Elon Musk came out on stage and did a jumping jack. His arms stretched above his head as he jumped for joy.
The embattled Musk was recently reinstated in his $46 billion settlement plan that a Delaware judge had previously thrown out. Tesla shareholders voted to reinstate the package, which the company’s board had urged them to do, and signed off on moving its state of incorporation to Texas.
“I want to start by saying, I love you guys,” Musk told Tesla shareholders at a meeting in Austin and those on live radio.
HOT DAMN I LOVE IT PEOPLE! ♥️
一 Elon Musk pic.twitter.com/mIt1fZ9Qi3
– DogeDesigner (@cb_doge) June 13, 2024
After the first results of the votes were announced, the crowd erupted into applause. Shareholders were then treated to a sizzle reel highlighting Tesla’s sustainability achievements, product innovation, and its innovation pipeline, which includes fully self-driving cars and a line of humanoid robots called Optimus. The video opens with the words of some of Tesla’s harshest critics. “Tesla could explode,” said investor Per Lekander, a famous Tesla bear.
In the video Musk dismissed this criticism, as he would do a few minutes later with the confidence visible in his live presentation. In his words, Musk revealed his vision for Tesla’s future, which depends on its ability to deliver fully autonomous vehicles. “We’re not just opening a new chapter for Tesla—we’re starting a new book,” Musk said.
Tesla has a bright financial future, according to Musk. “I think based on self-driving cars, we can multiply the value of the company by 110,” Musk said. “I believe that will happen.”
At least one investor agreed to his grand design. ARK Invest, a fund managed by long-time supporter Cathie Wood, said it believes Tesla could reach an $8 trillion market cap. Wood’s firm issued a $2,600 peak price target for Tesla in 2029. This analysis focuses on self-driving cars that are changing its revenue model and profit margins to that of a software company. “This becomes a revenue model, a piece of every mile driven in that private taxi network,” Wood told CNBC Thursday morning before the vote.
Earlier, Musk said that once Tesla completes its self-driving software, the company will immediately load it into all of its cars currently on the market. Doing so, almost overnight, could create a fleet of self-driving cars that could share revenue with Tesla. The system often ignores the role that controllers play in allowing movement to occur.
“Really the way to think about Tesla is about solving for autonomy and being able to unlock that autonomy for large fleets,” Musk said on an earnings call in April. “It could be the biggest value proposition in history if that happens, where you can drive yourself unsupervised.”
Musk has disappointed many investors by failing to understand the importance of Tesla’s plans. He pointed to institutional investors who live in New York because they “don’t drive their own cars.”
The fleet will be monetized by mimicking the business model of Uber and Airbnb, Musk said. Like Uber, Tesla will offer a rideshare service—this time without a driver. Although, the most important thing is that Uber does not have a fleet of self-driving cars, as Musk proposed to Tesla. Once autonomous Teslas become a reality, Musk predicted that people will turn their cars into temporary taxis, just as Airbnb allows users to turn their homes into hotels.
If you’re “going to be gone for a week, just tap once on your Tesla app,” Musk told the audience. “They ship your car and make money for you while you’re away.”
Musk praised the changes as “just a matter of time.” In the past he has overpromised on several important aspects of Tesla’s business, something he has done in many of his other jobs. In 2016, Musk said self-driving cars would be available by 2018—a promise he still makes to this day. He predicted that by 2020 there will be a million robots on the road. Although there are traffic lights in a few cities, they are not a universal form of transportation.
This time around, Musk seemed to couch his predictions with some caveats.
“Now admittedly, I’m a little optimistic sometimes,” Musk said, “so I don’t have a complete lack of self-awareness.”
However, in his moment of victory, he couldn’t help himself. “But if I didn’t have hope, this thing wouldn’t exist, this industry wouldn’t exist.”
