Visualizing The Many Failures Of Elon Musk

Elon Musk is having a rough week.

After confessing to investors and Tesla’s customers that the company had only managed to build 260 of the 1,500 Model 3 Sedans that it had promised to deliver by the end of the third quarter, the Wall Street Journal revealed that the Tesla had not yet finished building the Model 3 assembly line at its Fremont, Calif, factory. Instead, factory employees have been assembling cars by hand – a highly unusual method. As one source who spoke to WSJ confirmed: “that’s not how mass production vehicles are made.”

In a tweet published just before the storm, Musk said that the Tesla semi unveil had been pushed back until November as the company diverts resources to the Model 3 and to Puerto Rico, a transparent attempt to cover his flank should the company’s “production bottlenecks” persist for longer than anticipated.

Despite effectively being caught concealing material information from investors, Musk will in all likelihood soldier on from this latest scandal, bolstered by credulous investors (and generous government subsidies). Even if Tesla continues to miss increasingly ambitious production targets that have proven to be little more than a sop to investors, Musk – already one of Silicon Valley’s most durable figures – will continue to burnish his credibility as a “tech visionary” as he mesmerizes investors with his high-minded monologues about colonizing Mars.    

But you’ve got to give the man credit – he’s overcome a not-insignificant amount of adversity during his career. Like Travis Kalanick, he’s been fired as CEO of a company he founded. He’s also survived near fatal illnesses, and famously married – and divorced – the same woman twice.

In a colorful series of infographics, MarketWatch traces the tragedies and obstacles that have befallen Musk in career spanning more than two decades.

In 2000, Musk almost died after contracting malaria while traveling to Brazil and South Africa, prompting the famous quip “Vacation will kill you.”

He’s overseen not one, but three, failed rocket launches at SpaceX.

In December 2008, both Tesla and SpaceX were on the verge of bankruptcy.

Some other more recent setbacks for Musk have included an unexpected downgrade by Morgan Stanley, and Consumer Reports lowering its ratings on Tesla’s Model S and Model X.

Of course, Musk isn’t the only tech CEO who’s faced adversity. Steve Jobs was famously ousted from Apple in 1985 and later said of that time that he was a “very public failure.”

But even when his company caught up in another scandal, we imagine Elon – shielded by the fact that Tesla shares are trading north of $350 - has developed an appreciation for taking the long view.
 

Elon Musk Admits He Is Bipolar

In addition to persistent cash burn problem, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has admitted he is also bipolar.

In a series candid of tweets on Sunday, one day after delivering the first production Model 3, Musk replied to questions by other Twitter users about his mental state, shedding some light on the inner turmoil he struggles with. Asked "whether the the ups and down he had make for a more enjoyable life", Musk responded "The reality is great highs, terrible lows and unrelenting stress. Don"t think people want to hear about the last two."

The reality is great highs, terrible lows and unrelenting stress. Don"t think people want to hear about the last two.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 30, 2017

Turns out people did, and when asked if Musk was bipolar, he answered "Yeah" adding in a follow-up tweet that "maybe not medically tho. Dunno. Bad feelings correlate to bad events, so maybe real problem is getting carried away in what I sign up for."

@elonmusk are you bipolar?

— Fahad Uddin (@iFahadUddin) July 30, 2017

Maybe not medically tho. Dunno. Bad feelings correlate to bad events, so maybe real problem is getting carried away in what I sign up for.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 30, 2017

Musk said that his way of dealing with the lows is to "take the pain and make sure you really care about what you"re doing."

"If you buy a ticket to hell, it isn"t fair to blame hell…" he said.

If you buy a ticket to hell, it isn"t fair to blame hell ...

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 30, 2017

His final tweet on the topic: "I"m sure there are better answers than what I do, which is just take the pain and make sure you really care about what you"re doing"

I"m sure there are better answers than what I do, which is just take the pain and make sure you really care about what you"re doing

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 30, 2017

While unclear if related, last week Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Musk traded insults over the threat artificial intelligence poses to human civilisation. As we reported recently, Musk reveals an apocalyptic vision in which he fears killer computers will wipe out humanity – a view shared by some of the world’s brightest minds.

Zuckerberg – who wants to read human thoughts at 100 words per minutes – claimed that super smart computers will help our species, rather than wiping us off the planet.

