“Is the patience of Tesla shareholders with Elon Musk fading? Observers have often been bewildered by shareholders’ propensity to embrace Musk’s newest audacious prediction, even when past predictions didn’t come to fruition. Musk’s talent for deflecting attention from lacklustre financial results was apparent in the last quarter, as dismal figures were eclipsed by pledges of a more accessible Tesla by “early 2025″ or sooner, a planned event for robotaxis in August, and the routine chatter about fully self-driving technology.
This week, Tesla reported its most recent disappointing results, with profits falling by 45 per cent and profit margins progressively diminishing. Given this, it’s hardly surprising Musk strove to steer shareholder attention elsewhere, as Danni Hewson from AJ Bell’s suggests. Instead, Musk was singing the praises of a prospective humanoid robot, named Optimus.
Musk stated that ”Optimus will ultimately outvalue everything else at Tesla collectively.” “Everyone on the planet will yearn to own one,” he prophesied, foreseeing long-term demand to surpass 20 billion units. The robotaxi unveiling, which was meant to occur in August, has now been postponed to October. Musk, who expressed robust conviction in forecasting self-driving robotaxis by 2020 back in 2019, now claims he will be “astonished” if the inaugural robotaxi ride doesn’t take place the following year.
Since gutting at their lowest in April, Tesla shares rebounded by over 80 per cent. Consequently, Musk’s claims that Optimus “can function anywhere, including a new Earth” failed to impress shareholders, and shares suffered their sharpest one-day dip since 2020, plummeting by 12 per cent.
According to long-time Tesla sceptic Jim Chanos, it’s unlikely to see Musk concentrating on more mundane facts in the immediate future. Instead, anticipate more grandiose vows like “ocean farming, asteroid extraction and time travel”.”