Anyone else think this is a slap in the face for long term FSD buyers?

[RTPEV]

Regarding Optimus, I think it makes total complete logical sense. If Elon's expectation is that Tesla will achieve AGI, it would be foolish to not have the hardware to make use of it. Flip the situation around - if Tesla achieved AGI and *doesn't* have a humanoid robot to take advantage of it, TSLA stockholders will be screaming at Elon for his lack of foresight.

What Tesla though? If Elon wants to take his AI and robotics elsewhere [if he doesn't get 25% voting control of Tesla], I say go for it. Tesla doesn't have to be the one company that does everything. As a Tesla shareholder, I would like to see some more focus on the cars, because frankly, the competition is starting to catch up by focusing on things that matter to drivers, not science projects that are years out. If there are shareholders that see great promise in autonomous robots, great...they can buy stock in whatever company Elon wants to start to work on those projects.

Regarding resources being diverted away from FSD... eh. There probably weren't a bunch of robotics engineers pulled from FSD to work on Optimus.

Robotics engineers, certain not. But AI engineers, almost definitely (unless they really AREN'T working on the autonomy piece of Optimus yet).

From my viewpoint, we owe Elon's "overachiever syndrome" for a lot of good things. I'm not trying to give him credit for everything that comes out of his companies - obviously there are a lot of other smart and hardworking people responsible... but there are competitors of his businesses that are failing left and right (legacy auto, Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin, etc).

Yes, and I am willing to grant him a lot of credit for his past accomplishments. But I do think he has jumped the shark. I had a lot of respect for his lofty goals of making the species multi-planetary, and transitioning the world to a sustainable future. But somewhere along the way he's lost sight of all that and (again, from an outsider's perspective) it seems that now his ambitions are more about tackling big challenges, some of which may or may not be to the true benefit of humanity. And I do think his past success is clouding his judgement on what is actually possible, to the extent whereas in the past his was able to achieve remarkable things, but his ambitions are starting to get out of hand. I hope I am proved wrong, but for the time being, I really wish that Tesla would keep its focus.

 

[father_of_6]

And I do think his past success is clouding his judgement on what is actually possible,

Yeah. And Twitter was clearly a huge mistake. It was exciting soap opera drama at first, learning that Elon was buying up all the shares in secret for a hostile takeover... but signing away due diligence? And is Elon really the right person to own it?

I think Elon didn't like someone telling him "NO", so he spent $44 billion to flex his muscles. "That'll teach them a lesson."

 

[zoomer0056]

To see a lot more to this achievement than suggested by the very shallow thread title, watch this YT video.

 

[spacecoin]

To see a lot more to this achievement than suggested by the very shallow thread title, watch this YT video.

Dave Lee is so stupid that my head almost explodes after watching that.

Robotics is 99% a software problem. "Ohh it has hands and can move", is like saying FSD is close because the car has wheels and cameras.

 

[jeewee3000]

Yes, and I am willing to grant him a lot of credit for his past accomplishments. But I do think he has jumped the shark. I had a lot of respect for his lofty goals of making the species multi-planetary, and transitioning the world to a sustainable future. But somewhere along the way he's lost sight of all that and (again, from an outsider's perspective) it seems that now his ambitions are more about tackling big challenges, some of which may or may not be to the true benefit of humanity.

Cannot say I agree with this.

He hasn't lost sight of his main goals:
- acceleration of transition to sustainable energy economy (car production is ramping, energy storage production is ramping, only solar is lagging but that sector has enough competition as it is and has the lowest margins)

- making life multi-planetary (i.e. getting to Mars) -> Starship and Superheavy development has never been faster than now. Raptors, Starships and boosters are being spit out crazy fast.

- FSD: still developing, currently v12. But yes, Musk did underestimate this project.

A possible fair criticism of Musk you could make is he takes too much on his plate, but that is just in his nature. That's the reason that he ALSO bought Twitter to create X (a project he has been thinking about for twenty years), started OpenAI, started Neuralink, started X.AI, created schools, etcetera.

As Walter Isaacson points out in his biography of Elon (and his interviews he gave when the book came out): the fabric of Elon Musk contains all these "threads". You cannot take one piece of thread out of the fabric and have it stay the same. Elon is Elon in a full package, and you cannot have the "maniacal sense of urgency" regarding his goals (reasons why Tesla and SpaceX are where they are today) without the "taking too much on his plate"-aspect of it all.

But saying Elon has jumped the shark or that he lost sight of his goals is a statement that is too blindly focused on Elon's other endeavors (mainly the media attention X.com receives - good and bad) and disregards Elon's hard work in all of the above parts of his life.

Ask yourself: if Elon focused only on Tesla and SpaceX (so NOT twitter, boring company, X.AI, Neuralink), would those companies perform noticeably better than they do now? I'm not sure. It might even be good for Tesla and SpaceX not to be the only focal points of Elon's attention. It makes Elon put more tasks in the hands of other capable people. Which reduces the key-man risk in these companies.

TL;DR: Elon is Elon. Let the man pay attention to the things he wants. He ain't stupid and keeps at it.

 

[RTPEV]

TL;DR: Elon is Elon. Let the man pay attention to the things he wants. He ain't stupid and keeps at it.

Believe me, I give Elon a ton of credit for what he has accomplished.

But at the end of the day, I think he is good at starting things, maybe not so great at perfecting them. And that's not a bad thing--we need bold people like that. My primary complaint, if anything, is that he has become too bold in his predictions and aspirations (again, probably due to his past successful track record). He's predicting things/timelines that are simply not achievable and it's catching up with him, and I'm sorry to say, but his focus on X is just too much for me. Way too much of a distraction that does not get him any closer to the goals I've stated above. And to your point of letting Elon be Elon, I agree...but once he's got something rolling, he needs to know to step back, let the people that are good at maturing and perfecting something do their thing, and he can thus be freed up to move onto his next great endeavor.

