1. A Journey from Scepticism to Strategic Conviction
For many years, I stood at a distance from Tesla—not because I didn’t believe in its product or mission, but because I had deep reservations about its leadership style and governance. Elon Musk, the enigmatic founder and CEO, has always been a polarising figure. While his engineering genius was undeniable, his ability to effectively run multiple companies simultaneously—and the volatility that came with that—made me cautious.
I watched Tesla for four years, deeply researching its products, progress, financials, execution, and culture. What ultimately shifted my view in 2025 wasn’t a single quarterly result or a marketing narrative—it was a systems-level realisation:
Tesla isn’t a car company.
It’s a vertically integrated energy systems company, using transport as the tip of the spear to rewrite global infrastructure.
That insight reframed everything.
2. What Changed My Mind in 2025
This year, several things crystalised that gave me the conviction to take a direct position in Tesla (in addition to my prior exposure through ETFs):
a.
Elon’s Talent Flywheel
Behind the larger-than-life persona is someone who has quietly built one of the strongest technical talent pipelines in modern history. From the PayPal Mafia to the halls of MIT, Stanford, and Berkeley, to ex-NASA, ex-Apple, and DARPA researchers—Tesla and SpaceX are magnet organisations for world-class talent.
Tesla doesn’t just attract smart people. It empowers them with impossible problems and extraordinary purpose.
b.
SpaceX as the Blueprint
The successful execution of Starship (Block 3) and the Colossus-scale launch infrastructure this year cemented a belief in Musk’s ability to solve hard engineering problems with first-principles thinking and ruthless execution.
The reusable rocket playbook is being mirrored at Tesla:
- Reuse. Recycle. Re-think.
- Vertical integration.
- Relentless cost reduction.
- Software-defined everything.
c.
Tesla = The Energy Company
Tesla’s mission isn’t about electric cars. It’s about accelerating the world’s transition to sustainable energy.
That mission is being fulfilled through:
- EVs (Model 3, Y, Cybertruck, Semi)
- Energy storage (Powerwall, Megapack, Autobidder)
- Distributed solar (Solar Roofs, third-party installs)
- Autonomy software (FSD, Dojo)
- AI and robotics (Optimus, in-house training compute)
- Grid orchestration platforms
In short: a closed-loop energy platform. Cars are just a node.
3. The Business Case
✅ Vertically integrated margins
Tesla owns the entire stack: from battery chemistry to manufacturing lines to its custom chips for autonomous driving. This allows for a level of control, speed, and margin protection most automakers can’t dream of.
✅ Full-stack software advantage
Full Self-Driving (FSD) may be controversial, but it’s improving rapidly—and the Dojo training supercomputer is a major moat. Like AWS was to Amazon, Dojo could be to Tesla: a multi-billion-dollar spin-out waiting to happen.
✅ Global energy arbitrage
With Megapack + Autobidder + AI-enabled load balancing, Tesla is building the infrastructure to monetise time-shifted energy across deregulated electricity markets. Few investors grasp the scope of this.
✅ Supply chain power
Tesla’s move upstream into lithium, nickel, and battery processing was years ahead of the pack. It is now one of the few players with real resilience against resource bottlenecks.
4. What Tesla Solves That Few Others Can
I invest in companies that pass the “Snap Test”—if the company vanished tomorrow, the world would immediately feel the pain.
Tesla passes with flying colours.
If Tesla disappeared:
- Millions of EV drivers would lose over-the-air updates and software autonomy features.
- Energy markets would lose a key infrastructure provider.
- The world’s largest battery factory footprint would vanish.
- The development timelines of dozens of global EV players (who copy Tesla’s open patents or rely on their infrastructure) would stall.
Tesla’s existence has shifted the centre of gravity in multiple trillion-dollar industries.
5. Risks and Watchpoints
Of course, no position is without risk. Here’s what I monitor:
- Execution risk across multiple product lines and regions
- Leadership concentration—the company is still largely shaped by Musk’s decisions
- Regulatory pushback on autonomous driving, energy trading, or monopolistic behaviours
- Reputational volatility, which can impact consumer trust and investor sentiment
But these are known, manageable, and often overstated.
Tesla is not immune to macro pressures, but it is structurally antifragile—emerging stronger after every market pullback or media controversy.
6. Tesla in My Portfolio
Tesla now occupies a tiered position across my G2 and G3 Funds:
- In G2, it serves as a category leader with proven EBIT leverage, core innovations, and a 10-year roadmap.
- In G3, it expresses my conviction in the next phase of human–machine–energy integration.
As energy, transport, and AI converge—Tesla is not just playing the game. It is rewriting the rules of the infrastructure economy.
Final Reflection
Tesla is not a speculative bet for me. It is a conviction holding grounded in:
- Deep technological defensibility
- Mission-aligned systems thinking
- Execution history that defies convention
My early doubts have turned into a structured belief:
Tesla is one of the few companies designing the infrastructure of the future with the boldness to match the scale of the problems they’re solving—and the talent density to actually pull it off.
If we’re going to bet on the future, better to bet on the engineers building
