Elon Musk is no longer over-delivering as he once was, but he still over-promises, according to one top economist, who said the Tesla CEO recently announced that his company's EV He noted that the company claims it should be valued like an AI company.
In a Project Syndicate editorial published Wednesday, J. Bradford DeLong, an economics professor at the University of California at Berkeley and a former Treasury official, said that Musk is “the tip of the spear in the transition away from internal combustion engines. '' for creating a historically significant technology company. vehicle. ”
DeLong added that Musk's rocket company SpaceX also shows great promise, and that Musk has proven to be an effective coach for engineers working on battery technology, electric vehicles and rocket science. “Without him, these technologies would not have developed as much as they did.”
In fact, DeLong said, Musk has often over-promised and over-delivered on those fronts, contributing to Tesla's market capitalization and Musk's personal wealth soaring since the 2010s. Ta.
But recently, the focus has shifted from EVs, charger networks, and batteries to social media, artificial intelligence, and robotaxis.
Mr. Musk last month vowed to accelerate plans to launch new low-cost electric models that Wall Street views as critical to the future of automobiles, while also reaffirming robotaxi ambitions to develop self-driving cars.
Meanwhile, Tesla's sudden layoff of its entire Supercharger team has raised concerns about the future of the major network and the industry. This also comes amid slowing EV demand, sluggish sales, widespread layoffs, plummeting stock prices and an exodus of senior executives.
“But while over-promising continues, over-delivering has not,” DeLong wrote. “Fundraisers, cheerleaders, and coaches of teams developing real technology have become touts in a meme stock carnival.”
He pointed to Tesla's earnings call last month, where Musk encouraged Wall Street analysts to value the company more like a robotics or AI company than a car company. The CEO added that Tesla in particular should be viewed “almost entirely in terms of an autonomy solution” that can be applied to a huge fleet of cars.
But DeLong pointed out that more than 80% of Tesla's first-quarter sales came from auto revenue, and the marginal cost of manufacturing a car is now the marginal cost of an IT company that can write code once and run it anywhere. is not far behind, he added.
“For all of Tesla's current shareholders who plan to sell their holdings over the next few years, it all comes down to the company's success as a meme stock, and Mr. Musk is working diligently toward that goal. ,” DeLong warned. “There are virtually no long-term shareholders in Tesla, so the market doesn't really care that Tesla doesn't have a CEO willing to build it into a durable, for-profit organization.”