 

[RTPEV]

To see a lot more to this achievement than suggested by the very shallow thread title, watch this YT video.

I used to watch (and enjoy) Dave Lee's videos (haven't seen any in a long time until now though). Let's frame this video with the knowledge that he is a professional Tesla cheerleader, so this is exactly the tone I would expect from him. It might be more relevant to see a reaction from someone a bit less biased (one way or the other) or from someone who is not producing content just for the clicks.

 

[jeewee3000]

Believe me, I give Elon a ton of credit for what he has accomplished.

But at the end of the day, I think he is good at starting things, maybe not so great at perfecting them. And that's not a bad thing--we need bold people like that. My primary complaint, if anything, is that he has become too bold in his predictions and aspirations (again, probably due to his past successful track record). He's predicting things/timelines that are simply not achievable and it's catching up with him, and I'm sorry to say, but his focus on X is just too much for me. Way too much of a distraction that does not get him any closer to the goals I've stated above. And to your point of letting Elon be Elon, I agree...but once he's got something rolling, he needs to know to step back, let the people that are good at maturing and perfecting something do their thing, and he can thus be freed up to move onto his next great endeavor.

I know the cure for this: just stop following Elon's activities for a while. Check back in a year and read up on the latest news on SpaceX, Tesla etc. You'll be giddy with excitement again.

I understand your sentiment. It seems (but I think that's only perception) that things are moving slower now than before. But he's just battling on more fronts than ever.

EDIT: personal anecdote: I'm of similar feelings regarding FSD. I was a believer since Autonomy Day but have rolled my eyes a lot since then. I cannot wait for FSDbeta to arrive in Europe but we get only a few breadcrumbs a year of info. It'll be 2025/2026 at this rate. Shame.

 

[terranx]

I know the cure for this: just stop following Elon's activities for a while. Check back in a year and read up on the latest news on SpaceX, Tesla etc. You'll be giddy with excitement again.

Has tesla accomplished anything of value in the last say... 5 years?

SpaceX is tangentially related at best. Elon has minimal involvement there, unlike Tesla unfortunately.

 

[Daniel in SD]

Has tesla accomplished anything of value in the last say... 5 years?

They've made electric cars much cheaper.

 

[zoomer0056]

They've made electric cars much cheaper.

I think his question was rhetorical. A simple search will turn up many results. One from Wikipedia:

Tesla is one of the world's most valuable companies. In October 2021, Tesla's market capitalization temporarily reached $1 trillion, the sixth company to do so in U.S. history. As of 2023, it is the world's most valuable automaker. In 2022, the company led the battery electric vehicle market, with 18% share.

 

[jeewee3000]

Has tesla accomplished anything of value in the last say... 5 years?

Besides ramping vehicle production exponentially, you mean?

SpaceX is tangentially related at best. Elon has minimal involvement there, unlike Tesla unfortunately.

Elon does NOT have minimal involvement in SpaceX. He probably does more at SpaceX than you or me do at our full-time jobs.

 

[RTPEV]

They've made electric cars much cheaper.

I would say they've gotten over the hump of EVs that have necessarily had to be very expensive (due to emerging technologies and production maturation reasons). Other car companies will have to get over that same hump, and some will ultimately fail.

But as far as I can tell, we are no closer to the $25K (even adjusted for inflation) car that was touted as being part of the Giga Shanghai project. I get that you can't design a car in a day, but unless Tesla is doing a great job at keeping it under wraps (and this would be completely uncharacteristic of them these days), it's simply not happening. And I'm okay with that to an extent. If they want to not play in that space, that's fine, but then they are relegating themselves to being a near luxury brand, not to mention it goes against their stated vision of transforming electric transportation.

 

[terranx]

Elon does NOT have minimal involvement in SpaceX. He probably does more at SpaceX than you or me do at our full-time jobs.

[citation needed]

As far as I can tell, the only thing he contributed to SpaceX was money and the letter X.

I will agree he probably spends more time shitposting on twitter than I do taking care of patients.

Besides ramping vehicle production exponentially, you mean?

Considering they have not been able to produce quality cars while increasing their production ramp and now appear to have reached a saturation point.. yes. Have they contributed anything of value to the state of automotive tech (whether it's battery tech, motors, self driving, etc.) in that time frame? Seems all they've accomplished is cutting costs by decontenting and pumping out poorer quality products.

 

[terranx]

They've made electric cars much cheaper.

Only because they jacked up the prices in the middle by taking advantage of COVID. Just like the scummy car dealerships that Tesla is supposed to be better than.

 

[jeewee3000]

As far as I can tell, the only thing he contributed to SpaceX was money and the letter X.

This tells me you know too little of the matter to enter an informed discussion.

 

[terranx]

This tells me you know too little of the matter to enter an informed discussion.

Or I'm not a blind Elon Musk fanboy (nor am I shareholder with an incentive to sing his praises).

Name one thing he's personally contributed to SpaceX that isn't just taking credit of one his actual engineers' work. Just one. He has no technical skills whatsoever to actually contribute, so I fail to see what he could have done.

 

[JB47394]

Name one thing he's personally contributed to SpaceX that isn't just taking credit of one his actual engineers' work. Just one. He has no technical skills whatsoever to actually contribute, so I fail to see what he could have done.

I'm not sure what you're talking about. Name some stuff that he's taken credit for from one of this engineers.

 

[zoomer0056]

I fail to see

Yup.

 

[terranx]

I'm not sure what you're talking about. Name some stuff that he's taken credit for from one of this engineers.

Every paper that he's "authored"