Has @elonmusk Bitten Off More Than Even He Can Chew?

It's great that he's donating so much of his seemingly boundless energy to fixing our federal government, but he might not be paying enough attention to his companies.

Hey, Elon: Remember me? You banned me from buying a Tesla a few years ago. No hard feelings. Thanks, actually, since I ended up buying an Audi RS7 which was the most fun car I’ve ever owned.

It’s widely reported that a lot of people are pissed off at you and are selling their Teslas (or trashing other people’s). But the thought occurs to me that Tesla’s problems aren’t strictly about your politics. They are about what a terrible job the company is doing with introducing new products.

Personally, I think the Cybertruck is really ugly and would never consider buying one, regardless of how many recalls have been issued. The real problem is that you haven’t introduced a new model car for most people since, what, the Model 3, in 2016? Oh, right, there was the Model Y in 2020, but that’s just a bigger version of Model 3. And now you’re promising an autonomous taxi called Cybercab sometime in the future. Maybe Tesla wouldn’t be in such trouble if the company acted like a real car company?

Real car companies establish a model and then introduce new versions every year, with a model year designation. You seem to have decided that doesn’t work for Tesla, but regular people feel like the company hasn’t introduced anything new in 5 years, except for a weird truck and, maybe any day now, an updated roadster?

In fact, one might wonder whether you’re paying sufficient attention to all of your companies. I did notice that the upper stage of the last Starship “test” launch, #8, blew up in a rather spectacular fashion. I know you like to position failure as a learning experience, but the thought occurred to me that perhaps you aren’t as involved in developing Starship as you would have been if you weren’t “fixing” the government. You are after all the chief engineer for SpaceX.

Of course, you did just combine X & Xai into one company, flouting all the rules for good governance. And now I’m hearing that, since your money didn’t buy a seat on the Wisconsin supreme court, your buddy Trump might be wanting you to disappear sooner than you planned.

Anyway, it’s just a thought: Maybe Iron Man can’t do everything everywhere all at once.