Musk Wiki

Source: Tesla Master Plan Part 2 (2016)

NextSource: Tesla Master Plan Part 3 (2023)
  • Author: Elon Musk
  • Published: 2016-07-20, on Tesla’s website
  • Trust tier: verified (Tier 1) — official Tesla text
  • Original: tesla.com/master-plan-part-deux
  • Quotes: from the document itself, on Tesla’s website.

Summary

Musk opens the sequel by reciting his own ten-year-old four-step plan from memory and grading it “on track”. That move is the heart of the secret master plan: he wrote down a public commitment, then came back a decade later to hold himself to it. From there he widens the company. Tesla stops being just a carmaker and becomes an integrated energy company, with vehicles, solar, and storage in one stack. He adds autonomy and shared fleets, and casts the whole thing as the answer to “the basic question of our time.”

The product details matter less than two passages where he spells out his logic plainly. First, the two-part business structure: sell a product people want, then pour that money into the mission. Second, the closing line that “the main motivation of the company is not just to make an awesome car.” That is the 2006 mission-first logic again, only now he states it as a general method rather than a one-off plan.

Key quotes

Restating the original plan from memory, then grading himself against it:

“Basically, we were going to try to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy. That plan is on track.” ↗

The two-part business structure — the engine that funds the mission:

“We should have said this explicitly in part one, but the two-part structure of a new business is that you get to make great sales of a product that people want, and you are then able to redirect that money to pursue the mission of the company.” ↗

The leap to autonomy, with a quantified safety ambition:

“We are currently developing the technology to enable self-driving cars that can be 10x safer than manually driven cars.” ↗

He spells out, in plain financial terms, why he is building shared autonomy. Owners can offset their loan or lease costs:

“Let me emphasize this point: autonomous cars can be shared. We believe that owners of Tesla vehicles will be empowered with the option to share their car with a network of other drivers, thus significantly offsetting the monthly loan or lease cost. This is exactly why we’re building the self-driving system.” ↗

Then he raises the stakes, putting the whole company as the answer to a single civilizational question:

By having a sustainable transportation and energy solutions company, we hope to have answered the basic question of our time, which is: “How do we create a global transport and energy infrastructure that is not reliant on fossil fuels for more than half of a century?” ↗

And he closes by putting the mission above the product:

“The main motivation of the company is not just to make an awesome car, but to help accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy. That goal is what motivates us all.” ↗

Connections (pages touched)

  • Elon Musk — the author; tracks how his stated strategy evolved from 2006.
  • Tesla — scope widened from cars to integrated energy + autonomy.
  • Secret Master Plan method — the act of restating the 2006 plan and grading it “on track.”
  • Sustainable-energy mission — “accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy”; “not just to make an awesome car.”
  • Vertical integration — the two-part business structure and SolarCity + Tesla integration.
  • Autonomous driving — first formal statement of the self-driving and shared-fleet vision.

See also