Quite frankly, I think Elon Musk is one awesome dude. My impression is that he’s very honest (more so than perhaps any CEO I’ve ever know or followed) and humble (despite the fact that a ton of people think the opposite for some reason).
I definitely get that he is confident and optimistic — think those characteristic traits have been some of the keys to his success. But I don’t see him as being arrogant.
One of his latest interviews nails down these points for me even more. In the below interview with CNBC, Elon provides a real shocker of honesty, imho. He says, “I actually think that the value of Tesla right now is… I mean the market’s being very generous, and they’re obviously giving us a lot of credit for future execution, so we’ll do our best to honor the faith the market has placed in us…. But I really feel like the valuation we’ve gotten, that we have right now, is more than, is more than we have any right to deserve, honestly.”
What a shocker! Sure, he can believe that, but what CEO (and what “arrogant” CEO) is going to go out and say that?
Going on, he adds, “We need to make sure we really knock the ball out of the park in the coming years.”
And further in the interview, “Our stock price is obviously far too high based on historical financials, or even on current financials, so the value is very much based on what the future cash [inaudible] will be like.”
Humble, honest, honorable. I’m a fan. Here’s the full interview:
I think a lot of what he’s said in the past that has had him labeled “arrogant” was just him being honest. It’s just that it wasn’t so obviously true to others. Like when he said there was a “Tsunami of hurt” coming for anyone that shorted TSLA. He was just stating a fact. Now we know that, but at the time he was “being arrogant”.
Great point. Fully agree.