Elon Musk Unveils Apocalyptic Vision For The World

Elon Musk is no stranger to futurecasting a foreboding dystopia ahead for mankind, as we noted recently. But during a  speech he gave today at the National Governors Association Summer Meeting in Rhode Island, Musk turned up the future-fearmongery amplifier to "11".

As a reminder, in the past, when he was asked about whether humans are living inside a computer simulation, Musk made headlines last year by saying he thinks the chances are one in billions that we aren’t.

“The strongest argument for us probably being in a simulation I think is the following: 40 years ago we had Pong – two rectangles and a dot,” Musk stated.  

“That’s where we were. Now 40 years later we have photorealistic, 3D simulations with millions of people playing simultaneously and it’s getting better every year. And soon we’ll have virtual reality, we’ll have augmented reality. If you assume any rate of improvement at all, then the games will become indistinguishable from reality, just indistinguishable.”

Here Musk is referring to the exponential growth of technology, the lynchpin of the Singularity theory. If in 40 years we’ve gone from the two-dimensional pong to the cusp of augmented and virtual reality, imagine where we’ll be in another forty, or a hundred, or 400. And that is where he began today...

But today, Musk discussed a broad range of topics from energy sources in the future...

"It"s inevitable," Musk said, speaking of shift to sustainable energy. "But it matters if it happens sooner or later."

As for those pushing some other type of fusion, Musk notes that the sun is a giant fusion reactor in the sky. "It"s really reliable," he said. "It comes up every day. if it doesn"t we"ve got (other) problems)."

To Tesla"s share price:

Musk said he has been on record several times as saying its stock price "is higher than we have any right to deserve" especially based on current and past performance.

"The stock price obviously reflects a lot of optimism on where we will be in the future," he said. "Those expectations sometimes get out of control. I hate disappointing people, I am trying really hard to meet those expectations."

Musk added that he won"t be selling any stock "unless I have to for taxes," and said "I"m going down with the ship... I"ll be the last [to sell]."

Musk addressed government regulation and incentives:

"It sure is important to get the rules right," Musk said. "Regulations are immortal. They never die unless somebody actually goes and kills them. A lot of times regulations can be put in place for all the right reasons but nobody goes back and kills them because they no longer make sense."

Musk also focused on the importance of incentives, saying whatever societies incentivize tends to be what happens. "It"s economics 101," he said.

And what drives him:

"I want to be able to think about the future and feel good about that, to dream what we can to have the future be as good as possible. To be inspired by what is likely to happen and to look forward to the next day. How do we make sure things are great? That"s the underlying principle behind Tesla and SpaceX."

Within 20 years, he said driving a car will be like having a horse (i.e. rare and totally optional). "There will not be a steering wheel."

“There will be people that will have non-autonomous cars, like people have horses,” he said.

“It just would be unusual to use that as a mode of transport.”

But what started off as the latest sales pitch for electric cars quickly devolved into a bizarre rant that among other things, touched on Elon Musk"s gloomy, apocalyptic vision of how the world could end... (via ReCode)

Musk called on the government to proactively regulate artificial intelligence before things advance too far.

“Until people see robots going down the street killing people, they don’t know how to react because it seems so ethereal,” he said.

“AI is a rare case where I think we need to be proactive in regulation instead of reactive. Because I think by the time we are reactive in AI regulation, it’s too late.”

“Normally the way regulations are set up is a while bunch of bad things happen, there’s a public outcry, and after many years a regulatory agency is set up to regulate that industry,” he continued.

“It takes forever. That, in the past, has been bad but not something which represented a fundamental risk to the existence of civilization. AI is a fundamental risk to the existence of human civilization.”

Musk has been concerned about AI for years, and he’s working on technology that would connect the human brain to the computer software meant to mimic it.

Full interview below (Musk begins talking around 42 minutes in)...

If At First You Don't Succeed... A Timeline Of Elon Musk's Long List Of Failures

At first glance, it’s easy to be impressed by Elon Musk’s impressive resume. He’s shooting for the stars with SpaceX, changing the future of transportation with Tesla, Hyperloop, and The Boring Company, and he’s already had a profound impact on the e-commerce and payments sectors through Paypal. It’s no coincidence that most of these are $1 billion+ companies. But, as Visual Capitalist"s Jeff Desjardins notes, focusing only on his successes provides a superficial view of the man. To get the full perspective on his career, it is much more interesting to look at the failures and lows he has experienced. These are the moments when most people would have likely given up.

