Elon Musk Goes To Charm School – Info Gadgets

Wall Street thought Elon Musk was apologizing. He was letting them know he’s prepared for the next chapter of his incredible journey.

“I want to apologize,” was the sweetest thing Wall Street has ever heard from Elon Musk. That simple mea culpa on his recent earnings call led to a 13% increase in the share price of Tesla, or nearly $2 billion per word. But the apology is only the start. The stage is set for a broader transformation — for Musk and Tesla — one that may surprise his detractors, and one that he has made before.

During the call, Musk hit all the high notes: the company would be cash flow positive by the next quarter and every quarter after that, and production would ramp up. Then he apologized to every analyst he previously berated, one by one. From a Wall Street perspective, it doesn’t get much better than making money and hearing Elon Musk say he’s sorry.

It is a far cry from a few months back when the iconic entrepreneur sounded more like a petulant teenager, “don’t make a federal case out of it,” and a bill collector waving away a dead beat’s argument, “these questions are so dry, they’re killing me.”

After that led to a stock crash of 8%, and the pundits predicted the inventor was genuinely insane: “I don’t think there’s a more bizarre earnings call I’ve listened to.” said Paul Argenti, a professor at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business. The Washington Post wrote, “Musk’s car company, which carries both the hype and inflated valuation of a tech start-up, has struggled…and he’s “back to sleeping at the factory.”

Get the casket ready, right?

What the Washington Post journalist neglected to do, however, was to reflect on her final comment. Musk was back at the factory sleeping on the couch. And taking charm lessons.

With great inventors, we cheer them in the lab but prefer that they wear gray suits in the marketplace. Musk came off to both journalists and Wall Street as a hyperbolic gambler who likes to roll the dice. The earlier ranting towards the analysts was a final Icarian crash that would prove to the world a crazy inventor is after all, just crazy.

“It’s Elon’s world, and the rest of us just live in it.” — Justine Musk (his first wife)

It wasn’t the first time conventional wisdom smirked at the iconic founder. There may still be those who doubt that he has the right stuff for figuring out the complexity of a new dimension, outer space, or a latest technology, electric vehicles. But they haven’t spoken to Justine Musk, his first wife. Herself a Wharton grad (where they met), she says of life with Musk and his fierce determination: “Elon does what he wants, and he is relentless about it. It’s Elon’s world, and the rest of us just live in it.”

What Justine Musk is saying is that Elon Musk does not know how to stop. That’s a bad thing when you’re losing money, but it is so great when you’re making it. Now listen to that earnings call again.

When I interviewed a noted Silicon Valley venture capitalist who knows Musk well, Zach Coelius, he made it clear Musk has a more onerous job than anyone imagines. When the stakes are as high as Tesla and SpaceX, Musk has fought every nasty startup demon each step of the way.

Here is what Coelius had to say about Musk: “Running a startup is like jumping on a rocket ship flying at the fastest speed possible until it smears you against your wall of incompetence. Even as great an entrepreneur as Elon Musk, he almost went bankrupt with both Tesla and SpaceX. One of the greatest successes in modern history and the thing was dead so many times. His wall of incompetence is a lot higher than mine, but wherever your incompetence resides, that’s where the wall finds you.”

In Musk’s case, he has the stamina to wade through extraordinary challenges, and it implies he can even overcome a cranky personality. When he was rude to the analysts, that was Elon Musk hitting his wall. It was time to go to the factory and sleep on the couch. Even though he does possess engineering and business skills beyond the scope of anyone else, including the Wall Street analysts, he had to find the patience to tell a memorable narrative in a consistent way we mortals can understand. He climbed his wall of incompetence.

Steve Jobs showed us that you could be a petulant inventor most of the time as long as you are also a buoyant personality on stage. Perhaps Elon is channeling Jobs. You could do worse.