2017
Tencent bought a roughly 5% stake in Tesla in 2017, according to the hosts.
“Tencent is one of the largest shareholders in Tesla. They bought a 5% stake in 2007, I think, or 2017, sorry.”
Topic
Tesla
22 facts from 14 episodes, in date order. These are what speakers said on the shows, each linked to the moment it was said. They aren't independently verified.
2020
The host says Tesla used its high 2020 share price to sell new shares and raise over $10 billion in cash.
“what they definitely did do is use that share price to sell new shares, uh, at very little dilution and raise over $10 billion of cash to the balance sheet that year.”
2024
Elon Musk said Tesla would earn over $100 billion in revenue that year, about $2 billion a week.
“Tesla this year will do over 100 billion in revenue, so that's $2 billion a week.”
2024
Elon Musk said the new Tesla Optimus arm has 22 degrees of freedom instead of eleven, with actuators placed in the forearm.
“So our our new arm has 22 degrees of freedom instead of eleven, and has the like, I said, the actuators in the forearm.”
2024
Steven Bartlett notes that Tesla is developing a humanoid robot called Optimus.
“Tesla have their humanoid robot. I think it's called Optimus, which they're developing”
2025
The host says Tesla's Full Self-Driving system had done about 3.5 billion rides.
“They've done billions of rides. I think it was, like, what, 3.5 billion rides.”
Undated
Clemente says he first got a Tesla internship, but it fell through when Tesla received a Department of Energy loan and relocated the design office.
“I actually got an internship at Tesla first and then they got DOE funding right as I was about to join.”
Undated
Mauboussin cites Tesla as an example of reflexivity: a rising stock price let the company raise capital and move from thin financial footing to a stronger position.
“And then as the stock took on a life of its own, the stock went up a lot that allowed them to raise capital and get themselves on a much stronger footing.”
Undated
Brinton Johns says Cree holds about two-thirds of the market for silicon carbide substrate wafers, used in electric vehicles including the Tesla Model 3.
“cree is the one company that has two-thirds of the market for the substrate itself”
Undated
Nvidia's Tegra platform powers the Nintendo Switch and earlier powered the original Tesla Model S touchscreen.
“The Tegra platform still to this day is the main processor of the Nintendo Switch.”
Undated
Sam Altman says Elon Musk wanted to make OpenAI a for-profit company under his control or merge it with Tesla.
“He wanted to make OpenAI into a for profit company that he could have control of or have it merge with Tesla.”
Undated
Rana El Kaliouby says former PayPal founders and employees, known as the PayPal Mafia, went on to start companies including Tesla, LinkedIn and YouTube.
“These former founders and employees of PayPal went off to start companies like Tesla, LinkedIn, YouTube, and the list goes on and on.”
Undated
Elon Musk said people assumed electric vehicle batteries would always cost $600 per kilowatt hour.
“People assumed batteries for electric vehicles would always cost $600 per kilowatt hour.”
Undated
Elon Musk said that pricing battery raw materials on the London Metal Exchange gave a cost of only about $80 per kilowatt hour.
“Okay, what if we bought that amount of material on the London Metal Exchange? What would each of those things cost? Oh, geez, it's only eighty per kilowatt hour.”
Undated
Elon Musk said Tesla had to remove hundreds of expensive robots from its production line after trying to automate every step.
“To fix that, we had to tear hundreds of expensive robots out of the production line.”
Undated
Elon Musk said that when Tesla asked about casting a car as a single piece, five of six major casting machine suppliers said no and the sixth said maybe.
“There were six major casting machine suppliers in the world. Five of them said no, and the sixth said maybe.”
Undated
Elon Musk said the only American car companies that have not gone bankrupt are Ford and Tesla.
“The number of American car companies that haven't gone bankrupt is a grand total of two, Ford and Tesla.”
Undated
Elon Musk said he lived in Tesla's factories for three years to fix the Model 3 production line.
“I lived in the factories for three years fixing that production line, running around like a maniac through every part of the factory, living with the team.”
Undated
Elon Musk said Tesla makes its own battery pack, power electronics and drivetrain because the legacy supply chain moved too slowly.
“There's a lot of vertical integration to Tesla. We make the battery pack, the power electronics, and the drivetrain ourselves.”
Undated
Praveen Akkiraju says Tesla rebuilt its ERP systems in a previous cycle because existing products did not fit its vertically integrated car production.
“in a previous cycle, you know, companies like Tesla essentially rebuilt their ERPs because they felt like, um, the existing ERPs did not fit the kind of model”
Undated
Joe Rogan says Waymos use LIDAR while Teslas use cameras, and Waymos stalled in a San Francisco outage.
“Waymos operate on LIDAR, whereas Teslas operate on cameras. So the problem with LIDAR, when the grid goes down, so does a car.”
Undated
People in South Korea were arrested for hacking Teslas to enable Full Self-Driving.
“a bunch of people got arrested recently in South Korea because they had hacked into their Teslas and they had enabled full self-driving, which is a subscription thing.”
Episodes
- 20 Jun 2022The Playbook: Lessons from 200+ Company Stories1h 5m
- 20 Apr 2022Nvidia Part II: The Machine Learning Company (2006-2022)2h 12m
- 3 Nov 2021Complexity Investing & Semiconductors (with NZS Capital)1h 44m
- 5 Oct 2021Michael Mauboussin Master Class — Moats, Skill, Luck, Decision Making and a Whole Lot More1h 25m
- 6 Apr 2021Special: "Why Now" for Digital Health (with Levels founder Josh Clemente)1h 28m
- 16 Jul 2020Pinduoduo1h 55m
- 5 Sep 2024Yuval Noah Harari: This Election Will Tear The Country Apart! AI Will Control You By 2034! The Dark Truth Behind Meta & X!2h 1m
- 2 Aug 2024#438 – Elon Musk: Neuralink and the Future of Humanity8h 46m
- 18 Mar 2024#419 – Sam Altman: OpenAI, GPT-5, Sora, Board Saga, Elon Musk, Ilya, Power & AGI2h 2m
- 24 Mar 2026#415 How Elon Thinks51m
- 30 Oct 2026#2573 - Legion of Skanks2h 44m
- 3 May 2026Agentic AI in the Enterprise 2026 | CXOTalk #91655m
- 20 Nov 2024How agentic AI will save customer service, with Bret Taylor38m
- 11 Sep 2025Inside OpenAI Enterprise: Forward Deployed Engineering, GPT-5, and More | BG2 Guest Interview1h 8m