FAILING OFTEN

As every entrepreneur knows, any business venture can be upended by failures at any moment – and it is how one bounces back from those failures that counts. Today’s infographic from Kickresume shows Musk’s struggles and failures throughout his career, and how he persevered to become a modern business icon.

As the ever-quotable Winston Churchill once said:

Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts. – Winston Churchill

After being ousted out of his own company, having many rockets go bust, and fighting to keep Tesla and SpaceX from going bankrupt, Musk kept pushing forward with courage.

WHAT WE CAN LEARN

Entrepreneurs hold people like Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, and Richard Branson in high reverence. Sometimes, we even put them on a pedestal, thinking we could only dream of making such a profound impact on the world. However, this is obviously a one dimensional view. These figures are not superhuman, and the reality is that they’ve all experienced tragic failures throughout the course of their careers. They’ve been disheartened, but they bounced back. We have to recognize that success in business isn’t what it appears to be on magazine covers and headlines. Failure is an everyday part of doing business, and it plagues almost every entrepreneur in some shape or form. The difference is in how you react to it.

...and of course, it helps to be on the right side of government handouts too...

Tesla Overtakes GM As America's Most Valuable Car Company

It"s official - for the first time ever, Elon Musk"s government-subsidized car-maker is America"s most valuable auto manufacturer.

Tesla shares surged another 1% today, amid a continued "trouble in shortville" ramp, topping $300 for the first time...

That gives the company a total value of $52.7 billion.

That"s more than GM"s $49.6 billion valuation. Tesla chief executive Elon Musk says he expects the company to sell 500,000 cars next year. GM, meanwhile, sold more than 20 times that many last year.

"If you look at the different auto companies on paper, it does seem a bit proposterous, where Tesla is at this moment, versus some of the more established auto companies," Jessica Caldwell, director of industry analysis with automotive research firm Edmunds, said in an interview with CBC"s On The Money on Monday.

Tesla sold 76,285 cars last year. That compares to over 10 million for GM worldwide and 6.65 million for Ford.

"I think Tesla has had a very high market cap for a long time, so I don"t think this comes necessarily as a surprise, but when you compare it to someone like Ford [or GM] who has a wealth of resources, it does seem a little out of whack," Caldwell said.

Musk Taunts Shorts As Tesla Hits Record Highs

Amid the stock"s best day in 6 months, pushing the taxpayer-subsized company to record highs, Tesla"s CEO Elon Musk has three brief words for some speculators...

Stormy weather in Shortville ...

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 3, 2017

It appears "Pride goes before destruction, and haughtiness before a fall," was not a consideration for Mr. Musk.

Has Elon Musk Setup Tesla For An 'Epic Fail' With His Model 3 Production Guidance (Hint: Yes)

Elon Musk, Silicon Valley"s automotive visionary, loves to wow the world with grandiose visions that serve primarily to reinforce his position at the top of the list of tech titans.  That said, at some point we suspect his shareholders will actually expect him to perform against his "visions" rather than simply talk about them.

And while one can never be sure just how many chances investors in this frothy market will allow Musk before turning on him and his aggressively priced stock, it appears as though he isn"t doing himself any favors with his recent Model 3 production guidance.  As Bloomberg points out this morning, Musk is guiding the market to production volumes of 10,000 Model 3"s per week by 2018, or roughly 5x his current volumes for the Model S and Model X, combined.

First, Musk said the company is placing orders with suppliers for “1,000 cars a week in July, 2,000 a week in August, and 4,000 a week in September.” 1 Tesla then plans to increase production to 5,000 cars a week by the end of the year, and 10,000 a week by the end of 2018. For context, the company is currently able to make about 2,000 Model S and Model X cars a week.

And while it"s certainly reasonable to assume that a lower-priced Tesla will have more of a mass market appeal than previous, more expensive models, it just might be a stretch to assume the new car will out sale the BMW 3 Series and Mercedes C Class, combined, in it"s first year of production.

