public’s curiosity in him had fallen off because the Twitter acquisition closed a number of months prior. However one other worker, an information scientist who had already made up his thoughts to resign after turning over memos on how you can run Twitter extra successfully, was much more blunt with Musk. He defined that he had been excited concerning the takeover however was disheartened when, simply weeks later, Musk shared blatant partisan misinformation about an assault by a house intruder on then Home Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband Paul Pelosi. ‘It’s solely actually just like the tenth percentile of the grownup inhabitants who’d be gullible sufficient to fall for this,’ the worker advised Musk, who shot again, ‘Fu** you!’ The departing information scientist left him with a bit of recommendation: ‘I hope you’ll declare chapter and let another person run the corporate.’”

Why is that related? Musk has had a bent previously yr, or extra, to consider and promote wild conspiracy theories. He’s been leaping to conclusions on what appears to be a every day foundation. And he’s been very poor at accepting corrections, critiques, and new info that doesn’t align along with his claims. I consider it’s been a really comparable story at Tesla. We’ve had reporting on executives there attempting to persuade him of the significance of assorted issues (from a extra inexpensive Tesla to sustaining a Supercharging staff) and him blowing up in response. It’s regarding, and it matches reporting on his work at Twitter/X in addition to a lot of his tweeting. I’m involved, and plenty of are, that Tesla is being uncared for, essential work that could possibly be finished on the firm is being trashed, and the corporate’s future is being wager on a Hail Mary. The story above tries to elucidate how and why that’s taking place. Perhaps it’s improper, possibly it’s proper. What do you suppose?