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To investors,
Electric vehicle company Tesla has been the source of insane controversy for years. The critics believed the company would fail and file for bankruptcy and the proponents thought that Tesla would be the most valuable company in the world. This type of polarization is exactly what you would expect from a company that is trying to change the world with disruptive technology.
As many of you already know, Tesla reported their Q1 earnings yesterday and they drastically outperformed Wall Street’s expectations.
Any time a company can produce $5 billion in adjusted EBITDA and more than $3 billion in GAAP net income, the are likely to be quite valuable. The most shocking statistic isn’t about their financial performance exclusively though. Tesla has done all of this without any money devoted to marketing.
Elon Musk and the Tesla team have built a $1 trillion company, yet they spend no money on marketing. Even better, Tesla’s sales jump significantly when their competitors run television ads or marketing campaigns for electric vehicles. Pretty wild.
But while all eyes were on Tesla yesterday, there was another announcement that is worth paying attention to — The Boring Company, a technology company quickly building tunnels underneath cities, announced a $675 million Series C fundraise at a $5.675 billion valuation.
The company’s press release states “TBC creates safe, fast-to-dig, and low-cost transportation, utility, and freight tunnels.” The description of their technology is also fairly interesting as well.
As I was reading the press release, it reminded me of this amazing story about the sense of urgency that Elon and his team operates with.
So this brings us to the ultimate question — is Elon Musk the greatest entrepreneur of all time?
That may sound bombastic or a statement of hyperbole, but think about this for a second. Elon Musk is the wealthiest man in the world. He has built four multi-billion dollar companies and a fifth company worth more than $1 trillion dollars. We don’t know the exact valuation of a sixth company, Neuralink, but they have raised over $200 million so it is likely worth at least $1 billion as well. These companies include:
Tesla: $1+ trillion valuation
SpaceX: $100+ billion valuation
PayPal: $100+ billion valuation
The Boring Company: $5.6 billion valuation
Solar City: $2.6 billion valuation
Neuralink: ~ $1 billion valuation
This type of economic value creation is insane. Basically video game numbers. And you can trace it all back to one man — Elon Musk. So does this mean he is the greatest entrepreneur of all time? Probably. Does it really matter? Probably not.
The most impressive part of the whole thing is that the best investment strategy of the last two decades was to simply bet on Elon. It isn’t every day that an entrepreneur with this type of skill, persistence, and success comes along. Investing can be hard as hell sometimes. And other times you just have to find the right person and keep doubling and tripling down on them.
While a good portion of the world keeps hating on Elon Musk, I’ll continue to cheer him on. We need as many entrepreneurs and problem solvers in our society as we can get. Elon is a shining example of how private enterprise can help solve some of society’s greatest issues.
Plus, we shouldn’t think Elon Musk is done yet. He may actually just be getting started.
Hope each of you has a great start to your day. I’ll talk to everyone tomorrow.
-Pomp
If you are not a subscriber of The Pomp Letter, join 215,000 other investors who read my personal opinion on finance, technology, and bitcoin each morning.
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THE RUNDOWN:
Bitcoin Miner Bit Digital Files to Raise Up to $500M in Equity: Bitcoin miner Bit Digital filed a prospectus with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for the sale of up to $500 million in equity from time to time, also known as an “at-the-market” (ATM) offering. The equity offerings may include ordinary shares, preferred shares (including convertible preferred shares), warrants and units comprised of any combination thereof, according to the filing. Read more.
Tesla’s Bitcoin Holdings Unchanged in Q1: The value of Tesla’s bitcoin holdings remained unchanged at $1.26 billion for the second straight quarter, the electric car maker said in its quarterly earnings report on Wednesday. In both the first quarter and last year’s fourth quarter, Tesla did not buy or sell any bitcoin, nor did it record any impairments to the value of its holdings because the price of bitcoin was essentially flat from the end of the previous quarter to the subsequent one. Read more.
Simplify Files for Bitcoin ETF Mixing Treasurys and Options Strategies: Simplify Asset Management has submitted paperwork to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for its Simplify Bitcoin Strategy Risk-Managed Income ETF under the ticker symbol, MAXI. As with other SEC-approved bitcoin exchange-traded funds, this fund will hold bitcoin futures, rather than the crypto itself. In addition, Simplify intends to layer on an income strategy and an options overlay strategy. Read more.
BlueYard, Sequoia Invest in Privy to Bring Secure Data to Web 3: Data startup Privy hopes to bridge the gap between a smooth user experience and the importance of secure data and user consent. The company announced a $8.3 million seed funding round on Wednesday co-led by Sequoia Capital and BlueYard Capital. Read more.
Paul DeJoe is the Co-Founder & COO of MUD\WTR, a subscription-based alternative to drinking coffee.
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