I’d rather invest behind a CEO who is too optimistic than one who isn’t optimistic enough.
That matters more than most people realize…
Investing in Elon has never been easy.
He can be late.
He can say crazy shit.
His timelines can be brutal.
Elon even has admitted it himself.
On Tesla’s Q3 2023 earnings call, while talking about FSD:
“Obviously in the past, I’ve been overly optimistic about this.”
But the thing is… being late is NOT the same as never.
Cybertruck was unveiled on November 21, 2019. Tesla originally talked about production starting in 2021.
The first customer Cybertrucks were delivered November 30, 2023.
Yes, he was late… but it shipped.
Him and the Tesla team delivered.
Starship was late too.
Then on April 20, 2023, SpaceX launched the first fully integrated Starship, the largest and most powerful rocket system ever built my humans.
See, that’s the trade.
The cost of extreme optimism is that sometimes you have to wait.
The cost of pessimism is that the impossible thing may never even get attempted.
You need someone crazy enough to believe the future can exist before the rest of the world can see it.
And that’s why time is your best friend as an investor.
Time is the ultimate currency.
Ron Baron, who I consider the GOAT, invested roughly $380 million into Tesla between 2014 and 2016.
For years, nothing spectacular happened.
Imagine having hundreds of $ millions of dollars sitting in one investment while everyone around you keeps asking what the fuck you’re doing.
He waited patiently and his philosophy says everything:
“We’re investors in people, for the long term.”
Warren Buffett made essentially the same point decades ago.
In his 1991 shareholder letter, he described the stock market as a relocation center where money moves from the active to the patient.
Think about that for a second…
People constantly clicking buy and sell are often transferring their money to the people who have the conviction to simply sit on their hands.
Elon gave similar investing advice in 2022:
Buy stock in companies whose products and services you believe in. Sell only when you believe those products and services are getting worse.
Don’t panic because the market panics.
That’s how I look at Tesla.
I don’t see $TSLA as a ticker flashing red or green on my phone. Or me making $ millions or losing $ millions.
I own part of a real business.
Factories.
Cars.
Energy.
AI.
Robots.
Autonomy.
And through all the missed timelines, noise, controversy, and volatility, Elon has never let me down on the one thing that matters most to me.
He delivers.
Maybe not when everyone wants him to…
But he absolutely delivers.
So my thesis is actually pretty simple.
You can choose:
1/ The CEO who never misses a date, never says anything wild, and never attempts anything that looks impossible.
Or…
2/ The CEO who tries to build the future… and you give him TIME.
I’m putting my $ where my mouth is that #
2# wins.
We only get one life.
And for me, I’d rather spend mine owning pieces of people and companies trying to build things that matter and truly change lives, than sitting on the sidelines just bc the journey might get uncomfortable.
That discomfort is part of the price.
And to me, it’s worth paying.
NFA, obviously.
Just two cents from a nobody who decided a long time ago that patience + conviction beats panic.