In April, after Tesla’s year got off to a terrible start, Elon Musk made the argument to Wall Street that his car company shouldn’t be judged by its lackluster sales. Instead, he asked investors to buy into his wide-ranging sci-fi vision for the future, in which Tesla wouldn’t just be pumping out Cybertrucks and the like but running a global network of robotaxis that depend on his AI-like, self-driving technology. Wall Street loved it.
The pitch effectively lets Musk have it both ways.