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Elon Musk Gives Clue In Plain Sight About Tesla's Future: Visible To 180 Million People - But Quickly Taken Down

Elon Musk has just provided a clue in plain sight about the future of Tesla - and this clue can be seen by 180 million people on X. However, it was quickly taken down, but we have the image.
Elon Musk Gives Clue In Plain Sight About Tesla's Future: Visible To 180 Million People - But Quickly Taken Down

Elon Musk and Tesla

Tesla has been in the news quite a bit lately and controversially. The company recently laid off about 11% of its work force as Elon Musk stated the company is getting lean, streamlining, and getting ready for its next growth phase.

Regardless of how you see the lay-offs - as a necessary move for any business to periodically rebalance the company, or as a harsh move that lacked empathy, Tesla is now without about 11% of its employees.

In addition to that, Drew Baglino, the SVP of Power Train at Tesla, who worked there for 18 years, has also departed the company, and on good terms with Elon Musk and Tesla. In fact, he and Elon Musk had this exchange:

Drew Baglino:

I made the difficult decision to move on from Tesla after 18 years yesterday. I am so thankful to have worked with and learned from the countless incredibly talented people at Tesla over the years.

I loved tackling nearly :) every problem we solved as a team and feel gratified to have contributed to the mission of accelerating the transition to sustainable energy, a mission that I am quite passionate about.

I will always have a warm spot for the people of Tesla and Tesla products in my heart and wish the team and company the best in the future. When I joined as a junior firmware / electrical engineer back in 2006, a future Tesla that produced the world’s top selling vehicle was well beyond my expected set of outcomes. A reminder to all of us to set higher expectations, I guess :)

Elon Musk:

Thanks for everything you’ve done for Tesla. Few have contributed as much as you.

Drew Baglino:

Thank you for always pushing us to do our best work from first principles. It’s the only way to unlock the art of the possible.

These two men have great respect for one another. The layoffs at Tesla are a difficult time for the thousands of employees who no longer have a job.

One thing they have going for them is that they got a job at Tesla. Tesla is one of the most difficult places to get a job - even harder to get in to than Harvard.

This should give them confidence that they can find work anywhere.

You May Also Like: What Kind Of Battery Is Inside A Tesla Model 3 RWD?

Elon Musk Leaves Secret In Plain Sight

Tesla is now entering a new phase of growth, and it is going to come from the $25,000 next generation platform vehicles - first, a robotaxi without a steering wheel and pedals, and then, the compact car.

Many "analysts" will be disappointed to know that Tesla will likely slightly delay the compact car in favor of the robotaxi vehicle. It will slightly hurt Tesla in the short term, but be advantageous in the long term.

Autonomy in vehicles is a land grab, and Tesla is going to get there first. Getting there first is a huge advantage.

One can get a glimpse of the future of Tesla by looking at two things that Elon Musk is showing in plain sight, which were visible to his 180 million X followers (and anyone else not following him too):

The first is the picture at the top of this article, which I will also post again here. This picture is the same from his biography from Walter Isaacson, but with a single word at the bottom where his hands are: "Auto".

The second is that Elon Musk made a reply on X that he purposely left the word auto there on purpose. These are two clues and insights into the mind of Elon Musk and Tesla.

Auto is short for autonomous and autobiography, and I think this insight into his mind is that he is going for the autonomous next generation 3 vehicle, the robotaxi, first.

Of course, this is all speculation. Tesla has made no official announcement that they are going to build only the robotaxi vehicle first - except that they are doing an unveil event on 8/8/2024.

Reuters attempted to report that Tesla would cancel the compact car, but Elon replied that this was a lie.

Tesla is going to manufacture the robotaxi vehicle first. The biggest reason for this is that Tesla is confident in their autonomous software and that it can drive these robotaxi vehicles around without a driver soon. Elon Musk knows that AI is going to be the winner in the end, as will self-driving cars. He even said as much (even if in a joking way):

The second reason is that the robotaxi vehicle will not cannibalize any existing vehicles. The reason it won't cannibalize existing vehicles is that it's completely different from all of them.

Robotaxi and Compact Car

I think you'll be able to buy a robotaxi vehicle and actually use it as your primary vehicle if you want for commuting. It will need to learn to park and be guided into parking garages and what not, but once it can do that, it can be used as a daily commuter and then sent out to drive people around when not in use.

Once Tesla is ready to manufacture the compact car and has the production lines ready, then Tesla will announce that vehicle. But it won't be until they are ready to start making them. Otherwise, that car could cannibalize the Model 3 by being so similar to it (just smaller).

Tesla can create some cannibalization resistance by making Model 3 RWD long ranges with 350 miles or more of range and having the compact only have about 240 miles of range. This would be a big disparity in range.

The big question I have is, why did Elon Musk leave this image as his profile picture only for a few hours before changing it again?

For Further Reading: The Longest Range Tesla Model Y Ever: A RWD Long Range At Giga Berlin With 350 Miles Of Range

What do you think about Elon Musk's secret in plain sight? Why did he remove the image from his profile and change it?

Share this article with friends and family and on social media - or leave a comment below. You can view my most recent articles here for further reading. I am also on X/Twitter where I post more than just articles daily, as well as LinkedIn! Thank you so much for your support!

Hi! I'm Jeremy Noel Johnson, and I am a Tesla investor and supporter and own a 2022 Model 3 RWD EV and I don't have range anxiety :). I enjoy bringing you breaking Tesla news as well as anything about Tesla or other EV companies I can find, like Aptera. Other interests of mine are AI, Tesla Energy and the Tesla Bot! You can follow me on X.COM or LinkedIn to stay in touch and follow my Tesla and EV news coverage.

Image Credit: Elon Musk

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