30 Elon Musk Businesses

Random Observation/Comment #761: Elon just Gets Shit Done. Take my Money.

Why this List?

I’m not an Elon Musk fanboy, but I do appreciate his willingness to take risks and build companies that tackle huge problems in a very aggressive way. I think all the engineers and employees would rather build a product/industry from scratch than rely on another company’s flawed infrastructure execution. The shear breadth of attention to detail for Elon’s companies is one of the most impressive things about these businesses. It’s actually not just an EV car company or rocketship; it’s all of the moving pieces and attention to detail.

  1. Giga Factory for everything (but first with car building efficiency) – 18 months to build Austin’s giga factory 3x the size of pentagon is pretty impressive. It’s architected like a computer chip.
  2. Tesla EV semis – This will massively change the last mile supply chain problem with optimizations on the routes and logistics. It will also reduce emissions and impact on climate change when adopted.
  3. Tesla Car Software OS – The OS in Tesla cars includes security and operations across all of the sensors distributed around the car. It connects to maps, movies, games, and everything.
  4. Tesla Software AI for driving – Basic assisted driving is already there, but the real value unlock will be the fully automated driving technology used at scale.
  5. Tesla big data processing of content from billions of driving hours across millions of cars – The data collection and technology for storing all of this raw data for the AI to consume is mind boggling. I guess when the Tesla is charging, it’s syncing more data to the servers? It’s probably not doing it live.
  6. Tesla Charging network – There’s enough charging stations to road trip anywhere in the continental US. That’s pretty impressive considering Tesla created the economic incentives for different gas stations to host these charging stations and did the route/trip math on where to strategically place these charging stations for full coverage.
  7. Tesla software AI for optimized paths with charging network for trips – The optimized trip technology for drives is also super impressive. I’ve seen full cross country road trip calculations that also takes into account timed stops for lunch and activities around the 30 minute charging times.
  8. Tesla Battery and charging technology – I’m always impressed that you can just charge from any outlet and the battery doesn’t face similar problems of being over-charged or losing large amounts of charges. I think the battery tech itself is a game changer to the whole industry.
  9. Tesla solar panels – Talk about full end-to-end thinking. The solar panels themselves charge the wall pack that directly charges your Tesla at a lower cost. I think this is an awesome optimization.
  10. Tesla lithium mining – While I don’t think this is great for the environment, it just shows the willingness to tackle the hard problem at the source. If lithium resources are core to the business model and there’s a deficit in supply then generate your own supply. Any excess gets sold to other companies that will likely use the battery technology.
  11. Tesla Sensors on cars for security – There’s so many cameras and data being collected here. The Tesla app itself allows for replays and full security.
  12. Tesla Distribution of cars – Instead of relying on car dealerships, Tesla handles all sales and maintenance for their cars. I believe they even control most of the reseller market.
  13. Tesla Real estate for store fronts – I’m not sure if Tesla is renting most of the real estate, but if they wanted to then their mall locations or different hubs can be owned.
  14. Tesla Marketing and Brand – This is mostly organic and also done directly through Elon’s tweets (in a good and bad way). I’d say that the brand around Tesla is unbeatable. Everyone that drives one will buy one and everyone that owns one loves every minute of driving it.
  15. Tesla insurance live for drivers per profile – They’ve gotten into the insurance space by offering insurance based on the data collected for each of the driver profiles. A cheaper insurance if you prove that you have been driving better (rather than off of old incident data).
  16. Tesla payments for cars (or other things) with cryptocurrency like DOGE – I wouldn’t be surprised if an ex-PayPal guy is involved in payments. There’s deep knowledge in how to implement payment networks and make an existing token more integrated and successful so it’s a utility rather than a speculation.
  17. Tesla Wallets, NFTs or DAOs for ownership – I firmly believe a Telsa car will be its own DAO with a corporation behind it. The DAO is just a single wallet address representing the Tesla itself with voting rights issued to the owner or multiple owners of the car. The reason this can be a DAO instead of an NFT is for fractional ownership of Tesla Taxi fleets. I’m sure institutional level investment in this space is inevitable.
  18. Tesla Autonomous driving manual ride share – First Tesla’s launch of some extension to their app or plug-in to Google Maps recommendations is the ride share competitor app. The special “Tesla” option for an Uber is pretty attractive to me. I’d probably want a person there in the front just because you’re using to having one.
  19. Tesla Autonomous driving taxi – A whole fleet of Teslas going off driving and making money while I work would also be pretty cool. I imagine some subscription service where I enter in my regular routines and it makes sure to give me some priority during these peak and off-peak times. This can be bundled in with the subscriptions. Tesla cars as businesses with this DAO model also means that each car or fleet of cars has customers and recurring revenue.
  20. SpaceX private rockets to service government space launch needs – The government will need infrastructure to launch satellites, probes, or rockets. These government grants are pretty sizable and can be leveraged by the private company to help with smaller launches at scale.
  21. SpaceX private rocket launches for human transport – Transportation at scale can lead to space tourism in the long term.
  22. SpaceX reusable rockets for lower cost access to stations – Reusable rockets is just super smart and makes moon colonization a lot easier. I’m sure there’s some Tesla battery tech in there somewhere as well.
  23. Starlink global communication system in space – At some point the large ISPs will be paying Starlink for helping with these communication system satellite launches. It’d be super cool being a privately hired astronaut in order to do satellite fixes in space.
  24. Starlink wifi coverage for remote locations – The existing coverage for their Wide Area Networks (WANs) are pretty impressive. I believe Denver just received it and have much more compact dishes.
  25. Starlink detecting aliens – With all that infrastructure and technology in sensors, I’m sure there’s parts of the data collected being analyzed for alien detection.
  26. Boring company acceleration/deceleration monitoring tech – It may seem like a simple problem, but there’s a lot of edge cases with emergency stops and customer experience that have to be taken into account.
  27. Boring company fast travel between major cities – General fast travel at massive scale would be very impressive considering there will likely be a few points of entry and not just like a rollercoaster ride massive line out the door for a regular commute.
  28. Twitter for discussions, influencer engagement, and breaking news – If the acquisition goes through (likely for a cheaper price) then Twitter is another multiplying factor to his already massive list of innovations. I still don’t know what he would do differently – maybe a new checkmark next to his avatar?
  29. Twitter for payments – Similar to Tesla accepting payments of DOGE for their cars, I imagine the twitter side would enable more micro-tipping and engagement to put a new business model on top of Twitter.
  30. Super app like Wechat – Messaging and social isn’t quite there with any of Tesla’s technology. I do think that all the ideas I mentioned above can be a super app in its own way. One app that lets me: Install apps on my Tesla OS, unlock my car, setup driving schedules, manage subscription payments, hire a car, microtip car drivers and cars’ companies, manage my car’s business balance sheet, connect to its starlink wifi, pay tolls on boring’s special roads, and message other tesla owners for meetups.

~See Lemons Bulllish on Elon