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

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A few of this text is stuff that’s been broadly mentioned for months, however I believe it goes slightly deeper into how I believe we acquired right here. Perhaps I’m fallacious, however after protecting Tesla and Elon Musk very carefully for 12 years and having my assumptions and evaluation affirmed by Musk numerous occasions, I do suppose I may very well be proper with this. Additionally, frankly, it’s not rocket science.

Okay, I’ll return slightly additional than the previous 12 months. 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 turned worthwhile, quick sellers acquired fried, and Musk was not beneath the strain of Wall Avenue, the press, or his personal concern of failure any longer, he let free. He removed Tesla’s PR workforce earlier than lengthy. He stopped worrying as a lot about what he stated and tweeted (not that he was ever 100% restrained on that). And he determined to go gung-ho right into a enjoyable new mannequin, slightly than focus every single day on extra “boring” fashions (the Mannequin Y, Semi, and a lower-cost automotive). In fact, everyone knows what mannequin I’m referring to — the Cybertruck.

With regard to the extremely in style and unmatched Tesla Mannequin 3 after which Tesla Mannequin Y, I believe the idea was that client demand would simply continue to grow and rising. Why would anybody purchase anything? (I do know that argument effectively, 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 automobiles a 12 months by 2030 even.

The 50% development 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 decreased and development 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 development, and Musk ultimately stopped speaking about this, and wouldn’t even give a gross sales forecast for 2024.

Concurrently all of this has been taking place, he’s gotten increasingly more distracted by different issues. He’s acquired 12 children now (I believe), and assuming he spends even slightly time with all of them, that’s one big distraction. Considered one of his children 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 every kind of discussions (from trans matters to communism to squeezing the working class as a billionaire CEO), acquired Musk rather more centered 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 increasingly more pulled into id politics, after which purchased Twitter. He mainly 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 increasingly more concerned in 1) operating 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 exhausting to think about that he’s been very centered on Tesla automobile and software program growth. It’s additionally exhausting to imagine he’s been paying loads of consideration to totally different gross sales tendencies and competitors in key markets — China, Europe, and even the US. He has stated 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 carried out lengthy interviews with presidential candidates Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis, amongst others, and one would suppose he did some degree 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 seen Musk attended the World Cup ultimate in Qatar, the latest US Open males’s ultimate in NYC, and plenty of different celeb occasions around the globe. Once more, additionally, he has 12 youngsters (not less than).

By the best way, concerning all of his tweeting, the Wall Avenue Journal lately analyzed it and decided: “Both the AI and keyword analyses revealed the same pattern: Musk’s feed has fundamentally shifted from business toward politics and social issues.” Whereas he used to tweet largely about Tesla and SpaceX, he’s rather more centered now on different issues. I believe that’s a transparent signal his consideration is usually elsewhere. One other evaluation discovered that he spends nearly 3 hours a day on X (as a person, 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 fully 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 automobiles, most likely little curiosity in listening to in regards to the competitors and client demand challenges Tesla is going through in numerous markets, a powerful aversion to preventing the pressures of Wall Avenue and the press once more, and an unlimited circus of distractions, I believe Tesla growth is being massively uncared for.

However he can’t say he’s taken a fallacious 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 delayed, but it surely’s set to work. He simply has to. It can revive client demand development in Tesla automobiles. 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 centered on the extra attention-grabbing issues that seize his consideration on X on a regular basis. Additionally, it would enable him to maintain ignoring the requests for a extra reasonably priced Tesla automobile and extra variations of the Mannequin 3 and Mannequin Y with the intention to “grow 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 can be 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 essentially arrive? Will it resolve all of Musk’s Tesla issues? Will every part be high-quality with the TSLA world once more? Will Elon Musk change into the world’s richest man once more? Will robotaxis financially gas a long-held need to go to Mars?

I’ll go away the longer term 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 employees who criticize him — or give him answers he doesn’t like — as many episodes in the book illustrate. In one case, he was enraged about a decline in engagement on his tweets, and abruptly fired an engineer who suggested that the public’s interest in him had fallen off since the Twitter acquisition closed several months prior. But another employee, a data scientist who had already made up his mind to resign after turning over memos on how to run Twitter more effectively, was even more blunt with Musk. He explained that he had been excited about the takeover but was disheartened when, just weeks later, Musk shared blatant partisan misinformation about an assault by a home intruder on then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband Paul Pelosi. ‘It’s only really like the tenth percentile of the adult population who’d be gullible enough to fall for this,’ the employee told Musk, who shot back, ‘Fu** you!’ The departing data scientist left him with a piece of advice: ‘I hope you’ll declare bankruptcy and let someone else run the company.’”

Why is that related? Musk has had a bent up to now 12 months, or extra, to imagine and promote wild conspiracy theories. He’s been leaping to conclusions on what appears to be a day by day foundation. And he’s been very poor at accepting corrections, critiques, and new info that doesn’t align along with his claims. I imagine it’s been a really related story at Tesla. We’ve had reporting on executives there attempting to persuade him of the significance of assorted issues (from a extra reasonably priced Tesla to sustaining a Supercharging workforce) 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 lots of are, that Tesla is being uncared for, essential work that may very well be accomplished on the firm is being trashed, and the corporate’s future is being guess on a Hail Mary. The story above tries to elucidate how and why that’s taking place. Perhaps it’s fallacious, possibly it’s proper. What do you suppose?