People seem to think you're joking, but I think you're spot on.
Putting it in the best possible light, Tesla represented a bet on developing both a new carmaker and the dominant car of the future: electric and fully automated. That was a big gamble, and it required gobs of money. Existing carmakers could try to-self fund that, Tesla couldn't. So Musk, marketer extraordinaire, built up a Jobsian reality distortion field around Tesla. He made his cost of capital incredibly low by hyping the stock to the moon.
If the bet pays off, Musk will historically be seen as a genius. But if it doesn't, he'll be seen as a fraud who milked credulous investors for a project that was never going to work out. And I think that's true even if he ends up with a modestly successful niche carmaker. Many others would see that as a huge accomplishment, but it'll be so far short of what investors thought they were paying for that even visions of an automated future won't make up for their large losses.
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People seem to think you're joking, but I think you're spot on.
Putting it in the best possible light, Tesla represented a bet on developing both a new carmaker and the dominant car of the future: electric and fully automated. That was a big gamble, and it required gobs of money. Existing carmakers could try to-self fund that, Tesla couldn't. So Musk, marketer extraordinaire, built up a Jobsian reality distortion field around Tesla. He made his cost of capital incredibly low by hyping the stock to the moon.
If the bet pays off, Musk will historically be seen as a genius. But if it doesn't, he'll be seen as a fraud who milked credulous investors for a project that was never going to work out. And I think that's true even if he ends up with a modestly successful niche carmaker. Many others would see that as a huge accomplishment, but it'll be so far short of what investors thought they were paying for that even visions of an automated future won't make up for their large losses.