Elon Musk described himself as relentlessly optimistic during a recent appearance. He’s a dreamer who tries to solve impossible problems, said Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger. Buffett once noted that pessimism can be valuable in the insurance industry. Something is loading.
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Elon Musk recently described himself as “pathologically optimistic”, underscoring Warren Buffett’s view that the Tesla, SpaceX and Twitter chief likes to dream big and take on insurmountable challenges.
“I guess I have a somewhat pathological optimism,” Musk said at Tesla’s Investor Day last week, according to a transcript provided by AlphaSense/Sentieo. “Who would try to do that and rocket ships if they weren’t pathologically optimistic?
The pioneer of electric vehicles and space transportation stood by its prediction that Tesla will enable autonomous driving in several million of its cars by the end of this year. Musk hailed the hypothetical moment a global fleet of self-driving taxis is activated as potentially the biggest increase in asset value in history.
Buffett and his business partner, Charlie Munger, hailed Musk’s singular vision at Berkshire Hathaway’s annual shareholder meeting this month.
“It’s a dedication to solving the impossible and once in a while it will,” said the famed investor and Berkshire CEO.
“He wouldn’t have achieved what he has in life if he hadn’t tried to achieve unreasonably extreme goals,” added Buffett’s right-hand man and Berkshire vice chairman.
By contrast, Buffett and Munger said they were looking for much simpler things to do in business.
“Warren and I are looking for an easy job,” Munger said. “We don’t want so many failures.”
“If we can do it by playing Tic-Tac-Toe, we will,” Buffett added.
Additionally, Buffett underscored the value of pessimism in Berkshire’s core insurance business during Berkshire’s 2013 shareholder meeting. money for emergencies, does not take excessive risks and can cope with all the bad surprises.
“We have a general tendency to be pessimistic in our assumptions about the likelihood of natural disasters,” Buffett said.
Berkshire bosses and Musk have spoken to each other on several occasions over the years. For example, Buffett and Munger both praised Tesla’s unlikely success in the brutal auto industry. Meanwhile, Musk teased the pair that they could have invested in Tesla in 2008 for a tiny fraction of its current valuation.