Last week, Elon Musk bust out some serious dad moves whilst on stage during a Tesla event in Shanghai.
He was the butt of many jokes following that performance, with some likening his moves to those exhibited by Bill Gates at the infamous Windows 95 product launch way back in the day.
To be clear, that is not a compliment.
I’m pretty sure Elon won’t be all that phased, especially when you consider the recent success of Tesla. Some numbers via Forbes:
Tesla stock has spiked since the company revealed last week that it delivered a record 112,000 vehicles in the fourth quarter, modestly exceeding the consensus estimate among analysts, and announced that its first full-scale production plant outside the U.S.—in Shanghai, China—is now delivering vehicles.
Shares surged 13% in the week through January 9—boosting Musk’s net worth by $2.1 billion, to $28.8 billion. The 49-year-old billionaire is currently the 34th-richest person in the world. Musk owns nearly 22% of Tesla’s stock, which accounts for roughly half of his fortune. He also has an estimated $12.5 billion stake in SpaceX, his privately held aerospace company known for reusable rockets.
Oh, just the extra $2 billion or so racked up in a week. No biggy.
To put an extra pep in his step, as of Tuesday last week, Tesla hit a market cap of $83 billion, which makes it the most valuable car company in American history.
The good times have kept on rolling this week, with shares hitting $500 for the first time, which means Tesla now has a total market value of more than $90 billion.
For a sense of perspective, that’s more than the combined value of Ford and General Motors.
The potential downside here is that expectations on Tesla to deliver in the first quarter of 2020 are now higher than ever. If the numbers don’t quite stack up, the share price could tumble, but I guess that’s a nice problem to have.
Elon himself seems in fine spirits, tweeting earlier in the week that your Tesla could soon talk to you:
Teslas will soon talk to people if you want. This is real. pic.twitter.com/8AJdERX5qa
— Buff Mage (@elonmusk) January 12, 2020
Yes, he has changed his name to Buff Mage on Twitter, which we gather is a potential reference to the Netflix series The Witcher.
We know you can summon your Tesla with voice command, but do we really want a car that talks to strangers?
In case you never checked the replies to Elon’s tweet above, he then added this:
Whilst some media outlets have run wild with this one, it’s clearly a reference to Monty Python and the Holy Grail, which we wholeheartedly endorse.
Elon’s out here making an extra billion or two during the first two weeks of the year, and the rest of us are left enjoying #JanuworrySurvivalKit memes, hey?
When things are going this well, you can’t help but feel it’s only a matter of time until Elon does something that brings him headaches.
[source:forbes]