For Musk to hit all of his targets, Tesla would need to build about 430,000 Model 3s by the end of next year. That’s more than all of the all-electric cars sold planet-wide last year. The rollout will begin in California and move east, focusing on U.S. reservation holders. Even if half of the Model 3 inventory shipped to other countries, U.S. sales under Musk’s targets would outpace the BMW 3 Series and the Mercedes C class—combined.

Another forecast Musk reiterated is that Tesla thinks it can build 500,000 total cars next year. 3  Model S and Model X growth would continue, but at a slowing rate. The chart below, as far as we can figure, is the ramp that Tesla is forecasting.

To sell that many $35,000 sedans in the U.S. “would be absolutely unprecedented based on what we know about car markets today and how people spend their dollars,” said Salim Morsy, electric car analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance. “It could happen. I’m pretty sure it won’t.”

Virtually every Wall Street analyst agrees. Even the most bullish among them don’t think Tesla can sell half a million electric cars next year, and Musk has a long history of never setting a deadline that he’s likely to keep.

Meanwhile, as we pointed out earlier this month (see "Tesla Admits It Still Hasn"t Completed A Model 3 Beta Prototype"), Car and Driver found an interesting "risk factor" in Tesla"s 10-K which basically cautioned that, despite aggressive production guidance slated to begin just 6 months from now, the company hasn"t even developed a Model 3 "beta prototype"....

And Car and Driver"s Anton Wahlman - who appears to be one of the few who actually read Tesla"s 10-K filing - may have found the reason for the doubts...

From the filing:

“We expect that the next performance milestone to be achieved will be the successful completion of the Model 3 Beta Prototype, which would be achieved upon the determination by our Board of Directors that an eligible prototype has been completed. Candidates for such prototype are among the vehicles that we are currently building as part of our ongoing testing of our Model 3 vehicle design and manufacturing processes.”

In other words, Wahlman points out, Tesla has not “completed” a Model 3 “beta prototype” as of, well, either of these two dates: December 31, 2016 (the period that the SEC filing covers), or March 1, 2017 (the date on which the document was filed). Pick your poison.

...but it"s totally fine because, as Bloomberg notes, Musk has plans to simply "revolutionize" the automotive production process by simply skipping the beta testing phase.

Tesla is redefining how cars are developed, built, sold, and updated. Some of the tricks Musk plans to speed up the launch can only be done once. Others may transform the automotive industry much like Telsa’s over-the-air software updates. Here’s what we know:

Tesla is skipping “beta”—sort of. On Friday, Musk fired off a barrage of 50 messages on Twitter while on a flight to Cape Canaveral, Florida. Among them was a six second 4 , the first glimpse of what he calls a “release candidate” Model 3. The term is more typically used in the software industry, referring to a final version that’s almost ready for public release.

Musk is condensing the typical timeline for a car release. A traditional auto manufacturer spends about six months testing a beta cars prior to a rollout. Musk seems to have skipped a step, and is building test vehicles using the same equipment line that will feed mass production. If that’s the case—and this truly is a “release candidate”—then it implies that production is on track. The car looks very much like the vehicles Musk showed a year ago, and that fidelity to the original prototype will have helped keep engineers on schedule.

Of course, if beta testing phases are so irrelevant one has to wonder why the major OEMs spend 1-2 years, and millions of dollars, testing their vehicles before mass release...we"re sure it"s all just bureaucratic waste...

Protesters Plot "Border Wall" Rally For Tomorrow...At Zuckerberg's Sprawling $100mm Hawaiian Estate

Back in 2014 Mark Zuckerberg paid $100 million to purchase 700 acres of beachfront property on the North Shore of Kauai.  The estate includes 1,000"s of feet of pristine shoreline providing the perfect "safe space" for the 30-year-old Silicon Valley Billionaire and his family.

Unfortunately, there was just one little problem with the purchase...technically the sellers didn"t own the title to all of that land due to the so-called Kuleana Act, a Hawaiian law established in 1850 that for the first time gave natives the right to own the land that they lived on. 

So now, according to the Honolulu Star Advertiser, the Facebook billionaire sued a few hundred Hawaiians who still have legal-ownership claims to parts of his vacation estate through their ancestors.  Per Yahoo Finance:

Three holding companies controlled by Zuckerberg filed eight lawsuits in local court on December 30 against families who collectively inherited 14 parcels of land through the Kuleana Act, a Hawaiian law established in 1850 that for the first time gave natives the right to own the land that they lived on.

