Even though Elon Musk is still far and away the richest man in the world, that doesn't mean he's immune to failure. After inserting himself into politics as part of the Department of Government Efficiency, the tech mogul has seen public opinion against him turn, especially when it comes to Tesla.
Elon Musk has his fingers in many pies, with ventures including SpaceX, X, xAI, Starlink, and Tesla. The latter has faced boycotts, calls for Musk to resign as CEO, and a damning 70% drop in profits.
Despite Musk saying he'd take a step back from politics to focus on his businesses, there are fears the damage has already been done. Musk has laughed off claims of his 'demise', but as noted by Wired, there appear to be two key words that are keeping him clinging on. The outlet reiterates how 'next year' is the key phrase that keeps being thrown around when it comes to Musk's next steps.
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As well as Musk admitting he's the boy who cried wolf on Full Self-Driving technology, he's seemingly overpromised on the supposed 'billions' of robots that will enter our lives, adding that it'll be "your own personal C-3PO or R2-D2, but even better." Looking back at '19 years of broken promises', Wired says: "Musk’s fallback forecast of 'next year' turns up repeatedly, only to be consistently proven wrong."
Back in October 2015, Musk vowed that Tesla would have full autonomy in 'about' three years, but that mythical 2018 deadline has repeatedly slipped. In June 2016, the billionaire claimed that he thought "autonomous driving to be a basically solved problem."
November 2018 saw him deliver the fabled 'next year', while May 2023 had him lock in that year for FSD. As recently as the disastrous April earnings call, Musk amended things to say: "I feel confident in predicting large-scale autonomy around the middle of next year.
"There will be millions of Teslas operating autonomously, fully autonomously in the second half of next year."
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There are similarly shifted goalposts for Robotaxi, and the much-hyped Tesla Optimus robot has a typically vague release. On the earnings call, Musk said: "I'm hopefully ready for Optimus to be used outside of Tesla controlled environment maybe around the middle of next year second half of next year."
Back in June 2022, Musk reiterated that his "overwhelming focus is on solving full self-driving," explaining how "it’s really the difference between Tesla being worth a lot of money or worth basically zero.”
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Still, as Wired reminds us, Tesla made a promise all the way back in 2006 that it would deliver an affordable family car. A more affordable Model Y is supposed to start production in June 2025, but according to Wired, the recurring words of 'next year' could soon rear their head once again.