[Wayne 962]

I jotted my thoughts down. I thought they were interesting, at least to me?

As you know, in skiing, there’s a phrase, getting over your head on your skis. Difficult to recover. This is where Elon is right now.

I think hubris is his downfall - I’ve thought this for a while. I’m a big Elon fan, but like the fans of the Lakers or Dodgers, the clock starts over after ever game. You’re only as good as your last win, and if you get too cocky, then you’re going to be in big trouble.

This slowdown in electric cars was completely foreseeable. The Tesla wasn’t like the iPhone, where it was 100% completely obvious that it was a game changing technology that would catch on (I bought one on day one, but actually returned it as version 1.0 wasn’t actually usable in a business environment for actually making calls - but I knew that version 2 would be great).

The issue with the electric cars is the infrastructure, as we have discussed many, many times. Even if the world had a billion superchargers, the infrastructure experience is less desirable than a “quick fill up” at the station. Sure, the lowered costs, and coolness, and environmental benefits are good, but at the end of the day all of the non-first adopters don’t want to sit and wait for their car to charge. I certainly don’t.

I would buy one if I didn’t already have a whole bunch of cars. But then I would have to install a charger somewhere in my house / garage. I actually don’t have a garage space for charging - it would have to be outside (garage is fully of car projects). So, there’s that added hassle of installing the charger, along with the expense ($2500?). They would have to run a new 220V line to my garage underneath the house, which probably wouldn’t be terribly too much. But if one installs a Tesla charger at the house, will it work with any other cars? I don’t know, I have never researched that.

Back to Elon - this whole Twitter “hobby project” has 100% predictably had him take his eyeballs off of Tesla and now their luster is dulling. The only justification for the stock price has been their future growth, and now deliveries are declining. Time to re-evaluate as a typical car company stock, which means a big reduction. The PE of Tesla is 38. The PE of GM is 5.38. Tesls would have to decline by about 85% from its current level to be at the same PE level as GM. Food for thought.

Unfortunately, I think the chapter on Elon’s “over the skis” moment is just beginning. I think history will look back at this time period and wonder “what was he thinking?!?” The crowning example of his hubris has got to be this Tesla Cybertruck. It has all of the flaws and drawbacks of a typical electric car, plus it’s fairly ridiculous looking on the road. For a prototype design experiment, I think it’s kind of cool. History is littered with these concept cars. But Elon thinks just because he makes it, people will buy it. If one has read the Isaacson book, one will know that he only surrounds himself with people who agree with him. My good friend worked very closely with him, and said, “you learn very early on not to say ‘no’ to Elon”.

When my first kid was in kindergarten, we had a “Kindergarten sleepover” on the school lawn. I remember hanging out there with a parent I had just met, Jason. He had sold his company a few years back and he gave me some advice I have not taken, but I have also kept in mind. He said, “You’re not special. Everything you touch does not turn to gold. Don’t think that every venture you do will automatically be successful.” While this is not necessarily a good thing to hear for people who lack self confidence, it’s a good thing for people to keep in mind who might be “over confident”. It’s been good advice that I’ve kept in the back of my mind for the past 20 years or so. I think Elon needs someone like Jason.

Thoughts?

-Wayne