The 14 parcels total just 8.04 of the 700 acres Zuckerberg owns, but the law gives any direct family member of a parcel"s original owner the right to enter the otherwise private compound.

And while Zuckerberg"s lawyer attempted to downplay the lawsuits as a common practice in Hawaii, we suspect the idea of defending your private property rights against one of the top 10 richest people in the world is somewhat intimidating and slightly less than "normal."

The quiet-title suits filed are designed to identify all property owners and give them the ability to sell their ownership stakes at auction, according to Keoni Shultz, an attorney representing Zuckerberg. Because the ownership stakes are passed down and divided among family descendants by the state, many people don"t realize they have a claim until action is taken against them in court.

“It is common in Hawaii to have small parcels of land within the boundaries of a larger tract, and for the title to these smaller parcels to have become broken or clouded over time," Shultz told Business Insider in a statement. "In some cases, co-owners may not even be aware of their interests. Quiet title actions are the standard and prescribed process to identify all potential co-owners, determine ownership, and ensure that, if there are other co-owners, each receives appropriate value for their ownership share.”

Of course, the pompous dismissal of property rights isn"t the only thing riling up Hawaiian natives regarding Zuckerberg"s estate.  As The Garden Island pointed out, residents are also slightly less than ecstatic about a massive, 6 foot rock wall erected around the estate and blocking the "view that’s been available and appreciative by the community here for years."

“The feeling of it is really oppressive. It’s immense,” Hall said. “It’s really sad that somebody would come in, and buy a huge piece of land and the first thing they do is cut off this view that’s been available and appreciative by the community here for years.”

"It’s hot behind that wall. Because it’s up on a berm, there’s not a breath of air on this side from the ocean,” Chantara said. “You take a solid wall that’s 10 or more feet above the road level; the breeze can’t go through.”

Another Kilauea resident, Donna Mcmillen, calls the wall a “monstrosity.”

"I’m super unhappy about that. I know that land belongs to Zuckerberg. Money is no option for him. I’m 5’8” and when I’m walking, I see nothing but wall,” Mcmillen said. “It just doesn’t fit in with the natural beauty that we have here. There are people on the island who money can pay for anything. These kind of things that they do take away what Kauai is all about.”

Over the past couple of weeks, intense public backlash over the lawsuit and "immense, oppressive" wall has caused Zuckerberg to backtrack on his plans. Earlier today he published a note to residents in The Garden Island announcing his intentions to drop his litigation saying that "upon reflection, it"s clear we made a mistake."

We"ve heard from many in the community and learned more about the cultural and historical significance of this land. Over the past week, we"ve spoken with community leaders and shared that our intention is to achieve an outcome that preserves the environment, respects local traditions, and is fair to those with kuleana lands.

To find a better path forward, we are dropping our quiet title actions and will work together with the community on a new approach. We understand that for native Hawaiians, kuleana are sacred and the quiet title process can be difficult. We want to make this right, talk with the community, and find a better approach.

Upon reflection, I regret that I did not take the time to fully understand the quiet title process and its history before we moved ahead. Now that I understand the issues better, it"s clear we made a mistake.

The right path is to sit down and discuss how to best move forward. We will continue to speak with community leaders that represent different groups, including native Hawaiians and environmentalists, to find the best path.

Beyond this process, we are also looking for more ways to support the community as neighbors. We have contributed to community organizations and will continue to do so. We work with wildlife experts to preserve endangered species. We hope to do much more in the future.

We love Kaua`i and we want to be good members of the community for the long term. Thank you for welcoming our family into your community.

But, a local farmer, Joe Hart says that Zuckerberg"s retreat isn"t sufficient and, as of now, vows that the mass protest planned for tomorrow will move forward as "people are furious down here with him."  Per McClatchey:

“People are furious down here with him,” Hart, a local farmer told Business Insider. “We just want to bring this issue to light. He’s made his money stealing everyone’s information, which we’ve let him do, but to come down here and start suing everyone, that’s not going to fly down here.”

Alas, in the end we"re sure Zuckerberg will have his way.  After all, what fun is billions of dollars if you can"t buy expansive swaths of entire states and trample on the private property rights of some little people?