The entrepreneur put on a tour de force before the world.
In much of life, timing is everything, and sometimes my timing is lousy. I wrote a piece last week on the unique business success of our generation, Elon Musk. I had heard about his planned presentation of his long-anticipated Roadster, but I didn’t see a reason to wait on the article. The words percolate to the top. I write them down, and then I send them to the editors. What a difference a week makes.
Many commentators have noted that the exceptional capabilities displayed by the newest Tesla could only have come from a capitalist country. Commies and Islamists have a hard time making pencils, and the level of engineering shown off could only have come from a company with a strong profit motive and the best minds in the business. What is truly Musk-unique is the absolute synergy of several of his companies that we witnessed. An Optimus robot sat at the controls of a Tesla car sporting SpaceX cold gas thrusters and no doubt employing Grok AI/SI software to control car performance. Other businessmen might wall off their companies or not encourage their integrated activities due to top-heavy management or incompatible cultures. Not so Elon Musk. Those compressed air thrusters that stole the show were pure SpaceX, while every aspect of the new sports car reflected Tesla engineering and superb design. Like millions of others, we imagined ourselves flying over the competition to grab a parking spot near our house.
I have no idea at this point if the flying aspects of the Roadster will receive wide governmental approval for actual use on the road. That is not the point. Elon Musk addressed the concept of a “flying car”, something that has been discussed since at least the 1950s. All previous iterations had folding wings and took off like planes, and not one of them was produced in large numbers or became actual commercial successes. Musk simply ignored the wings — like ignoring throwing his rocket boosters in the Atlantic Ocean — and made the car light enough that compressed air could push the car forward and get it to fly and spin around as we witnessed last week. What I liked the most were the side-thrusters that reminded me so much of NASA Apollo flights where retro rocket burns were precise in direction and timing.
There are those who are downplaying the Roadster show. They either don’t like Elon Musk or, as is usually the case, they want everyone to be mediocre like themselves. By combining his companies in this product, Musk is showing us the future of business. In the past, you could have a restaurant or a department store. Sure, you had advertising and other ancillary expenses. What Musk is showing us is that in order to succeed and truly progress, one has to break down barriers between apparently unrelated businesses and engineering specialties, and bring them all together to make products that could not be made in the past by any single firm. In my prior piece, I noted that the Big Three automakers in Detroit have a combined market capitalization less than one-tenth of that of Tesla. And the reason why, in one sense, is that Tesla is a data company on wheels. All of the hands-free FSD data — millions of miles of it — is being compiled, analyzed, and used to tweak algorithms. The Robotaxi came out after Tesla had lots of experience with hands-free driving of its own early regular Tesla versions and from its enormous driver base. Data, data, data, whether it comes from your phone, car, household gadgets — everyone wants data in order to make better products.
Elon Musk is also exercising his political capital. He is supposedly investing north of $300 million in the midterm election cycle. It has also been reported that he gave the order to shut down Starlink in Ukraine as Zelensky and Friends kept bombing Russian energy assets and thus sending gas prices north immediately prior to the elections. There is no reason why Soros can blow his money to destroy the West, and Musk can’t spend his to save it. He knows that the leftist Democrats hate him, and he also knows that their policies and desire to control everything will be a disaster for his companies. The US government is working to streamline launch procedures in order to allow SpaceX to fire off missiles at a high rate. Democrats love commissions and oversight and paperwork. If they take power, he’ll shoot off a Starship once a year on his birthday.
Musk is also showing his philanthropic side, gifting a share of SpaceX to each Trump account for U.S. children. If his firm goes up like Apple went up from the 1990s, that share alone might help future adults afford a car or a down payment on a house. Musk realizes that the U.S. is the best deal, and it is critical to make sure that it has both a political and social future. He has done his share to bring children into the world! He wants to help the children of others also have a good shot at the future. And let’s not forget Twitter/X. Without this platform, we would still be sold the story that France’s destruction was related to a lack of pencil sharpeners and lockers in French schools. How many stories have been brought to the public or shown to be fraudulent through the democratization of information via Musk’s X ownership?
It was once said of Wilt Chamberlain that his greatness was not in putting 100 points down in a game. Rather, he made all of his teammates better. Elon Musk is similar. All other companies are put on notice about what the standards are in automotive, space, SI, etc. Boeing can no longer put up three satellites a year and drop boosters in the ocean while Musk puts up thousands and lands his boosters upright for future reuse. Same for cars. I told my kids that I wish that I had been in the boardroom of Ferrari or Porsche during the Roadster rollout. Like Blackberry laughed at the iPhone introduction, they too may have giggled at the car stuck to the track or how it jumped and spun so amazingly. But he is coming for them, whether they are ready or not. Look what happened to RIM, the maker of BlackBerry, and expect similar fallout for car makers that think that life can go on as it always has.
There is an expression from the Talmud, “Better a wise man than a prophet.” For Musk, we might say, better a genius than an expert. Musk ostensibly had zero experience in cars, brain chips, tunneling, rockets, or anything else that he has put his mind to. Yet, he knows where he wants to go, throws himself at it 15 hours a day/seven days a week, for years, and brings the best engineers in the land to reach the goals he has set. If the next launch of Starship ends with the top portion also being caught and being gently loaded back onto its booster, you will need a satellite to see where SpaceX’s stock will go. Musk looks way downfield and then tirelessly works towards his final goal. If Congress had played ball on DOGE, we might be running a budget surplus. Just sidelining USAID turned all of South America conservative (with the hope that Brazil is next to return to normal).
We are fortunate to have Elon Musk and we are blessed to use his advanced and amazing products. If the streets of Jerusalem could take a Cybertruck, I would bring one over. Maybe I’ll wait for a flying Roadster to get me through the brutal local traffic.
