- When I have spent too much time in a conference room,
that's generally when things have gone awry
and when I go to spend time on the factory floor,
really using the cars,
thinking about the rockets,
that's where things have gone better.
- [Narrator] And things appear
to be going very well for Elon Musk this year.
- [Woman] We explore as one for all.
- [Narrator] SpaceX launched its first commercial vehicle
to put humans in orbit.
Tesla became the world's most valuable automaker.
♪ You added fuel ♪
- [Narrator] And according
to the Bloomberg Billionaire Index,
Musk is now worth about $145 billion,
making him the second richest person on the planet.
Richer than Bill Gates
and second only to Jeff Bezos.
- Most of Elon's worth is Tesla stock
and he became the second richest person
in the world this year
because of Tesla's stratospheric stock gains.
I mean, the stock is up more than 500%
since the start of the year.
- [Narrator] As the pandemic chokes the pace
of business for many,
Tesla says it's on track
to deliver half a million cars in 2020.
Tesla's also on track for its first calendar year
of profitability and just last month,
the S&P announced that it would add Tesla stock
to the index.
How has Elon Musk achieved so much this year?
And at what cost?
- There appears to be no material impact to Tesla
and its goals for 2020
as a result of the pandemic.
This is in part due
to Elon Musk making the decision
to reopen his Fremont, California-based car plant
before he was given permission by public health officials.
And continue operating there in spite of the pandemic.
- [Narrator] Before defying local orders
to reopen the plant,
Musk threatened to move operations out of California
because of the restrictions.
But in a CNBC interview,
Governor Gavin Newsom didn't seem concerned.
- But I'm also not worried
about Elon leaving any time soon.
I'd had a lot of conversations with him.
- [Narrator] Tesla relies
on over 50,000 employees worldwide.
The ones that helped meet Musk's
ambitious delivery goals this year
may have faced risks
to keep the company operational.
- Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla,
is defying stay-at-home orders,
daring authorities to arrest him
by reopening his California factory.
- While we don't have firm numbers
from either public health officials
or from Tesla itself,
we know from various industry sources
that Tesla workers have gotten sick with COVID this year
and Elon Musk himself did get COVID
as he tweeted last month.
But people got sick in this frantic push
to deliver a record number of vehicles.
- [Narrator] There's another reason Tesla
was able to meet its 2020 delivery goals.
- A word of thanks to one of our customers in China
without which Tesla would not be here today.
- [Narrator] This was the first year
of production at the company's Shanghai factory.
Chinese officials say the government gave Tesla workers PPE,
which may have kept production going
during the pandemic.
- [Heather] And Elon Musk and other Tesla executives
have told shareholders
that the lower cost of labor there
has greatly helped the company over this past year.
- [Narrator] Advancements in battery technology
also helped Tesla's stock gain,
as well as government regulations
that incentivize electric vehicle production and ownership.
- [Heather] Batteries are cheaper,
cars can go longer on a charge
and there is a broader trend
toward electrification of vehicles being pushed
by consumer demand
and by regulation that we see particularly in California,
Tesla's home state, which is getting investors more excited
about opportunities there.
- [Narrator] Four, three.
- [Narrator] The US government has played a role
in the success of SpaceX this year as well.
- I think it's incredibly important
that government focus on incenting the outcome,
not the path.
- [Narrator] In August, SpaceX won
a multi-billion dollar contract
to become one of the primary satellite launch providers
for the Pentagon.
In October, they won another
as part of a proposed Pentagon missile warning system.
And a month later,
NASA partnered with SpaceX for the company's
first human operational mission into space.
- [Narrator] Ignition, liftoff.
(rocket whooshing)
- [Narrator] Elon Musk has his hand in a bunch
of other projects as well
though none of have been as successful as Tesla or SpaceX.
- These include The Boring Company,
which is all about building tunnels underground
to solve the problem of traffic.
- I mean, you can think of these as wormholes
and I need to get to the other side of LA or New York
or whatever, drop down the wormhole.
Pop out the other side.
- [Narrator] He's also working on a hyperloop project
that uses magnetic levitation,
steel tubes and vacuum pumps
for ultra high-speed travel
and an AI-powered brain implant called Neuralink.
- In a lot of ways,
it's kinda like a Fitbit in your skull
with tiny wires.
- Which you're all just pandas,
made-up junk basically.
So he has a lot of stuff going on
but I would say most of those projects just seem
like they are decades away
from fruition if they're coming to fruition at all.
- [Narrator] Looking ahead to 2021,
Musk has doubled down on some
of the promises he made for 2020.
- Hewlett really knows cells.
This is a massive breakthrough.
- He's promised to deliver on advancements
on battery technology
that he unveiled in September.
He's also talked
about delivering possibly a million vehicles next year
and you'll remember his promise this year
was 500,000 vehicles, which seemed a stretch
and so these are huge, huge expectations.
- [Narrator] But this year's successes aside,
Musk has a history of failing to deliver
on some of his promises.
(upbeat music)
Like the long-awaited all-electric
semi-truck trailer he said
would come to market more than a year ago.
- So if you order now, you'll have the truck in three years.
- [Heather] This is classic Elon Musk,
over promising and under delivering
and being way behind timelines
and if they had launched before the pandemic hit,
they might have had a better opportunity.
- [Narrator] Given this history,
analysts and investors say some of his grand ambitions
for 2021 will likely not be met.
Or at least not met without setbacks.
Musk says Wednesday's SpaceX Starship spacecraft test flight
was a success
despite the explosive crash landing.
- [Heather] Tesla has never really
been punished significantly
by Wall Street for missing its targets
so maybe there isn't much of a financial downside
for Elon Musk to make these grand statements
that often don't come true.
- [Narrator] Tesla did not respond to requests for comment.
- We should make a song out of this.
- Yeah. - And so then.