Musk deploys squandered credibility in desperate bid to hold ailing Tesla together

The Rachel Maddow Show, March 21, 2025

TRANSCRIPT (Note this has not been proofed for errors. Thanks to ChatGPT):

RACHEL MADDOW >> I mentioned at the top, right at the top, this bizarre story about President Trump’s top campaign donor, Elon Musk, somehow reportedly being slated for the kind of high-level war plans briefing that no campaign donor should ever be invited to.

On the eve of that planned briefing last night, Elon Musk apparently found time to convene an all-hands meeting for employees of his car company, Tesla. They called this all-hands meeting for every employee of the company for 9 p.m. last night. They scheduled it as a livestream event on Twitter, which is owned by Mr. Musk. The livestream promptly crashed and shut down for about half an hour. They eventually got it restarted, whereupon Mr. Musk got online with his employees at his car company and begged them not to sell their stock in Tesla, which many Tesla executives and board members have recently done.

He told his employees that things were about to become immeasurably better, unimaginably better. Quote, “What’s the most exciting future that you could possibly imagine?” A future of abundance for all, where you could literally just have anything you want? Elon Musk explained to his employees that these unimaginably good times are right around the corner.

He told Tesla employees, literally, “Hang on to your stock.” He told them, there are times when there are rocky moments, a little bit of stormy weather. But I’m here to tell you the future is bright and exciting. He also told them that they should feel good about these reassurances from him and definitely not sell their stock the way his executives and board members have been. They should really feel good about his assurances about the future because he has such a good track record of his predictions coming true.

He explained this to his employees last night, which occasions—I feel like it’s only fair—just a reminder of what his predictions have actually been like over time. This, for example, was Elon Musk speaking in 2017:

“I think we’re still on track for being able to go cross-country from LA to New York by the end of the year. Fully autonomous.”

“So, by the end of the year, you’re saying someone’s going to sit in a Tesla without touching the steering wheel, tap in New York, and off it goes?”

“Yeah. Won’t have to ever touch the wheel by the end of 2017. Yeah. Essentially, November or December of this year, we should be able to go all the way from a parking lot in California to a parking lot in New York. No controls touched at any point during the entire journey. Amazing.”

Imagine if you were in the audience at that event, looking back now in 2025, and realizing that you might have been one of the people who applauded that. Did you buy stock too? I love the part where he’s like, “November, maybe December,” like he thinks it’s a speaking engagement in 2017, and he’s saying, “By November—might be December—but then we’ll have it.”

Then the following year, in 2018, he said, “Yeah, actually rescheduled. Now it’s going to happen by 2019.”

“I think probably by the end of next year, self-driving will encompass essentially all modes of driving and be at least 100 to 200% safer than a person by the end of next year. We’re talking like maybe 18 months from now.”

So that was him in 2019 saying, “No, no, no. I was saying it would all be done by 2019.” This was him in 2019 saying, “No, no, maybe it’ll be done by 2020, but by then it’s not going to be your own car. By then it’s going to be taxis. The taxis are going to be driving themselves by 2020.”

“I feel very confident in predicting autonomous robotaxis for Tesla next year.”

Autonomous robotaxis for Tesla next year. By 2020.

Luckily, by the time none of these things came to pass when he said they would, none of us cared. Because as of then—meaning as of now—we’re all living on Mars.

“I think if things go according to plan, we should be able to launch people probably in 2024, with arrival in 2025.”

Again, he’s just doing the math right there. You see him squint? “Well, we’re going to be… How long will it take to… 2024. We’re going to be shooting people off to Mars, and they’ll get there by 2025.” Confident.

Here it is, 2025. Mars isn’t nearly as hot as I thought it would be.

These are the kinds of predictions that he has used to stoke the hype around himself and his companies, year after year after year after year. It’s a running joke, right? His predictions. But the faith in Elon Musk and in all the things that he can see coming true in the future has driven him to the position that he’s in now with our U.S. government.

Meanwhile, in his actual businesses, Tesla stock has lost over 50% of its value in the past three months. Edmunds.com just reported that more people are trading in their Teslas than ever before. The share of Teslas among all cars they’re seeing being traded in is 300% higher right now than it was this time last year.

When JP Morgan radically slashed their forecast for Tesla sales this quarter, their analysts said this week, “We struggle to think of anything analogous in the history of the automotive industry in which a brand has lost so much value so quickly.”

And that was before we found out that they were recalling nearly all Cybertrucks on the road for the eighth time—this time for the risk of pieces of the body coming loose and flying off in traffic.

Weirdly, that kind of thing shouldn’t have to factor into news.