Tesla (TSLA) CEO Elon Musk returned to his day job on March 20 to hold an unexpected company all-hands. It was a subdued Musk leading the meeting, and at times, he seemed incredibly gracious to the staff of his electric vehicle company.
The tone of the meeting was clearly upbeat and lacked some of the angry energy Musk has shown in his role leading the Department for Government Efficiency (DOGE) for President Donald Trump. This meeting was largely Musk, the tech visionary, not Musk, the crusading political activist.
It was an uplifting view of what Musk believes his company can accomplish.
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This was a man speaking to employees who clearly (at least the ones allowed to ask questions) love him and who believe they’re part of a bigger mission at Tesla.
And, while you can doubt the timing of the meeting due to activist calls to replace Musk because he simply has too many jobs, you can’t question many of the things he said. The meeting showed Musk at his most optimistic, even if some of his predictions and proclamations are a little scary for anyone who has seen “Terminator.”
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Musk was encouraging but measured in his speech.
Image source: TheStreet
Musk wants to end fossil fuels
In many ways, Musk’s hour-long speech was sort of a reset. He did not openly distance himself from politics, but he did embrace some ideas on sustainability that are partly why Tesla appealed to left-leaning Americans before Musk’s involvement in politics.
He opened with a very hopeful tone.
“Our mission is to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy. It’s only possible because of the incredible people here at Tesla. They are absolutely committed to the cause of sustainable energy and that is why we can do what no other company can do,” he said,
Musk did not specifically use the word cars when talking about lowering prices, but Tesla is primarily a car company.
“We can make lower-cost products that are still efficient and compelling and we can make them at scale. We’re going to build them all in compact and high-output factories that are easy for us to build quickly. We work together in a way that allows us to ask the hard questions,” he said.
Musk then essentially reaffirmed the company’s mission.
“This is the product that will retire fossil fuels. We’re not just creating products. We’re creating a movement for sustainable energy for everyone,” he added. “…What we’re trying to convey is a message of hope and optimism. Optimism that is based on actual physics. Earth can and will move to a sustainable energy economy and will do so in your lifetime.”
Musk makes a bold promise
“Just imagine a future. What does that amazing future look like? How about a future where you can have any good or service you want at will? A future of abundance for all, where really anyone can have anything. It sounds impossible,” he shared.
That’s a very bold promise, and Musk addressed how aggressive that idea seems.
“It sounds like, surely such a thing cannot be the case. But what I’m here to tell you is that that will indeed be the case. That the future we’re headed for is one where you can literally just have anything you want,” he added.
Musk’s comments never got political, but he did seem to be proposing a sort of technology-driven socialism.
“Like, if there’s a good or service you want, you’ll be able to have it, and ultimately, everyone in the world will be able to have anything they want. What’s key to that is robotics and AI. So once you have self-driving cars and you have autonomous humanoid robots, where everyone can have their own personal C3PO and R2D2, but even better than that, that’s Optimus,” he added.
Optimus is Tesla’s human-like robot project named after the leader of the Transformers.
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Musk also appears to lean into a version of the future that many people born in the 1970s thought would have happened by now.
“You can imagine, like, your own personal robot buddy that is a great friend but also takes care of your house, will clean your house, will mow the lawn, will walk the dog, will teach your kids, will babysit, and will also enable the production of goods and services basically with no limit. And when you combine that with sustainable energy from the sun and batteries, we can also, at the same time, also maintain a great environment. So that, I think, is the future that we want,” he shared.
