In 2018, the world knew Tesla was going to go bankrupt:
-Mercedes predicted it would go bankrupt this fall
-BMW said it couldn’t mass-produce the car
-Wall Street said it was a car manufacturing nightmare
Elon Musk decided to work and sleep in his own factory, and what happened surprised the CEOs of the companies above. Tesla didn’t just rise from the ashes, it also changed dramatically.
Elon Musk personally inspected every production site, rewrote software code if necessary, fired managers who did not agree with him, and called for car parts at three in the morning.
One night, workers saw Elon Musk splashing engine oil on his car because he had repaired an M3 that the engineers had abandoned. Elon Musk told all the engineers:
-“If we don’t fix the car, we’re dead!”
The mockery disappeared quietly when:
-In the first week, 202 Model 3S were produced
-In the third month, 5,000 units were produced per week
-By the end of the year, all employees were profitable
Tesla had emerged from its scorn and ridicule to become a company that posed a threat to the auto industry. Elon Musk said:
-“At first it was painful, and I didn’t know what to do, and I was probably a little crazy to be competing with companies that have over a hundred years of experience in making cars, have billions of dollars in reserves, have a strong global production chain, and have deep political connections.
Now? Tesla is worth more than Toyota, Ford, BMW, and GM combined. In just two or three years, Elon Musk has transformed a company that was once despised into a giant car company, and has shown that hard work and vision can really change the entire auto industry.”
