My yawning aside, Tesla turned a profit last year; hence its inclusion in the S&P500. It wasn't waiting to be big, it was waiting to profit, at which point it joined at #6.

Enron was also highly ranked. Apple is a bigger success story, profitable from day one.

Musk promises self driving year after year, and now even Waymo is moving away from that term in order to distinguish themselves from misnamed driver-assist technology like Tesla's [1].

[1] https://www.theverge.com/2021/1/6/22216848/waymo-change-self...

Sure. But it's just some commenter's list of successful people, not Forbes' Top 5 Businessmen Ever or something.

No sweat. We're all in the same boat here

> Apple is a bigger success story, profitable from day one.

Except they'd be gone without the Microsoft investment. Profitable companies don't end up on the verge of failure.

That just makes Jobs all the more impressive since he was the one who patched things up with Microsoft. Both Gates and Jobs are on record saying to each other that the other's company made their own company better.

"Musk who's never run a profitable company."

Isn't the profit of a private corp. like SpaceX an unknown variable? They do not have to publish any financials and they don't.

Right, so we cannot assume it's profitable. It may or may not be.

It may be that Musk uses a string of companies to shuttle money between, who knows. He did manage to convince shareholders to buy his cousins'/brother's company which ended up being a huge liability. It seems to have saved him from the public seeing one of his family's companies fail.

> Right, so we cannot assume it's profitable. It may or may not be.

That makes sense, but can you assume it's not profitable?

The inverse doesn't work. Musk has not yet demonstrated he runs a profitable company. That's the bar which Jobs, Gates, and many other CEO's have shown which Musk has not yet shown.

You said he hasn't run a profitable company, not that he "hasn't demonstrated he's run a profitable company".

He's definitely a different kind of CEO.

He's a liar. Promises self driving every year. Not even close

Oh, you're talking about promising stuff that's not delivered? Maybe not so different from the likes of Gates and Jobs.

Of course, sometimes they did manage to deliver some of the things the promised also, like Musk.

The inflated value of Tesla as a company is mostly based on full self driving whose status Musk has continually lied about for years. Gates/Jobs did nothing of the sort.

> The inflated value of Tesla as a company is mostly based on full self driving

I find this hard to believe. In fact I don't.

Net expenses exceed net revenue, their cash comes from selling stock, and profits only come from selling regulatory credits given by governments.